National Afterschool Association 24th Annual National Convention: Day 2, Part 1

Day 2, Part 1

Morning Workshop: Good to Great...Motivating Your Team to Achieve! presented by Annemarie Grassi, Open Doors Academy

Workshop Blurb: Staff burnout is high amongst youth-serving organizations, and too often job satisfaction is low. This workshop is designed to provide participants with tools for strengthening the team dynamic, building accountability and clarity of roles and responsibilities, motivating employees to reach beyond mediocrity, and increasing overall job satisfaction.

Lessons Learned:

Create an Engaged Culture -

• Communicate a clear vision
• Set clear and consistent boundaries
• Create and communicate high expectations
• Cultivate caring and meaningful relationships
• Provide constructive and reflective feedback

Establish Clear Expectations -

• DON'T....micromanage, shut out new ideas or allow for excuses.
• DO...establish clear expectations and boundaries, create a clear model for presenting new ideas, and provide clear measures for training, development, and evaluation (staff test, rubric)

Model a Culture of Caring-

• Macro Level: staff celebrations, recognitions, social gatherings .
• Meso Level: direct service support, staff meeting lunches, thank you cards
• Micro Level: annual meeting and visioning with individual staff, accessibility when needed (evening cell phone calls), offer opportunities to mentor your staff.
• Everyone wants to feel valued: How do you support your staff?

Keys to Building Success -

• Establish a personnel training system: orientation, review of materials and hands-on training, Staff Entry Exam .
• Create a culture that continues to engage professional development.
• Utilize your current resources and staff to coach and train others on the team (peer coaching).

Moving from Good to Great - 

• Share your vision frequently
• Set clear and consistent boundaries and high expectations
• Create a culture of support
• Provide constructive and reflective feedback

My Thoughts: 

Out of all the workshops I attended at this conference, this was the most in-depth. In the second half of her presentation, Ms. Grassi shared her organization's professional development structure: Orientation and training period, staff meetings, staff trainings, etc. She provided a copy of the Evaluative Rubric Report her organization uses to evaluate staff, as well as a copy of the procedures they use for submitting an Idea for Change. I found these examples to be very useful for my own organization, particularly the Ideas for Change. It was broken down by small program change, change in the structure of the program, and large structural change that affects the organization as a whole. She also included a copy of their annual report that was created--quite cleverly, I might add--by the students.

-----------------------------
Afternoon Workshop: Survival Strategies 101 (For What They Didn't Tell You) presented by Dr. Paul Young, National Afterschool Association.

Workshop Blurb: This session is designed to help new afterschool program directors survive and thrive. Participants will be equipped coping strategies for job-embedded challenges that are never discussed in preparatory programs. Sample topics include relationship building, resiliency, ethics, visioning, and more.

Lessons Learned:

To enhance the development of relationships, new leaders can improve interpersonal skills that help them connect, such as:

• Psychological cues - make yourself vulnerable and reveal who you are.
• Proximity
• Resonate - be "in the zone" and attentive.
• Identity similarities - birth dates, state of origin, anything shared with others.
• Environmental issues - overcoming adversity together encourages clicking.
• Self monitor - match others' emotions with attitude and charisma; work a room.

Preparatory programs don't teach you about people, relationships, leadership, delegation, juggling, "other" on your job descriptions (the small print), and stress.

Survival Strategies 101

1. Never lose focus on WHY your program exists (mission).
2. Practice visioning - short term, six months, one year, multiple years, write out vision and share it with others for clarity.
3. Minimize multitasking activities to reduce work situations that lead to mistakes.
4. Develop practices and procedures that enhance interview, selection, orientation, and ongoing training to help all staff survive and thrive. Invest time in hiring the best people.
5. Prepare for dealing with the media--both when things are good and where is a crisis.
6. Develop collaborative relationships with school personnel.
7. Help staff improve their work ethic. Teach work ethic virtues and what you expect to see.
8. Teach with clarity the expectations you have for staff managing students.
9. Learn to identify needs and how to deal with difficult people.
10. Develop and utilize tools for conducting effective meetings.

My Thoughts:

This workshop was interrupted towards the end by a tornado warning and the subsequent move to the tunnels of the hotel, but he went through it pretty quickly after the first we-may-have-to-evacuate warning. The session was interactive, Dr. Young wanted to hear stories from the "frontlines" so to speak, which was interesting for me. The only problem was that I had attended one of his sessions the day before and some of the same information that was covered in that session was mentioned again during this one. It was new for the people who hadn't been in that session, and it applied here as well, I just didn't want to hear it again.

Stay tuned for Day 2, Part 2