ABSTRACT
Youth development workers are lifelong learners who gain additional insight into how to successfully work with youth and with their colleagues through a variety of formal, informal and incidental learning experiences. Understanding the impact of youth workers’ varied learning experiences is critical to creating effective professional development opportunities for youth workers and for the development of the field. This chapter focuses on the dissertation study of The Youth Development Network (YDN) that engaged youth workers in a series of meetings and related activities over a period of six years resulting in numerous rich and varied opportunities for growth and professional development for the participants. The purpose of the study was to determine what key learning and actions resulted from participation in the network (Davis-Manigaulte, 2008). This information may help shape future professional development efforts for youth workers—particularly in relation to how they learn from each other, serve as expert practitioners and inform their field of work. Following is an overview of the research project, sample profiles of project participants, key findings and implications of the study.
