Our Passion In Practice: Inside the First Institute for Critical Youth Development
In late March, during one of our weekly Praxis staff meetings, we opened the way we always do, with a reflection question.
One of us had recently listened to an episode of Trevor Noah’s podcast, where the prompt was:
“What has been one of your most meaningful jobs, paid or unpaid?”
On the agenda was to begin planning our first Institute for Critical Youth Development.
We went around the room. And none of the experiences had anything to do with salary, titles, or career status.
They were all early experiences
Jessica talked about Art Express, something she created many years ago. It connected art-making with emotional processing long before “healing-centered engagement” was a phrase people used. She has adapted it over the years, but its roots come from those first sessions.
Steven talked about his time as a youth worker in Champaign-Urbana. There wasn’t a formal curriculum and not much structure or guidance. The work shifted day by day, but he loved it. He was learning by doing, adjusting in real time, and figuring out how to build something meaningful in collaboration with the youth, families, and the people he worked with.
Josh reflected on co-developing intergenerational leadership work in Chicago. The sessions and approach were based in popular education. His first experience with pop ed and since then life has not been the same. 12 hour days. But damn fun! With zero budget it was a hustle. Every session was a request to a local restaurant for donations. Josh has made lasting friendships with the people he worked with and it laid the foundation for his approach.
Fausto described Leftist Lounge. Not simply a party or gathering, but a cultural space where music, politics, joy, critique, and community all lived together. People still bring it up years later. The way we shape tone and space at Praxis today is directly influenced by that work.
Those early experiences, the achievements and the mistakes, stayed with us. We learned how to improvise, how to make something out of nothing, how to keep going even when the plan changed every five minutes. We didn’t have the word for it back then, but we were practicing auto-gestión, we weren’t waiting for a grant or boss to tell us what to do. We saw an opportunity or need and we had the drive, passion and energy to create and figure it out.
We also met some of our favorite human beings from those experiences.
And in many ways, these were the building blocks of Praxis.
Fast Forward to October
We just completed our inaugural Institute for Critical Youth Development cohort:
27 participants (26 humans + Bella, Dog participant)
13 organizations
4 days of learning together
Yay! We did it.
Next steps are to provide 6 months of coaching and Communities of Practice
And the experience felt familiar. Long hours, but didn’t feel like work. Like some of those same earlier experiences.
What We Did Over 4 Days
DAY 1 — Identity, Connection, Critical Consciousness, Narrative and Purpose
“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that knowledge will help set you free.” — Asata Shakur
“The most impactful moments for me were the ones rooted in affirmation and connection. Being seen and encouraged by the Praxis team, and feeling genuinely loved on by other participants, was a real gift.” — ICYD Participant
We covered:
- The Critical Consciousness framework (what it is and why it matters).
- A reading of an article by Maru Gonzalez guided meaningful conversations connected to critical consciousness in youth work.
- The Critical Youth Development Pyramid was the structure we used to organize the next three days.
- Identity and purpose reflections, why we do this work and how our experiences shape our approach.
- Narrative and Counter-Narrative: the difference between what is said about youth and communities, and what is actually true in practice.
DAY 2 — Quality
“We are getting our youth through education by anesthetizing them…putting them to sleep when we should be doing the opposite and waking them up to what they have inside themselves.” — Ken Robinson
“I valued having dedicated time to step back and really think about what quality youth programming looks like. That space for reflection helped me connect the research and frameworks we learned with my own instincts and experiences. It allowed me to synthesize ideas, clarify my approach, and start imagining how to build a program that is both meaningful and grounded in evidence.” — ICYD Participant
We covered:
- Quality in youth work at four levels: facilitation, daily sessions, programs, and organizations.
- The Quality Line-Up to surface differences in how we define “quality” even when values are shared.
- The Critical Youth Development Pyramid applied to program design.
- Case studies from Preparing Youth to Thrive to see what quality looks like in real programs.
- The 7 Cs Framework and how to use it to strengthen session and program design.
- A Create-Your-Own Activity design process. We, of course, infused some healthy competition.
- Groups presented their designs, and we gave and received feedback to learn from each other’s approaches…and then voted on a winner :)
DAY 3 — Supportive Environments & Belonging
“The child who is not embraced will burn the village down to feel its heat.” — African Proverb
“The child who is embraced by the community will light a candle to spread its warmth.” -Kaylin Davis (ICYD 2025 Participant)
“For me, bringing the 7 C’s of CYD and healing-centered approaches into my organization starts with helping our team come back to center. Over time, it’s easy to get lost in the sauce of numbers, reports, and program outcomes. I really want us to take a pause for the cause and come back to why we do this work in the first place. I plan to create intentional spaces for our team to reflect and reconnect to check in not just on tasks, but on each other and the young people and families we serve.” — ICYD Participant
We Covered:
- How belonging works in youth spaces and why it is the starting point for engagement and growth.
- The four dimensions of belonging: Physical Space, Culture & Identity, Relationships, and Power/Voice.
- Identifying concrete strategies to build belonging and relationships at the program, staff, and organizational levels.
- Transformative SEL and Healing-Centered Engagement as approaches to support emotional awareness, connection, and agency.
- How staff supervision and feedback practices can model the same belonging and care we want youth to experience.
DAY 4 — Measuring What Matters
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou
“Day 4 especially stood out. The deep dive into program design, assessment, and evaluation best practices really brought everything together and helped me see how all the pieces connect in practice.” — ICYD Participant
We covered:
- How evaluation and measurement are shaped by power and perspective, and how that influences what gets counted and what gets ignored.
- The Best Pizza in Chicago activity, where groups used quantitative, qualitative, and personal experience data to make a case — then reflected on how the same dynamics show up in real programs
- How to build a simple and useful evaluation plan that focuses on understanding and improving, not just reporting.
- How to select one quantitative tool, one qualitative tool, and one observational practice to get a fuller picture of youth experience and program impact.
- How to make data collection realistic, part of the routine, not a separate workload nobody has time for.
- How to share findings with youth, and involve them in interpreting results.
And then Certificates and Celebration!
In the Days and Times We’re Living In
Young people are navigating grief, fear, joy, creativity, identity, media, conflict, and hope…all at once.
The world is on fire.
Systems are unstable.
And youth are paying attention.
In moments like these:
- Youth workers are not “nice-to-have.”
- Youth workers are the infrastructure.
- Youth workers are cultural workers.
- Youth workers help shape what tomorrow feels like.
But youth workers cannot pour from what they do not have.
That’s why we built ICYD.
Because if you lead youth spaces, you deserve to be in places where:
- you are supported
- you can learn with others and keep leveling up
- you are cared for
- you can laugh, breathe, question, and grow
We will continue to build.
And we hope you’ll sit in one with us next time.
#ifyouleadyouthspacesyoubelonghere
