The Bermuda Youth Development Learning Community
The Youth Development Learning Community (YDLC) is a collection of youth-serving organisations invested in inspiring and cultivating youth and young adults to reach their full potential. The goal of the YDLC is to collaborate in order to
- Provide peer to peer learning and capacity building, and
- Raise the youth development standards in Bermuda by improving access to and standards of youth services.
What is a Learning Community
A learning community is a group of individuals who work within a shared domain and share a concern or a passion for something they do and desire to learn how to do it better by engaging in a process of ongoing, collective learning. Over time, members/collaborators develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice.
Why join?
These are some of the desired benefits identified by the original group of youth development agencies that formed the YDLC.
- Create and sustain better and deeper understanding of what youth development organisations exist and what they do
- Discover opportunities to collaborate and identify joint projects
- Ability to share common themes coming up with youth and update on programmes offered; provide space for individual case problem solving; Sharing how to best partner with different schools/service partners
- Provide space to identify gaps in services for youth, and collectively problem solve to find creative ways to fill gaps
- Improve ability to make referrals to one another
- Potential to develop better understanding of how youth development organisations are measuring outcomes and impact, and potentially develop shared measurements and metrics
- Engage in discussions around programme design and evaluation for youth development and supporting each other in “upping our game”
- Assist in identifying and coordinating relevant training
- Agree on standards of practice for youth serving professionals
- Space to discuss other ways to support one another, such as creating online support group (Facebook) and sharing of relevant international resources
Who is the YDLC?
- BIOS
- Bermuda Zoological Society
- Big Brothers Big Sisters
- Bermuda Football Coaches Association
- Bermuda Sloop Foundation
- Duke of Edinburgh
- Endeavor Commuity Sailing
- Mirrors Programme
- Pride Bermuda
- Family Center
- Raleigh Bermuda (Chair, Dany Pen)