Community Youth Development Services for Organizations

Youth holding up triangle flags of different colors

Training and Workshops

These are designed to help provide background information and general overviews of youth engagement principles and practices as well as HeartWood’s approach to doing this work. These are short in nature and usually run between 1-4 days and can be offered to youth, adults, or organizations. These workshops and training have sliding scales for cost. Some examples of current workshops are:

Community Youth Development (CYD) Workshop

½ day to 2 day workshops on what CYD is and how to embed it in your work.

Youth Engagement Spectrum

½ day to 2 day workshops on what the Youth Engagement Spectrum is and how it applies when working with youth.

Asset Mapping

1-2 day workshop on finding ways to connect to community and how to start to engage youth in this process.

HW Facilitation Approach

2- 3 day workshop on how to facilitate and work with youth in a positive and strengths-based way.

All In! Facilitating Positive youth group experiences

2 day workshop on building skills and capacity for facilitating youth programs. Designed for those working directly with youth.

Leading Innovative and Engaging Youth Programs

4-5 day workshop, our “Master Class” on designing, implementing and facilitating amazing youth programs. Designed for those who are designing programs, supervising staff or working directly with youth.

Members of organization engaging in a team building activity

Custom Programs

Our programs usually range between short (1-2 day engagements) up to several months to a year long. They often take an extended period of time and are collaborative in their development. HeartWood will work with organizations, groups or teams to help determine what is right for them and how to best deliver this content.

Central to this work is building capacity and understanding for youth engagement and community youth development work, as well as practical and hands-on experience with coaching and support from HeartWood along the way.  Some examples we have done in the past include:

  • Designing and Implementing a Youth Engagement Strategy
  • Skills development series for staff with practical experience working with youth (youth and adult projects in the community)
  • Workshop Series for youth and adults on working collaboratively
  • Youth Leadership training for youth team and project delivery (building capacity in youth leaders and then helping them test this out on a project)
  • Supporting Organizational Systems Change. Working collaboratively with a team of adults to find ways to begin to shift work, practices and policies to create more space for youth engagement and youth participation.
Members of an organization standing in a circle and engaged in a team building exercise

Who We Work With

Our Services are aimed at anyone who is working with, would like to work with youth, or is a youth themselves! Our services are focused on building capacity, understanding and knowledge of Youth Engagement, Community Youth Development and working with youth in general."

There are many ways we can do this work and really aim to provide what is needed for your team, organization or group.

Let's Work Together!

We encourage interested partners to contact home-place@heartwood.ns.ca to speak with a staff member about your needs and ideas.

Other Programs & Initiatives

HeartWood aims to be as responsive and relevant to youth and our community partners as possible. As a result our work is constantly changing and updating. The best place to find our current offerings is our Updates page, however in general we offer four main streams of work: