Preparing participants for intergenerational interaction: training for success

Preparing Participants for Intergenerational Interaction: Training for Success examines established intergenerational programs and provides the training methods necessary for activity directors or practitioners to start a similar program. This book contains exercises that will help you train colleagues and volunteers for these specific programs and includes criteria for activity evaluations. Preparing Participants for Intergenerational Interaction will help you implement programs that enable older adults to build friendships, pass down their skills and knowledge to adolescents, and provide youths with positive role models.

Discussing the factors that often limit the interaction of older adults with youths, this text stresses the importance of conveying information and history to younger generations. You will learn why the exchange between different generations is crucial to society and to the improvement of the community in which you live. Preparing Participants for Intergenerational Interaction provides you with proven suggestions and methods that will make your program successful, including:

• examining Howe-To Industries, a program that teaches entrepreneurial skills to youths through older adults
• focusing on activities between older adults and youths that address aging sensitivity and racial and ethnic understanding
• defining the roles of a mentor, including teacher, trainer, developer of talent, and counselor
• increasing support and understanding in your community by defining target markets and selling the project to the public
• describing the aspects of group dynamics and how group decisionmaking methods are used to assess the success of the program and its volunteers
• understanding the community where participants live in order to address issues important to them, such as poverty and other social problems

Containing sample handouts, self-evaluations, and detailed lessons for different types of programs, this book offers you guidelines that apply to participants that have a variety of needs within different communities. Preparing Participants for Intergenerational Interaction: Training for Success will enable you to help older adults remain an active and essential part of these communities by teaching youths valuable life skills they may not receive from anyone else.