This year’s Day 3 of A2C training was made so much more special by the guests we were lucky enough to have there! Ms. Kevon Harris from OSSE started us off with some fun icebreakers and had a great time calling us by our Grassroots nicknames (Meat Man and Stan Halen were some favorites). She also showed us how to refer the kids in our programs to all the amazing resources DC has to offer for adolescents. It was great to see ho
w we could potentially extend our impact beyond the ten weeks of programming! Our other guest speakers were high schoolers from the Youth Advisory Committee who gave us some pointers on engaging with our classes. My favorite part of the day was when the “YACers” split us up into groups and led us through role-plays designed to help us practice different strategies for engaging with all of the kids in our programs. All the new coaches were animated and energetic in the role-plays, and were very receptive to feedback from their fellow athletes as well as from veteran coaches. Watching them in the training made me really excited to see what they’re going to bring to the classroom this year!