National Youth Leadership Council, 2015 Conference Review

Posted by on May 5, 2015 K-16 Newsletter

By Liz Shriver

This year, I represented the Pennsylvania Service Learning Alliance in Washington, D.C. at the National Youth Leadership Council 2015, More Powerful Together (#MPT2015) Conference. This is my third year attending, and as expected, the conference was full of great information, and ideas to take home to Philadelphia, often presented by youth who have experienced the curricula, programs and projects being showcased.

Just in case you weren’t following @PAServiceLearn during the conference, below is a review of what I learned. This includes some great resources for the classroom, strategies for collective change and inspiring ideas on how to sustain service-learning as a critical pedagogy in Pennsylvania.

I started out the conference with an all-day session led by Philadelphia New Foundations Charter School Principal, Shira Woolf Cohen, learning how to create a K-12 service-learning continuum. New Foundations scaffolds service-learning experiences starting in kindergarten and culminating in 12^th grade moving from exposure to deep involvement in complex projects happening each year which align to PA state standards and the Common Core. As part of this continuum, New Foundations values building ongoing, strong relationships with community partners.

Principal Cohen was honored this year as an exemplary service-learning leader, which was not surprising, given how deeply involved her students and her school community are in supporting the NYLC conference and embodying service-learning ideals.

On Friday morning, I learned about how to use Asset-Based Community Development as a tool to improve the impact of service-learning programs and engage community members in long-term social change initiatives. The goal of using this strategy is to move service-learning from “charity to solidarity”. ABCD methods ensure that services provided are truly valued by communities because they are part of the idea, planning and implementation of the service-learning project.

I was excited to follow this session learning from Earth Echo about how to create service-learning projects on water issues. This session displayed how students can contribute to solving global issues in manageable pieces. Earth Echo helps connect youth to solving ground water issues in their own community and world-wide.

After this session, I had the unique opportunity to hear from a variety of school staff, teachers and leaders who are working on implementing service-learning school or district-wide using the NYLC framework and tools. I was most intrigued by the uses of service-learning in alternative education settings and the positive impact that this strategy can have on school climate.

I ended the day of sessions back in the higher education world discussing how to build authentic service-learning partnerships with community agencies. Attendees in this session agreed that having a university-wide focus for the president, faculty and students make service-learning partnerships much deeper and stronger. Afterwards, I spoke with More Powerful Together (MPT) participants and showcased what the PA Service-Learning Alliance has to offer:

Repping PSLA at #MPT2015!

On Saturday, I learned about how to use data combined with Community Based Action Research to involve community members in long-term social justice initiatives. First 5 LA is a community focused initiative that utilizes parent activist to create policy and programmatic change for early childhood care. They also utilize AmeriCorps VISTAs to analyze this research and help put it in to action.

I ended my NYLC #MPT2015 experience right where I belonged talking with the North-Carolina Service-Learning Coalition and catching up with PHENND supporters from Omaha, Nebraska. The NC Coalition ran an excellent discussion regarding how to create and sustain state-wide K-16 support for service-learning. They even gave us a cute puzzle piece business card to help us remember that we can’t do this work alone. I left the conference excited to connect the various strategies for community engagement and collective impact with K-12 service-learning in Pennsylvania.

Resources and Tweet Highlights:

New Foundations: http://www.nfcsonline.org/

PA Service-Learning @PAServiceLearn · Apr 9

Great idea: Digital awareness as part of Healthy Living SL with middle schoolers: Positive uses of social media and anti-bullying #MPT15

PA Service-Learning @PAServiceLearn · Apr 10

http://monitorwater.org , a potential tool for teachers doing SL/PBL projects with water #MPT2015

PA Service-Learning @PAServiceLearn · Apr 11

CBAR turns community members in to researchers to take action and make change @First5LA #MPT2015

PA Service-Learning @PAServiceLearn · Apr 11

Hanging out with my fellow state-wide coalitions for service-learning from Nebraska to North Carolina 🙂 @UnoJulie #MPT2015