Introduction

Career Launch encourages Club members ages 13 to 18 to assess their skills and interests, explore careers, make sound educational decisions, and prepare to join our nation's workforce. Club staff and volunteers help teens build their job-search skills and job readiness by using the Career Launch Facilitator Guide to work with teens individually or in small groups. The Career Launch program can be facilitated in-person or virtually allowing for career exploration, college and job search information and interactive activities. Mentoring, job shadowing and training opportunities round out the program.

Education Core Program Area

Education programs complement and reinforce what youth learn during the school day while creating experiences that invite them to fall in love with learning. Rooted in social-emotional skills, programs in this area enable all youth to be effective, engaged, adaptive learners who are on track to graduate with a plan for the future. This informal learning space features both remediation and enrichment, all while inviting youth to discover and pursue passions that connect to future opportunities. Education programs include experiential learning, so that youth learn actively, through a “hands-on” and “mind-on” approach. 

At each developmental stage, Education programs prompt youth to plan and prepare for the future. This includes observing and practicing the social-emotional “soft skills” that lead to early successes in building and maintaining friendships, and engaging in programmatic experiences that prepare youth to learn and work in middle school, high school and beyond. Programs and experiences for elementary school-aged youth build the foundation for employability and career exploration, supporting the skill development necessary for success in post-secondary education and the workforce. 

Education Outcome Statement: To enable all youth to be effective, engaged, adaptive learners who are on track to graduate with a plan for the future.

Education Skills: In order to successfully learn and work, youth need to build not only academic skills, but also social-emotional skills. Social-emotional skills help youth build healthy relationships with themselves and others, recognize and manage emotions, and solve problems. All Education programs, including Career Launch, are designed to build the academic and social-emotional skills that enable youth to become effective, engaged, adaptive learners who are on track to graduate with a plan for the future. 

Supporting Workforce Readiness Strategy

Visit BGCA.net and search for "Work Based Learning Guide," see Page 6. 

Skills Developed With Career Launch:

• Self-Awareness: Recognizing one’s feelings, needs, thoughts and influences on behavior
• Self-Confidence: Belief in one’s abilities
• Self-Efficacy: Perceived capability to perform a specific task
• Perseverance: Strength to keep going, even when something is difficult
• Recognizing Strengths: Assessing one’s strengths and limitations
• Teamwork: Working with others
• Empathy: Understanding and sharing in the feelings of others
• Building Strong Peer Connections
• Building Strong Connections With Adults
• Respect for Others: Treating others with human kindness and assuming positive intent
• Social Awareness: Ability to understand social and ethical norms of behavior
• Perspective Taking: Seeing another’s point of view even if one does not agree with it
• Inclusion: Cultivating a welcoming environment for everyone, including a diversity of voices in decision making
• Identifying Emotions: The ability to identify one’s current emotional state and develop healthy strategies to respond to emotions
• Impulse Control: Controlling the desire to react immediately
• Stress Management: Having a variety of strategies to deal with micro- and macro-stressors
• Self-Discipline: Ability to control impulses and distractions to the completion of a task or goal
• Self-Motivation: Ability to identify and focus on the intrinsic value in performing a task to its completion
• Identifying and Solving Problems: Identifying multiple ways to solve a problem, given constraints
• Conflict Resolution: Navigating conflict in the workplace with respect and developing mutually agreeable solutions
• Conflict Management: Gathering information, resources and necessary people to support the resolution of a conflict
• Organizational Skills: The ability to organize one’s time, space, people and resources
• Planning: The ability to establish goals, timelines, action steps and to organize resources to achieve a goal
• Ethical Responsibility: Accepting responsibility for one’s actions, standing up for what’s right and preventing harm
• Goal-Setting: Setting and working toward personal goals
• Evaluating: Using a process to make informed decisions and identifying appropriate options 

The Youth Development Professional’s Role in Academic Success

Positive youth development is an intentional approach that engages youth in their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, and families in a manner that is productive and constructive; recognizes, uses and enhances young people’s strengths; and promotes positive outcomes for young people by providing opportunities, fostering positive relationships and furnishing the support needed to build their leadership strengths. 

