Greetings fellow youth worker!
Welcome to the second ACYCP e-newsletter! The ACYCP Board is striving to keep our members up-to-date with our organization's current projects and activities. In this issue we've gone international! We've chosen to emphasize the global activities of ACYCP and allied youth worker organizations world-wide. Join us in celebrating the accomplishments of youth workers here in the US and around the globe!
Here's a link to the flyer for the upcoming international conference in Canmore, Alberta!
Tenth Triennial International Child and Youth Care Conference
And here's a link to the world conference next June!
Child and Youth Care World Conference
I wish you the best in all you for children youth and families,
Matt Fasano
Editor
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From the President...
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This next year I plan to visit one country every other month. I will keep you posted on the journey. Here I am in Japan last month, with the outdoor education students and professors at Biwako Seikei Sport College. I made a major presentation on youth work along with William Greenaway, a youth work concentration master's student from Pitt. Next year he will design a new youth work program in Japan to teach Japanese and American students how to work in teams together! In Japan children are taught to copy each other from birth and rarely do they lead by sticking out. American children are so quick to lead, they often leave the others behind. It will be interesting to see how youth work can contribute to cross-cultural teamwork! Get ready to go global!!! In the next two years, there will be four major international conferences for youth workers and we hope to see you there: - 2012---Tenth Triennial International Child and Youth Care Conference, Canmore, Alberta, Canada, October 9-12, 2012 Theme: Resilience
- 2013---FICE international conference will be held in Bern, Switzerland October 7-12, 2013. Theme: Inclusion.
- 2013---American Association of Children's Residential Centers, International Conference, NYC, April 9-12, 2013.Theme: Culture.
- 2013---Child and Youth Care World conference being held in St. John's, NL, Canada, June 26-29, 2013 Theme: CYC-Net Gathering
We may see representatives from more than 100 countries across all the conferences!!!! Themes for learning and professional development will include Resilience, Culture, Inclusion, and Using the ideas found on CYC-Net to connect around the world. Understanding culture and respecting diversity is one of the key competencies for youth worker certification. It was once enough for our youth to be successful if they could get complete their schooling, but now it's possible to have your GED or college diploma and still not succeed. Every young person needs cultural competence to thrive! Most new entry-level jobs will be based in the economics of global growth. If you are interested in checking out what your youth work colleagues are up to all over the world make sure to visit www.cyc-net.org This is the global learning portal for youth workers. It's complete with on line-education, youth worker practice journals and a chat room that draws lessons learned from countries all around the world. And if you need a curriculum to take your youth work center global, check out the program assessment and learning curriculum for global competence offered by the Asia Society of NYC. http://sites.asiasociety.org and search Expanded Learning. Alexis Menten presented at the National After-School Association and her workshop was first-rate!
Andy
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Casa Pacifica Demonstrates International Leadership
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Located in Camarillo, California Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families serves abused and neglected children and adolescents, and those with severe emotional, social, behavioral, and mental health challenges. We provide a comprehensive array of state- of-the-art services to meet the varied and complex needs of children, youth and emerging adults in our care. Services include a 28 bed Residential Treatment Center, a 45 bed Emergency Shelter Care, a non-public school, community based services, and Transitional & Emancipated Foster Youth Services for "emerging adults".
All Casa Pacifica employees who have achieved certification as a Child and Youth Care Practitioner (entry, associate, or professional) were invited to submit an essay demonstrating interest in participating in the International Conference. All essays were reviewed by a panel of senior managers and the winning essay was awarded full conference registration, hotel, and travel to the conference.
Selection was based on the essay that provides the best description of the following:
1. Why you would like to participate in the international conference and what you expect to learn
2. How your participation in the conference will benefit Casa Pacifica
3. How you plan to pass along what you learn from the experience to your co-workers
The winner was Stacy Menhennitt, CYC-A, Lead Therapeutic Behavioral Specialist (TBS). She's been employed with the agency for the past 2 � years. The following are sections of her essay that answer your two questions:
Why is it important for you to be able to attend the international conference?
- "My objective in attending the Conference is to gather new and innovative ideas to bring back to Casa Pacifica to help increase hope and help to the youth and families we serve."
- "After perusing the sessions that will be provided at the conference, I became even more excited to attend. What I found was that many sessions will address the challenges we have as youth care workers; how do we empower youth and their families to keep going?"
- "As a representative of Casa Pacifica, I hope to network with other CYC practitioners; developing positive connections for the future. Not only will I be building new relationships with other practitioners, I will be representing Casa Pacifica and building our reputation in the CYC community."
How do you think it will impact your work at your home agency?
- "As an employee and representative of Casa Pacifica, I am a link to educate our community based programs on the information I obtain. As a Lead Specialist, I also have the opportunity to teach and train new hires on this material. The information I present to staff will be utilized in formulating innovative interventions to maintain Casa Pacifica's status as a leading service sector in promoting healthy outcomes for children and their families."
- "Attending this conference will provide me the chance to continue to utilize, benefit, and share the importance of CYC and Casa Pacifica."
Ton� Reyes, CYC-P Training Specialist/Crisis Prevention Casa Pacifica, Centers for Children & Families |
| Youth Worker Certification Symposium | |
INCLUSION, INFORMATION, INVOLVEMENT, IMPROVED CARE, IMPACT
A SYMPOSIUM OF NATIONAL CERTIFICATION OF CHILD & YOUTH PRACTITIONERS
Meredith Hoffmann, MS Ed.
