We can do better than that.
By Tricia Martin
Working with young people is one of the most amazing, hair pulling and fist-pumping life paths. While our aims to 'inspire' young people may be noble, inspiration as the main motivation misses the mark if we really want to support a person to live their best life. Hear us out.
Last month we had a fantastic opportunity to work with Melbourne teen magazine Ramona Mag for Girls to design the long-awaited 'Period Witches' Program. The workshop is one of a kind, supporting girls in building their confidence in the area of menstruation, emotional wellbeing and productivity. We find it invaluable in all workshops to kick off the day with a 'Yeah Nah' challenge and the 'Period Witches' Workshop was no exception.
To break it down, the 'Yeah Nah' challenge allows students to write their own rules. Each girl writes on a piece of paper something they want out of the day (usual answers: food, open conversations, quality tunes) and one thing they really want to avoid (group hugs, role play, trust falls). In the Period Witches Workshop, we could not but help but smile when we saw "No Preaching" and "No long-winded stories" scrawled thickly onto paper and stuck on the 'Nah' side of the wall.
Inspiration in all its forms (epic stories, pep talks or the common motivational quote) may get the blood pumping however, just like a binge of your favourite Netflix series for the sixth time, they soon become cliché, dreaded and ineffective.
Working with young people is so much more than inspiration. It is creating sustainable and positive behaviour change that is led by youth. It is remaining accountable to young peoples journey and not just by falling on that classic line of "You can do it...just believe in yourself."
Take sport for an example. You can endlessly cheer on a new time basketballer. You can watch Coach Carter 1000 times, explain the rules, or even share your own experiences but the newcomer will never play the game or even step on to the court with inspiration alone. To build new knowledge and new behaviours self-efficacy key: the basketballers own belief in their capacity (knowledge and skill) to actually play basketball.
So it is time to shift perspective if we want to remain current, fresh and actually show up for young people. Inspiration is important, but it is only the beginning (of an ultra-marathon). Check out She Can's unique approach to facilitating positive change in young people's outlooks and actions:
Relate:
To build knowledge and young people's confidence, genuine rapport must be established based on collaboration rather than an older/younger, adult/youth relationship. This connection is built upon remaining accountable to youth’s needs, interests and framing knowledge in terms of the learners’ worldview.
Shift:
Positive changes in behaviour must focus on building self-efficacy and everyday habits over traditional SMART goal models. We need to ditch the endless story-telling and ‘chalk and talk’ presentation style. Young people need to see a need for change and it our job to make them excited and pumped for it.
Incubate:
To support lasting behaviour change students need to build continually test out this new behaviour. There needs to be less talking, outdated role plays and 'what if' scenarios and more simulated gameplay where students can experiment and put these new skills into practice. Additionally, we cannot just show up, create good vibes and then say our goodbyes. Continued support guarantees that students remain motivated, knowing that someone has got their back….and they are sticking around.
Tricia Martin is a trained behavioural change facilitator and founder of She Can, a movement to change the game plan for students in equipping them with relevant, future-focused skills. Tricia can be contacted at tricia@shecan.com.au.