Youth development practices that promote teaching and learning are key to the effectiveness of Education programs. Effective Education programs, when facilitated with high-quality youth development practices, help youth develop the attitudes, behaviors, and skills needed to become effective and engaged learners who are on track to graduate with a plan for the future. 

Youth development professionals can help all youth become more effective and engaged learners with the following practices: 

• Modeling curiosity and encouraging youth to ask questions.
• Aiming for co-inquiry as a “guide on the side,” not a “sage on the stage.”
• Planning for success and allowing for mistakes. While youth development professionals provide the support necessary for youth to successfully complete projects and activities, they also include enough challenges so that youth have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. 
• Helping youth connect what they learn to previous experiences.
• Asking questions to check for understanding and to prompt youth to think about their thinking.
• Teaching learning strategies in addition to content, so that when youth learn new things, they also learn how to learn more effectively.
• Attending to each young person’s diversity and lived experience, by providing multiple options for engagement, representation and expression.

Youth development professionals help all youth stay on track to graduate with a plan for the future using the following practices: 

• Being intentional about giving youth a voice in Education program activities and establishing multiple opportunities for youth to make choices, have input, or share leadership roles in the Club’s programs and activities. 
• Engaging community partners to serve as mentors and volunteers to enhance programming.
• Modeling positive workplace behaviors and incorporating opportunities for youth to practice them in the Club.
• Helping youth connect experiences and interests to future career opportunities.

Practice Positive Youth Development to Create Inclusive Clubs

Inclusion is a core component to building a safe, positive environment in your Clubs. In order to fulfill our mission, Clubs must create safe, positive, and inclusive environments for all youth and teens – including every race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, socioeconomic status and religion. By creating inclusive environments in our Clubs, we improve the overall experience for all young people.

When youth development professionals use positive youth development practices, they help ensure all youth:

• Have a voice
• Have a sense of belonging
• Can meaningfully participate in programming

As you implement Career Launch, consider strategies that help youth feel affirmed, safe, and engaged with Club experiences that meet their needs and abilities. For more information on building and sustaining an inclusive environment, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint," see pages 23-24 of PDF.

Positive Youth Development Supports Character and Social-Emotional Development

All programs, including Career Launch, offer opportunities for youth development professionals to model, recognize, reinforce and reflect on character development. Positive youth development provides direction for how you interact with, engage and model behavior for youth. You get to shape the lives of young people every day. As a result, you set the expectations and show youth what the essential character traits (i.e., caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness) look like in practice. These character traits come to life when youth practice social-emotional skills like teamwork, conflict management and emotional regulation. Young people use skills to lead themselves and others, as well as demonstrate positive attributes in citizenship, like community engagement and voting.

Youth can start to build character using “caught and taught” approaches. Youth “catch” social-emotional skills when they observe youth development professionals modeling appropriate behaviors, and when they interact with peers. Youth can also be “taught” skills to build good character when skills are explicitly introduced and practiced through program sessions and activities. Use the following formula to understand how character develops over time:

Youth Development Professionals Model Good Character + Youth Practice Skills Regularly = Character Development

To build character traits, be sure to include many opportunities for youth to practice the social-emotional skills that are embedded in Career Launch. These include skills related to:

• How youth feel about themselves
• Their relationships with others
• Their ability to regulate emotions
• Their ability to solve problems

For more information, see Practicing Social-Emotional Skills to Achieve Character Development on page 22 of the Program Basics BLUEprint. Visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint." It will show you the specific social-emotional skills that young people should practice in order to demonstrate positive behaviors indicative of essential character traits.

Youth development professionals facilitating Career Launch can model good character in the way they support all learners, offer feedback rather than criticism, and encourage honesty and responsibility.