Training Specialist, Casa Pacifica
Carol S. Kelly Professor Emeriti, CSUN
National Certification advisory board
FICE-USA representative
The First National Certification of Child and Youth Care Practitioners Symposium will be held on November 1st at California State University Northridge Campus. Sponsoring organizations include Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families, Five Acres, Hathaway- Sycamores Child and Family Services and California State University's Child and Adolescent Development's Alumni Chapter with support from the Child and Youth Care Certification Board and guidance from Frank Eckles, Director of The Academy of Competent Youth Work.
The purpose of the symposium is to inform regional practitioners about the National Child and Youth Care Certification program and discuss the benefits of professional certification not only for those working with youth, but also the impact on children and youth, families, agencies, and community. There is focus on practical application; workshops will be "hands on". It is hoped that participants will represent a wide range of practice settings including residential care, juvenile justice, after school care, and community service organizations such as Boys and Girls Club and YMCA.
Key note speakers are Frank Eckles, CYC-P, Past President, Child & Youth Care Certification Board, and Andy Munoz, CYC-P, President of the Association of Child & Youth Care Practice. A panel discussion will be held and will include a certified child and youth care practitioner, an administrator, and a researcher developing a framework to evaluate outcomes of professional certification.
Participants will select one of four breakout sessions:
1) Elevating Your Agency Workforce;
2) Overview of Academy for Competent Youth Care: Basic Course;
3) Preparing for Certification: Entry (CYC) and Associate (CYC-A) Levels, and;
4) Preparing for Certification: Professional (CYC -P) Level.
Participants will receive the current copy of the JOUNAL OF CHILD AND YOUTH CARE WORK and a free year's introductory ACYCP membership. ACYPC outreach committee has donated t-shirts to be given as part of the door prizes. The symposium will be documented.
ALL INTERESTED in gaining this important information to advance our profession, benefit children, youth, staff, and organizations ARE WELCOMED. CEUs will be provided for CYC-Ps and are pending for Group Home Administrators. For information and registration:
http://cycregistration.eventbrite.com
Click this link below to view the symposium flyer!
National Certification of Child & Youth Care Practitioners Symposium
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Youth Worker Prose...
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Albert James is a youth worker through and through. Anyone who's had the pleasure to meet Albert would agree that he embodies the always gentle, deeply thoughtful, and ever empowering spirit that is essential to the work that we do. Albert once told me, "I love working with children and youth and have found people who share the same values like I do. This is rare in many circumstances..." His comments epitomize the intent behind this newsletter. Being connected to the larger community of youth workers -- to those who "share the same values" -- will make us all stronger! Thank you Albert for all you do for children, youth and families! Below is a piece of prose from Albert. I encourage all of our readers to submit your writing! A Day of Experience to Look Forward To In Youth Care Practice This day don't come by easily and it's best described as rare moment in youth work. We dare say that a moment of blissful smile of a youth for enchanted experience is more than uncountable days of trauma and suffering in a youth's life. Years of experience in working with youths may support the notion that the experience and practice of youth work can hardly be written in clarity because the true moments spent and connections made with a youth can never be captured in the best figurative and literary human expression. It is a transcendental experience in an ethereal like plane in the fitting of puzzles that challenge the being of a youth and a youth worker. The task of the puzzles place the duo side by side , hand in hand, lifting, and supporting one to the other in working together to find a moment of blissful smile from the youth to the youth worker. You can say that it is the fulfillment of hopes and aspirations about the goals for training a youth worker on ways to start the work where the youth is at, to be present and be there with the youth and hope to find the blissful smile. Albert James, Kinder Emergency Shelter Harris County Child Protective Services Houston, Texas |
Finance Committee Update
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We are experiencing a few bumps in our financial infrastructure as Bank of America is closing its local place of deposit, however this is only a lesson in "resilience training" as we are in fact discovering even better ways of making deposits remotely. We have been providing support in constructing web pages as vendor sites and the accompanying purchase procedures for the sale of ACYCP t-shirts and CYCCB polo shirts. Check them out and consider enhancing your professional wardrobe. We are holding steady at about 10k in our bank account however this is expected to grow in the next few months as Jeff Kreeb is marketing the ACYCP t-shirts at the international conference in Canmore, Canada, as a fund raiser. You will be able to purchase the shirt online through the ACYCP website. That's it for now. Live long and Prosper!
Hector Sapien, Treasurer.
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We hope that you have enjoyed this issue of the ACYCP e-newsletter. Look for future editions which will be published quarterly. Again, we welcome any and all feedback from our readers!
Sincerely, The ACYCP Board |
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New ACYCP T-shirts!!
| Place your order today!
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Are you proud to be a member and a child and youth care professional? Well, show it! We have a limited number of unique ACYCP T-shirts available.
Sizes range from small - XXL! To order on-line, follow this link: PayPal Checkout! |
Youth Work Quote
| "The children must get plenty of love and affection whether they deserve it or not."
| - Fritz Redl -
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| Special Thanks | ACYCP would like to extend a special thanks to CYCCB for helping to make this newsletter possible.
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Feedback Welcome!
| ACYCP is excited to hear feedback from our readers!
If you have comments and/or ideas for additional content please feel free to contact the editor, Matt Fasano, at matthew.fasano@gmail.com
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