Youth Worker Leadership
YoungScot curated the Natural Change Youth Leaders project in 2012. It was funded by the Big Lottery IDEAS fund. I led the project to train youth leaders in approaches pioneered on WWF’s Natural Change Project.
Youth Workers learned theories and practices for bringing the healing power of wild places and green spaces to young people. They also explored the connections between personal wellbeing - and social and ecological issues.
The purpose of the programme was to build capacity for delivering outdoor-based approaches in youth work and to establish a peer group of youth workers who can design their own projects with young people.
The programme included collaborative support after the core elements of the training, to help the youth workers develop their projects. Formal supervision was also provided as a crucial part of a longer and deeper apprenticeship in leading this type of complex and delicate process.