When character development is present:

• Youth development professionals model, and youth practice, skills that display respect, fairness, trustworthiness, responsibility, caring and citizenship.
• Youth understand and successfully get along well with others.
• Youth are better able to control their emotions and solve problems.

When character development is absent:

• Youth do not feel a sense of belonging at the Club.
• Youth lack skills that foster positive peer relationships.
• Youth lack self-control and act out in frustration.

How to Implement Career Launch 

Format and Key Features

Each session in Career Launch follows a consistent format that incorporates best practices in positive youth development. Facilitating the sessions in the format written is highly recommended to implement the program with fidelity. Each component of the session is briefly described below.

• Background and Preparation – An overview of information needed to implement the activities
  • Session Objective – Specific learning goals for the activities
  • Time Requirements – Time needed to implement the session
  • Group Size – Number of participants
  • Handouts – Handouts and resources needed
  • Supplies Needed – All items needed to complete the activity
  • Links to Resources – Links to additional helpful resources
  • Social-Emotional Skills – Skills needed for success in life
• Before the Main Activity – Brief “getting-ready” experiences for the group
  • Warm Welcome – A reminder to connect with each young person before the activity
  • Community Builder – An icebreaker to engage the group, lay the groundwork for the activity, and create an environment for learning and exploration
  • Group Agreements Review – A reminder of participants' commitments to one another
• Main Activity Instructions – Step-by-step instructions to lead youth through the activity
  • Introducing Youth to the Activity – A few comments to introduce the topic and activity
  • Step-by-Step Directions – Detailed steps to facilitate the activity
• After the Main Activity – Helpful guidelines to meaningfully conclude the session
  • Reflection – A brief reflection that helps youth affirm what they’ve learned 
  • Recognition – A brief activity to allow youth to recognize each other’s support and help
  • Closing and Transition – A reminder about closing out the activity and moving on to the next area

Session Adaption

While many of the session topics may bring new information and involve serious activities, the program will have the greatest impact if you complete the sessions in order, and cover as many of them as possible. After reviewing each session, you may prefer to modify some of the activities to better accommodate the needs of your teens. Creativity and fun should remain at the forefront of everything you do in the Career Launch program. Use your creativity and engage teens to think of ways to add more fun to each session. When relevant, allow teens to use technology to complete the activities. 

Program Facilitation Tip

• Give yourself time to plan, gather and prepare the materials you will need for each session.
• Make sure you are familiar with the activities.
• Review the entire program and plan for when you may want volunteers to come help with a session. See Use of Volunteers following for recommendations about when and how to engage with volunteers.
• Use examples that are applicable to the teens in your Club to help make the sessions come alive.
• Continue to check for understanding to ensure your teens are grasping the topic or instructions.

Use of Volunteers

Invite volunteers to your Club to help teach teens valuable life lessons, and simultaneously help volunteers learn something about themselves. Boys & Girls Clubs volunteers can make a difference in the lives of teens, and they also give you a chance to demonstrate how special your Club is. Clubs have used volunteers to help with homework, coach a game, help with a service project, supervise a field trip or teach an art session. 

Career Launch is an opportunity to engage volunteers to help you implement this program. Consider volunteers that are from your community, Club alumni and even individuals connected to the firms that are listed as part of The Equity Collective in the Acknowledgment section of the Career Launch curriculum.

Supporting Workforce Readiness 

• Career Launch is a great way to support Workforce Readiness for teens.
  • Explore: Career exploration provides members with exposure to the world of work and pathways to careers of their choice.  
  • Develop: In their Club experience, all members develop essential skills, as early as 6 years old, critical to success in work and life. They also gain access to job-specific hard skills to prepare them for employment. 
  • Apply: Members get opportunities to learn and demonstrate their skills in real-world work experiences. 
•  Career Launch offers both career exploration and social-emotional skill development.