How Outward Bound co-instructor relationships create a context for emotional support during stressful course situations.

Youth program leaders may experience considerable stress when they encounter emotionally demanding situations in their work. This stress can negatively affect their well-being or interfere with their ability to provide meaningful experiences for youth. Using Outward Bound (OB) youth expedition courses as a context, this study examined how co-instructors provided emotional support to instructors during stressful situations. Qualitative analysis of 31 OB instructor interviews showed co-instructors used three strategies: allowing instructors to momentarily exit the situation, validating instructors' emotions, and reframing negative situations. In addition, certain relationship factors facilitated the provision of support: building holistic relationships, establishing open communication patterns, and conveying commitment. The findings suggest that these factors increased instructors' perception of support availability, which facilitated them receiving support. This study makes a strong case for the value of co-worker relationships as a source of support for individuals in occupations where they experience emotionally stressful work situations.

How challenges and peers contribute to social-emotional learning in outdoor adventure education programs.

INTRODUCTION: Many youth development programs view adolescents' process of grappling with challenges as a major driver of social-emotional learning. Our goal was to understand these processes as experienced and enacted by youth. We focused on the program Outward Bound in the United States because its students experience significant physical and social challenges and it has well-developed staff practices for facilitating learning from challenges. METHODS: Group interviews were conducted with 32 youth (ages 14-18; 50% female), immediately following their completion of Outward Bound expedition courses. Students were asked to provide a detailed narrative account of an episode on course in which they learned from challenges. Grounded theory analyses identified three processes that contributed to learning. RESULTS: First, students, described developing skills for persistence through successfully enduring distress and a process of experimenting with new mindsets that helped them rise above their anxiety and distress. Second, we found that peers provided skillful and responsive on-the-spot support that motivated youth, helped them succeed, and scaffolded students' learning strategies for dealing with physical, social, and emotional challenges. Third, we found that this peer support and scaffolding was animated by a culture of compassion and mutual commitment, which was cultivated by staff and embraced by youth. CONCLUSIONS: These findings from Outward Bound illuminate a learning model that may be useful to other youth programs. This model combines intense challenges with attuned peer support for adolescents' active processes of addressing and learning from challenges. We highlight program structures and staff practices that support these processes.

Afterschool quality.

This chapter discusses efforts to define and improve the quality of afterschool services, highlighting areas of agreement and identifying leading-edge issues. We conclude that the afterschool field is especially well positioned to deliver high-quality services and demonstrate effectiveness at scale because a strong foundation has been built for continuous improvement of service quality.