Professional Development
Child & Youth Care Development
Our most requested training topics include positive youth development, trauma/healing informed practices and approaches, self-care and mindfulness, group facilitation, and case management. Every training is built on an assessment of the participant’s current knowledge and skill level. Youth Catalytics also has extensive curriculum development experience, for which we create training agendas, workbooks, slide decks, and how-to manuals.
“Cindy Carraway-Wilson’s skillful guidance and unwavering support, ability to engage the audience, foster meaningful discussions, navigate through complex topics with ease, and willingness to go above and beyond was truly remarkable. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate with someone of her caliber.”
Practitioner Trainings
We offer a Child & Youth Care: Foundations Course for practitioners in partnership with the Academy for Competent Youth Work. The course is based on competencies needed for employment in any of the major practice settings including early childhood education, education, out-of-school-time, foster care, residential care, mental health, transitional living, juvenile justice, community youth services, and developmental disabilities. We also offer a Train the Trainers program that prepares practitioners to teach the Child & Youth Care: Foundations Course in both live and virtual formats and become members of the Academy Trainer Community.
In 2018 we designed two robust, multi-day courses in collaboration with national colleagues. Youth Thrive™ and Families Thrive© teach the protective and promotive capacities necessary for optimal healthy growth and development. Both trainings cover basic knowledge of child development, understanding and promotion of social connections, cognitive and social-emotional competency, concrete supports in times of need, and resilience.
Our commitment to the professionalization of the workforce is additionally expressed through our leadership on the Child and Youth Care Certification Board, which continually reviews and updates core competencies for the field.
Selected Former Clients
Searsport Middle and High School, Searsport, ME
Nebraska Children and Family Foundation
New York City Dept. of Probation
Youth Build Philadelphia
UMOM, Phoenix, AZ
“It’s rare to find an individual who can develop and write curriculum as well as Cindy Carraway-Wilson does, AND who has the platform skills to then train the material in either a live or virtual format. Cindy, and her many colleagues have all of this.”
Mindfulness & Team-Care Trainings
Over the past decade ‘mindfulness’ and ‘self-care’ have emerged as accepted practices in the workplace for managing burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious traumatization. We teach a variety of mindfulness approaches for managing stress in the workplace that can also be used in youth programs. But we find that self-care is too often seen as the sole responsibility of the individual, to learn how to manage their own stress, or take a break to ‘recharge’. It’s no surprise, upon returning to work, one is met with the same pressures and conditions that required a break in the first place. Hence, we have developed a ‘team-care’ model of training where we review collaborative care approaches that can be used in the workplace, organizational policies that bolster system health and well-being, and organizational wellness practices that develop sustained, supportive team care.
Selected Former Clients
New York City Probation Dept.
Westbrook Public Schools, ME
The Association for Child and Youth Care Practice
Making Meetings Matter
We all spend a lot of time in meetings and many of us are responsible for leading them. In our skill-building Making Meetings Matter online training you’ll learn how to facilitate engaging meetings, design effective agendas, manage information efficiently using a variety of tools and techniques, and develop confidence as a facilitator. Additionally, Youth Catalytics offers the complete Technologies of Participation (ToP)® facilitation methods course, pioneered by the Institute of Cultural Affairs and used around the world. ToP methods enable groups to communicate well with one another, set realistic goals and achievable action steps.
Selected Former Clients
Vermont Department of Emergency Management
National Governors Association
National Association of County and City Health Officials
Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs