4 Ways to Access YSA’s Free Resources & Trainings for Educators & Student Leaders

Posted by Youth Service America on August 19, 2025

As students and educators across the country head back to school over the next few weeks, it’s time to plan for how you’ll integrate community service and service-learning into your education experience this academic year.

Youth Service America (YSA) offers four different ways to access our free resources and trainings:

#1 Youth Service Toolkit Selector: Use this tool to help you identify which of YSA’s recently updated project planning toolkits is the right one for you. When you answer 3 questions, we’ll provide you with the resource that we think will work best for your situation.

#2 Week-Long, Month-Long, and Semester-Long Service-Learning Experience Toolkits: Based on YSA’s Semester of Service Teacher Toolkit, the Service-Learning Experience Toolkit gives you the option to choose a

• week-long (beginner; 3-5 class/program periods),
• month-long (intermediate; 12-20 class/program periods), or
• semester-long (advanced; 24-40 class/program periods)

service-learning experience with your students. Provided as both Google Docs and Word Docs, each planning element has its own document, so you can pick and choose only the steps necessary for your activity, and do your planning right in your own copy of the documents.

#3 YSA Knowledge Center: Go old school and browse our Youth Service Knowledge Center and find PDFs of all our signature toolkits and free video courses, issue-specific service-learning guides (hunger, teen driver safety, disaster preparedness, STEM and the environment, childhood obesity), the Youth Guide to the Global Goals, and Everyday Young Hero project replication tipsheets.

#4 Designing and Implementing a Service-Learning Experience Online Course | ASU Professional Educator Learning Hub: Learn to design and execute service projects, foster durable skills, and promote community impact through YSA’s online course developed in collaboration with Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. The course is open for all in-school, afterschool, and community-based educators, program staff, and caring adults. The course is offered on-demand and self-paced (no instructor), taking ~15 hours for $149.