Institute For Youth Leaders

The Institute for Youth Leaders (IYL) works to encourage scholarly endeavors and community services designed to empower and support youth. Founded in the late 1980’s, IYL explores and investigates problems and concerns related to youth and the delivery of youth services in an effort to address and create awareness of such concerns. IYL strives to stage seminars, fellowships and create a network to serve local and regional professional interest. IYL offers a range of programs and services that provide opportunities to support youth activity and focuses on engaging practitioners and other persons interested in establishing or enhancing youth services. Partners include educators, researchers, professionals, faculty and students. At IYL there is a focus on cross disciplinary research and development, and community service. A major feature of this approach is to create opportunities for faculty and students to work together while at the same time provide quality research and community services activities. IYL is redirected to encourage scholarly endeavors and community service by coordinating such resources. Working to create opportunities for faculty and students from a variety of disciplines to come together in a shared effort of youth leadership and engagement the program aims to bring greater focus and attention to the voices of youth. The vision of IYL is to enhance the voices of youth by providing opportunities for youth to be empowered through positive forms of meaningful engagement, dialog, conversation and programs of scholarly inquiry. The mission involves: (1) improving leadership skills of youth organization professionals, (2) developing opportunities for collaboration and communication among organizations and (3) establishing a model of university/ community cooperation in service to youth. 1. The Youth Academy Café. Today’s youth represent a significant portion our population. Listening to and understanding the aspirations and expectations of youth is of great importance to professionals, policymakers and others working with youth. By listening and hearing the voices of youth, insights are gained which lead to greater acceptance and understanding of today’s youth culture. The Youth Academy Café, a program of the University of Northern Iowa Institute for Youth Leaders and planned, organized and implemented by doctoral students in the Allied Health, Recreation and Community Services,Ed. D intensive area is aimed to foster an interactive dialogue among and between young people and community members. The goal of the program is to capture youth voices regarding different issues and challenges of our community. The program recruits young people from other departments of the university, to collaborate in the process of selecting, crafting the topics such that it better addresses the needs of the participants. Youth Academy Cafe events presents conversation topics in a comprehensive fashion (easy to understand) to facilitate meaningful conversation among participants. The goal is to explore and propel conversation, imagination and reflections of the Youths. In addition the program fosters socialization - networking between community members, students and faculty as well as collaborative research. The Youth Academy Café draws its inspiration from a process-oriented methodology known as The World Café. This process is a straight forward, flexible format for promoting dialogue and conversation. The Youth Academy Café format involves discovering common interests, sharing knowledge, imagining the future, and cooperating to survive and thrive (The World Café, 2015). This methodology offers a way for cross pollination of ideas and relationship building among the participants. 2. Young People's Leadership Development Program. Young People’s Leadership Development (YPLD) offers opportunities for young people to engage in practical leadership endeavors and executing personal initiative with educational institutions and/ or private organizations (profit and non-profit). This program is design to advance and enhance credible aptitude and sustain inspiration for young people. Further, the program embraces the cultural diversity in the community and provides the opportunity for young people to build their leadership skills. YPLD further seeks to develop youths who are resilient to day-to-day challenges of life YPLD is built on the conceptual framework of leisure/recreation and community development as defined by one's community engagement to advance leadership skills of individuals. With this framework, YPLD provides an avenue where individuals can gain practical leisure experiences, and engage in leisure activities designed, to enhance holistic development, to embrace cultural differences, To build on work ethics, To improve professional competencies, To advance aptitude, To sustain inspiration as future leaders of our communities. This program will establish and promote the link among higher education students, high school students, and the community member to embrace diversity within the community. The vision of this program is to develop young leaders, advance aptitude and sustain inspiration. The mission is to use leisure and recreation experiences foster practical and advance leadership skills and to to provide an avenue for young people to embrace diversity.