Youth Care & students learn from each other

'Someone who really understands what they have been through can make a world of difference for young people and/or parents.'?

This quote from the Regional Vision of the Youth Care, took centre stage on Tuesday 4 October during the education day of Performatory. This specialisation of Breda University of Applied Sciences has one important goal in mind: making an impact together. To get as many perspectives as possible, all kinds of parties were brought together: students from Performatory, minor students from Social Innovation, students from the minor Experience Design & Storytelling, civil servants from the municipality and Kristin Thomas from Pennstate University.??

For one day, all students were part of an overarching reflective learning social practice, between Academy for Leisure & Events (BUas) and Youth Care Breda, set up by Angelica van Dam (BUas) and Danielle Dictus (municipality of Breda). In this practice, education can participate more IN the field and build new learning experiences together with Youth Care, where the higher goal is that all youth become self-reliant AND we create a new form of education together.???

Activities

The day started with students receiving a field diary, in which they had to write down what they experienced during the day and what struck them.?In the afternoon, a creative session was then facilitated by two students of the minor Experience Design & Storytelling.?The students worked in groups to arrive at a creative experience, so that municipal employees could experience the students’ feelings.?

The final ideas ranged from an escape room to an experience lab, to testing assumptions in comparison with actual experiences. Five employees involved with youngsters asked the groups questions about the feasibility of the concepts and indicated that they were enormously inspired by the possibilities.??

At the end of the day, the students’ field diaries were taken, so that in addition to the great ideas, we also collect research data about young people’s view on an institution such as Youth Care. This data will form input for the interim evaluations that we will organise with multiple stakeholders in the future. Students will also be provided with a field diary for future experiments, so that we ultimately gain a rich insight into how participants experience the meetings.??

In conclusion, really feeling and experiencing something is when a connection can arise. Not only within Youth Care, but also within education.??

To be continued!?