A recent study published by researchers at Harvard shows that “parental warmth” has a positive impact on people’s well-being in adulthood. While this may seem self-evident, it is interesting to see the research that backs up an assumption many of us make – that positive adult interactions early in life contribute to positive outcomes later in life.

Those of you who work with children and youth will recognize this immediately as an underlying tenet of both Youth Development and Social and Emotional Learning practices. These frameworks both explicitly aim to create warm, caring environments in schools and youth programs. Simple practices like knowing every student’s name, saying “Hello, I’m glad you’re here” to each child you greet, or making time to welcome your whole group at the beginning of your time together through a game or song are just a few of the many ways I have seen this done.

But it is still not happening everywhere. This is where Transformational Facilitation comes in: The only way to ensure that staff and parents/caregivers are creating warm environments for their students and children is to model that warmth in our interactions with them as supervisors and facilitators. And that is my challenge to you with this post. Make it your practice to do some or all of the following at your next staff meeting or engagement, thinking about how this modeling might affect the way your staff interact with students.

1. Make an effort to introduce yourself to anyone you don’t know who enters the meeting or engagement (by the way, you can do this even if you are not the facilitator!). Ask a few questions like their name, where they work, who they work with, why they showed up here today, etc. Spend as much time as you can getting to know who is in the room, then use people’s names and any information you know about them throughout the engagement. The key idea is “I’m glad you’re you and I’m glad you’re here.”
    
2. Smile. You may not have time to introduce yourself fully to each person, but you can at least acknowledge their presence through a smile and nod. Aim to be set up and ready before people start arriving so that when they step through the door you are able to be present and show them that “I see you and you make me happy.” Throughout the engagement, notice your facial expressions. Are you radiating that smile still, or has it capitulated into a frown?

3. Before launching into “business,” allow time for people to welcome and share with each other. For example, you can have them each share one way they help people feel welcomed, or a way they show kindness or caring for their children or the youth they work with. The main purpose here is to exchange on ideas on how we communicate “I am here to support you.”

4. Notice your body language. For example, keep your arms by your sides, uncrossed; face people fully when they are speaking; stand in front of any podium or table that is between you and participants; put your phone away and look up instead; and nod as people are speaking to acknowledge you are hearing them. Our body language communicates, “Your presence is important to me and puts me at ease.”

5. Provide positive feedback. Laugh with people; support their comments with a “Yes!” “Exactly,” or “Thank you for sharing that important thought;” or even hand out raffle tickets, stickers, or prizes when people share their opinions, to keep it fun and project “I connect with your thoughts and ideas and they matter to me.”

I am sure you can come up with other suggestions to add to this list! You can also find lots of ideas in our Spark Decks including Facilitation Foundations, Building Social and Emotional Skills, and Reflection Prompts for Youth decks, to name a few.

Try it out and let me know if you feel more warmth in your engagements and programs!