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Sex ed for youth in foster care

Sexuality educator Deborah Roffman was kind enough to share with me specific advice for working with youth in foster care. She noted that professionals who work with this population must meet the five core needs of children and adolescents, and do our best to see that foster parents and birth parents alike do the same. Here are the five needs: AFFIRMATION: Seeing and hearing children as they are. This means recognizing that our children have entered Read more…

By Ysette, ago

“Any important change is not going to feel like a steady, inevitable march toward victory”

This is from Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, a book that had been languishing on my reading list for months, but which I finally picked up last week for my semi-secret project(!). What I love most about it is how the authors flesh out a very simple, easy-to-remember framework with loads of examples of significant changes achieved in very different contexts and at all levels: individual, organizational, and societal. One of Read more…

By Ysette, ago

Gender identity, show and tell style

My identity programming has somehow found itself at the bottom of the priority list this past month, but I wanted to share an idea that started rolling around my head a few weeks ago for dissecting gender identity in a workshop setting . Drawing from anthropology (again), I plan on asking participants to bring in one artifact from their lives that seems to say something significant about gender identity. The possibilities are almost endless: They could bring Read more…

By Ysette, ago

Someone actually thought I was an extrovert

[For Nahjee] My husband and I got a big ol’ chuckle yesterday from your assumption that I was an extrovert. If I am the most extroverted person you know, you need to get out more (HA!), because in my not-so-secret life I’m a classic introvert. In fact, I have a stunningly high tolerance for aloneness. When I lived on my own I could go weeks at a stretch before yearning for company. It got to the Read more…

By Ysette, ago

Meet the Minds On Fire brain trust

I’ve been champing at the bit to introduce the people with whom I am privileged to work. Getting everyone to write a short bio for the first time was a significant task, but check out the results. I’d say it was worth the wait. Introducing… Candice Miller is a skilled researcher with over ten years of experience. She recently graduated with an M.A. in Sociology of Education from New York University. Prior to graduate school, she worked Read more…

By Ysette, ago

Preview of the NYFC Youth Advisory Board retreat

I started working with NYFC Youth Advisory Board (YAB) back in the fall of 2012, when they were undergoing a significant transition period. Here they are almost a year later, with another round of elections under their belt (and thankfully with a codified system for breaking ties this time!). YAB has never lacked for enthusiasm or ideas, so their project list for 2013-2014 is already very long. In order to start the school year on the right foot, the Read more…

By Ysette, ago

How NYU Tisch prepares its grads for the artist’s life

[For Sabrina] Tisch Office of Career Development (TOCD) provides students in the arts with very specialized services that the Wasserman Center is not equipped to offer. There is, for starters, the fact that creative resumes look very different from the standard resume organized primarily by experience. But the primary challenge of sending Tisch grads out into the world is preparing them for non-linear career trajectories. To this end, TOCD offers two main resources: career counseling and a mentor network. (more…)

By Ysette, ago

One quibble about Chris Nodder’s UX Fundamentals course

[For Rob] All in all, Chris Nodder’s User Experience Fundamentals for Web Design course on Lynda.com was very helpful for getting me to think about how I would like to approach building a web-based product/service (more on that later). But one bit of advice Nodder mentions twice over two hours bothered me enough that I woke up this Saturday morning irked by it, so permit me to get this off my chest. Did you catch how he Read more…

By Ysette, ago

Two views on whether 30 is the new 21

Today on the Brian Lehrer Show developmental psychologist Jeffrey Arnett stopped by to talk about the phenomenon of emerging adulthood. Arnett is the real deal: His research has fueled the study of emerging adulthood and he also tirelessly advocates for a sympathetic regard for millennials and for the expansion of institutional resources to support them during their transition to full adulthood. His interview with guest host Mike Pesca brings up a lot of good points about Read more…

By Ysette, ago