Texas Youth Action Network (TYAN)

Building Capacity and Connection for Youth Development

New Year New You?

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How to be Successful Through Good Goal Setting Habits

With the new year in full effect you may witness yourself or the youth around you feeling encouraged to accomplish a new goal. It’s an exciting feeling, however, in order to avoid running into the usual roadblocks of a new year’s resolution, it is important to know the following three points:

  • Why is it important to set a goal?
  • When should you set a goal?
  • How do you set a goal?

Why is it important to set a goal

Goal setting is important for the sole reason that it helps you separate your strengths from weaknesses and plan accordingly for improving your life. It provides focus and helps you narrow down what exactly it is that you are trying to accomplish. Goal seting provides direction and intentionality to the way you live your life.

When should you set a goal

There’s not a specefic time that is deemed as “perfect” to start a goal. It all depends on what works best for you. Most people aim for the beginning of the month, the beginning of the week, or in this case the beginning of the year. It is important to not see these dates as the only good time to begin your new journey. Every day is an opportunity to start making a change.

How do you set a goal

Remember to set goals that are for you and not goals that someone else has set for you. Good goals are conceivable, believable, achievable, controllable, measurable, desirable, and help you grow. Make a list of things you want to change and what you prioritize the most. Then come up with an action plan on how you intend to achieve your goal with ways to celebrate your progress in meeting those objectives.

Resources

Overcoming Barriers

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With school back in session you may experience the attendance rate of your organization declining. This could be related to a number of reasons like lack of transportation, family responsibilities, work, etc. Take a look at this publication for a better understanding of why attendance and retention in your out-of-school time program may be tough and how to overcome those obstacles.

Full Article

Take the Assessment

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The Organizational Readiness Assessment for Youth-Adult Partnerships (ORAYAP) measures an organization’s capacity to support the development and continuation of youth-adult partnerships.

Based on research in Positive Youth Development and Adolescent Health, the ORAYAP consists of 57 research-based items clustered around seven domains of effective youth-adult partnerships:

  1. Youth Friendly Environment,
  2. Youth Empowerment,
  3. Organizational Culture,
  4. Evaluation & Management,
  5. Diversity,
  6. Caring Adults and Mentors, and
  7. Community Connectedness.

Within each area, we’ve outlined specific practices typically present in high-performing organizations. The ORAYAP is meant to help you engage in thoughtful reflection about your organization’s capacity in implementing youth-adult partnerships in your programs and services. The ORAYAP provides your organization with a holistic picture of capacity areas of development, and uncovers your organization’s internal assets. Finally, the ORAYAP helps an organization understand its starting point in each area as it considers what to focus on in terms of building youth-adult partnership capacity.

The ORAYAP is appropriate for those who would like to begin or strengthen existing youth-adult partnerships. The worksheet should be completed in collaboration with staff representing various leadership roles (i.e., an administrator and front-line staff employee). Go to the ORAYAP.

Developed by researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas (Outley, C., Gabriel, G., Cavil, B., Locke, D. & Leon, M.)

Youth Development Professional Training Series

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TYAN is proud to offer no-cost online education on youth development and youth-adult partnerships. Earn up to 28.5 CE credits with the Youth Development Professional Training Series, which includes 5 courses on the topics of Youth Development, Youth Programming, Youth Diversity and Cultural Competency, Youth Policy and Risk Management, and Foundations of Youth-Adult Partnerships.

To begin, you’ll complete the Organizational Readiness Assessment for Youth-Adult Partnerships (ORAYAP) to measure your group’s capacity to support the development and continuation of youth-adult partnerships!

 “We’ve developed these courses for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of positive youth development,” says course instructor Dr. Gayle Gabriel of Texas A&M University. “We plan to continue adding modules on Determining Youth Adult Partnership Structure, Developing a Sound Infrastructure, Sustaining Youth Capacity and more over the next few months to offer a wide variety of topics for our youth worker community.”  

Texas A&M University Public Partnership & Outreach is accredited through the International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET) to issue CEUs for these approved courses. Contact Dee Dee Leverett, PPO Program Coordinator, at leverett@tamu.edu or call 979-845-6066 with questions.  

Developed in partnership with the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. 

Youth, Adults, Organizations, AND Communities Benefit from Youth-Adult Partnerships

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Our Mission

The Texas Youth Action Network (TYAN) mission – to strengthen organizations’ capacity to build youth-adult partnerships and integrate youth voices in decision-making – extends through everything we do.

Our vision: Engaged youth-adult partnerships transforming Texas communities.

Core Principles

  1. Every young person will be unconditionally accepted, supported, and celebrated.
  2. Youth will be integrally connected with supportive, caring adults and their community.
  3. Youth practitioners/partners and youth will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to facilitate community change.
  4. Organization-specific technical support and resources will be provided to increase youth organizations’ capacity in facilitating youth-adult partnerships.

Program Staff

The TYAN program is led by staff from the Public Policy Research Institute in conjunction with partners across the state.

Youth Advisory Council

Our program name and logo were created with input from adolescents in the Bryan-College Station community. The program goals were described to youth who brainstormed dozens of potential names. Texas Youth Action Network then won the popular vote. These youth were also asked to sketch any images or logos they felt represented these ideals. Their art was the inspiration for our logo.

As the program grows, we plan to continue working with local youth. We want to encourage youth voice and decision-making in our program process. This input will be critical to our program, ensuring the relevancy of the work while also supporting youth and adult growth.

Our Experience

The Texas Healthy Adolescent Initiative concluded 8/31/18. Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) contracted with Public Policy Research Institute to study the project.

The Texas Healthy Adolescent Initiative (THAI) was a community- and clinic-based initiative located in twelve Texas communities. The goals of THAI were to: 

  • Build a local youth system to improve the health of youth. A group of youth and adults worked together to achieve positive outcomes for youth through the formation of Youth-Adult Councils.
  • Improve the health and well-being of Texas youth. THAI helped build communities with supportive environments that promoted positive youth development.

Read the summary of our report here.

Through THAI, we determined that customized solutions may have the best outcomes for youth and adults in Texas. This personalized approach using the youth-adult partnership structure is driving the TYAN mission.