Annual Conference of Agencies and Organizations Serving Promising Youth

This interactive, workshop-style session will introduce an educational strategy that can be used to foster the engagement, agency, and self-advocacy skills of youth and families.

The Right Question Institute (RQI) helps people working on the front lines of a range of systems build the ability of clients and community members to: a) ask better questions, and b) participate more effectively in decisions that affect their lives and the lives of their families. The methods covered in this session have been applied in numerous fields, including education, criminal justice, child welfare, social work, legal services, and workforce development, in the United States and internationally.

Participants will examine the method through an interactive exercise, learn how to begin using the method with the people they serve, and review a specific tool they can integrate into their ongoing work with youth or introduce to their organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn a strategy to teach youth and families how to generate, prioritize, and use their own questions to seek information, advocate for themselves, and have a voice in decisions that affect them.
• Explore how to use the strategy in ongoing work with youth and families to build trusting partnerships and improve case outcomes.
• Learn how to integrate a teaching template into existing workflows (i.e., case management, IEP meetings, and intake meetings) to enhance service delivery.