Get Ready

In the Get Ready stage, the focus is on getting to know your community and your partners and building relationships. In this stage and each of the four stages grassroots organizations and their leaders have found that there are 5 guiding principles that are important to keep in mind. Click on each guiding principle to find resources related to it.

1. Foster Youth-Adult Partnerships
2. Mobilize Community Assets
3. Tap into Individual Gifts
4. Build Teamwork
5. Reflect and Learn

Below we list tools and activities for each of the five guiding principles within the Get Ready stage.

1. Foster Youth-Adult Partnerships
   • Taking a Stand
     
   • CYD Activity
   • BINGO
   • Youth Workshop: Welcome/Introduction/Overview/Warm-Up
   • Examining Youth-Adult Relationships
   • Appendix to Youth Workshop: Energizers/Warm-Ups
   • Adult Workshop: Opening/Welcome/Warm-Up
   • Examining a Young Person's Point of View
   • Youth-Adult Workshop: Welcome/Warm-Up/Introductions/Overview
   • What were you like at 15 years old?
   • Video Documentary Skills: Benton Harbor
   • Defining "Youth" and "Adult"
   • The PowerPoint Presentation: Not So Boring After All
   • The YAP (Youth-Adult Partnership) Rap
   • Defining Gracious Space
   • Realizing Gracious Space
   • How to Create Gracious Space in which Youth and Adults are Valued
   • Circles as a Way to Create Gracious Space
   • How to Host Successful Community Dinners
   • One-on-One Interviews
   • Energizer: Handshake Activity & Pass the Move
   • Six Degrees of Separation
   • Service-Learning Process and Quality Standards
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2. Mobilize Community Assets
   • Basic History Wall Exercise
   • Basic Gridding Exercise
   • Community Mind Map Exercise
   • Exploring Elements of Healthy Communities
   • Claiming Your Voice
   • Youth as Culture: Class Reunion
   • Mapping Youth-Adult Partnerships
   • Music and Social Change
   • Famous Pairs
   • Community Sculpture
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3. Tap into Individual Gifts
   • Mapping the Sectors of Involvement
   • Charting Individual Connections
   • Who Are You?
   • The Party
   • Organizational Leadership: Guessing Game
   • Tips for Recruiting Social Change Agents
   • Recruiting Coaches
   • Recruiting Evaluators
   • Surveying with Marbles
   • Appreciation Wall
   • Comparisons
   • River of Life
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4. Build Teamwork
   • Creating Our Circle of Shared Leadership
   • The Keys to Good Facilitation
   • How Decisions are Made
   • Taking a Stand
   • How to Build Trust Across Systems and Organizations
   • Issues Involved with Family Members on Teams
   • Perceptions of Power
   • Building Deeper Relationships with the Johari Window
   • The Block Game
   • Space for Fun
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5. Reflect and Learn
   • Spectrum of Attitudes
   • Taking Stock of Resoures
   • Relationship Connections
   • A Rational for Youth Involvement (in Evaluation)
   • Sharing Your Community's Story
   • Head, Heart, and Feet
   • Color our World with Inspirations
   • Once Upon a Puddle
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