Quick Info About SPARK Youth Curriculum
Facilitated by near-peer leaders with coaching from one or more supportive adults to form healthy youth-adult partnerships
A guide for crowdsourcing information – ensuring diverse and equitable information sharing
Strengths-based to promote self-determination and jumpstart intrinsic motivation to increase capacity to improve longer term outcomes
Flexible enough to meet the needs of youth at various developmental stages and abilities
Trauma-informed by meeting youth where they are in healing from trauma
Five SPARK Competencies
Story of Self / Personal Narrative
- Ability to tell parts of one’s story to protect self and others
- Ability to engage story to create connection and change
- Articulation of healing journey as a youth who experienced foster care
- Ability to shift from victim to survivor to thriver mindset
Purpose
- Ability to shift from recipient of service to serving others using lived experience
- Advocacy capacity to change the system and link with others to achieve meaningful goals
Attachment/Connectedness
- Ability to trust others, as appropriate and increased boundary-setting capacity
- Increased readiness for supportive peer and a strong social network
- Increase readiness for meaningful, intergenerational family-like relationships with supportive adults
Self-Regulation
- Articulate how trauma influences behaviors, attitudes, and responses to situations
- Increased coping and conflict-resolution skills
Knowledge of the System
- Increased knowledge of resources and how to access available resources for youth in foster care
- Increased understanding of community, legal, and federal policies related to child welfare
- Understanding of how foster care system design may have influenced outcomes of one’s case
- Understanding of the child welfare system and how it intersects with other systems
Implementation Examples
Ready to SPARK your work with young people?