We began the second webinar in our Centering Youth Thriving webinar series by asking a simple question – What does thriving mean to you?
Karen and Merita have been co-authors on numerous publications that seek to define thriving, including Thriving, Robust Equity & Transformative Learning & Development and Equity Centered Thriving.
Collectively, the three of us have spent countless hours together and in partnership with others thinking about how we can simply and easily convey the definition of thriving. As we prepared for our April Centering Youth Thriving convening, we worked with researchers David Osher and Tom Akiva to wordsmith definitions of thriving youth, systems, settings, and ecosystems.
It seems like we keep coming back to questions of how we should frame the definition. Formal and fancy? Simple and straight forward?
How about from the heart? The definitions shared in the chat during last week’s webinar were powerful examples of the fact that what we think and feel about thriving lines up with what the research tells us.
For years as I’ve led positive youth development trainings, I’ve emphasized that positive youth development is common sense, but it’s not always common practice. Perhaps thriving is similar. It is commonly understood, just not commonly experienced.
While we continue to wrestle with the best ways to convey thriving, I hope all of you will continue to think of thriving from your heart space. And whatever it means to you, that you’ll work to make it real and true for the young people you work with and on behalf of.
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