Welcome to the HC • HY Conference Edition
The annual Search Institute Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth Conference is fast approaching, so this month’s Asset Champion is dedicated to showcasing what conference participants have to look forward to next week in Cincinnati, Ohio. From service-learning events to an all-conference choir, this year’s conference, “Successful Practices: Surviving to Thriving,” has a little something for everyone. Not able to attend the conference this year? The virtual conference will be available on the Search Institute Conference website in the week following the event. You’ll be able to listen to the invaluable information and inspirational messages shared at assemblies and learning sessions through downloadable mp3s.
We’ll see you in Cincinnati!
What to Expect: A Q&A with Conference Organizer Jeff Piehl
Q: What is the Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth Conference like?
A: The HC • HY Conference is an assembly-driven conference, so there is an assembly every day. The assemblies are to gather people as a community and inspire them in the youth development work that they do. There are also five opportunities to go to learning sessions, which are small groups led by an expert who has implemented the Developmental Assets in some unique and powerful way. The sessions will give the presenters a chance to describe their research or how they do what they do. All of these learning sessions are designed to strengthen the skills that attendees already have or deepen their understanding of the work of positive youth and community development. There are five different opportunities to attend learning sessions throughout the conference and twenty to twenty-two options that you can choose from at each one, but there are so many quality presentations that it’s pretty difficult to choose.
Culture and the Conference: Keynote Speaker Dr. Maria Guajardo
As the child of Mexican immigrants, a Harvard graduate, and the Executive Director of the Denver Mayor’s Office for Education and Children, Dr. Maria Guajardo has been a navigator of cultures her entire life. Growing up in labor camps for migrant workers, she found that it was important for her to understand the role that both education and culture played in her life. According to Guajardo, “My parents are both illiterate. My mother went as far as second grade and my father never went to school. So, between the two of them, they’ve never read a book.” Despite her parents’ lack of education, they encouraged Guajardo, along with her five siblings, to do well in school so they could live the “American dream.” Dr. Guajardo’s career has been shaped by these experiences and she considers it her life’s work to make growing up easier for children coming from vulnerable backgrounds like she did. “I think every step along my journey has been about that work, whether I was in state government, in the nonprofit world, or now in city government, it’s been about making growing up easier,” said Guajardo.
Find your Spark with @15 at the HC • HY Conference
The Best Buy Children’s Foundation and their @15 initiative have joined forces with Search Institute to create a Spark Finder quiz for the @15 website. The quiz, which will be unveiled at the conference, helps youth (and adults!) identify their spark and determine if they have any spark champions in their lives. It then provides further Web resources for exploring their spark. As Mary Ackerman, Search Institute’s Director of External Relations, describes, “The Spark Finder will enhance the other interactive tools for young people on the @15 website.” Best Buy is also underwriting many of the youth activities taking place at the conference, including the youth center, several learning sessions, and evening activities.
If you are unable to attend the conference, the Spark Finder will be available on the @15 website once the conference is underway. To find out more about Best Buy’s @15 initiative, please visit www.at15.com.
