ACCOMPLISHING THE WORK
2. SELECTING AND IMPLEMENTING
PROJECTS
You made it! Let the fun begin. Designing
projects and initiatives to impact your
community gives a sense of purpose to
the youth advisory council. Remember
to leverage existing partners, work, and
resources.
Use these tips.
• Use available data to drive decisions (instead of
starting “pet” projects).
• When possible, leverage existing partners,
work, and resources. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
• Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm!
• During “project brainstorming,” encourage
personal stories of how an issue affects
each member and their connection with a
current project idea.
• Vet ideas about project parameters and identify
desired outcomes through an idea/work
planning checklist.
• Think about sustainability, feasibility, and
timing. Is the idea realistic, measurable, and
attainable?
• Gather information and vet ideas with fellow
students, school staff, community members,
and families.
• When a potential project is brought to the
group from a partner, let the youth vote on
participation to ensure group buy-in.
USE A DATA/WORK CYCLE.
Show progress in a fun, interesting, quick
view — until your project/task is complete and
sustainable. Repeat the cycle for other projects/
tasks or when you need to update existing work.
kp.org/artsintegratedresources
Project work cycle.
Find or create a visual representation of the youth
advisory council’s work.
1. Gather information, collect data.
• Data examples: Youth-to-youth surveys,
youth conducting interviews, data already
collected by school/district — Healthy
Kids Colorado Survey, Colorado Healthy
Schools Smart Source, student, parent,
or teacher climate surveys, etc.
2. Develop the idea.
• Vet ideas with student body votes,
engaging the school staff, community,
and families.
3. Set goals and objectives.
• Remember S.M.A.R.T goals — is the project
or goal Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Realistic, and Timebound?
4. Create an action plan.
• Allow students to brainstorm ideas to
accomplish the goal/mission of the project/
initiative and encourage any idea as a
good idea.
5. Implement initiatives and work plans.
• Implementation needs support — make sure
your implementation plan is well thought
out and the time commitment is reasonable.
Be realistic and prioritize the work.
• Include awareness materials (including
youth created videos and handouts).
6. Assess and monitor the impact, success,
and progress.
• Collect feedback during and after projects
from people impacted by the work.
Consider facilitating events to collect
the feedback. Discuss the feedback to
determine if the council was successful. Ask
questions like: Did the council reach the
impact they wanted? What needs to change?
• Evaluate new projects that come along,
but don’t drop the current task at hand.
It’s important to maintain consistency.
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