YSA – Youth Success Academy

Youth Success Academy (YSA) is education, not school. At least not in the traditional sense.

The goal is to provide the tools, skills and experience that youth need to succeed in these ever-changing times. YSA is a complement to school, jobs and life with a curriculum to support you in the soft-skills that provide a valuable foundation for staying on track to have an exceptional career. Much of the information is the SIWIKE (Stuff I Wish I Knew Earlier) or the information that I wish I was taught in school. You might be familiar with the SIWIKE and just need help to find more and other resources. Or it might be “stuff you didn’t know you needed to know”. Many take these topics for granted as something they “should” do. Though should isn’t necessarily a great word if you’re not the one that actually wants to do it.

The YSA hopes to catalyze and inspire you.

For those that are lost in your career, we provide tactical and practical advice and actionable guidance to get you back on track.

For those that have a sense of what you want to do, we provide tools and techniques to help accelerate your journey and “level up your mistakes” (i.e. by learning from our mistakes, you can make better, higher-level mistakes).

For those that know exactly what you want to do, well the YSA might not be so helpful, though it may point out a few blind-spots in your thinking and actions.

The primary areas are Job Hunt, Careers, Life/Growth with sub-areas below:

• Job Hunt: helping you navigate the anxiety-inspiring job hunt which everyone will at some point encounter
  • Job hunt and work experience basics
  • Resumes
  • Interviews (with supplemental Interview Confidence Club
  • Networking and Building Meaningful Connections with supplemental Network Confidence Club
  • LinkedIn
  • Job Hunt Troubleshooting
  • Professionalism: for when you do land the job
  •  Entrepreneurship
  • Career Document
• Careers: finding fulfillment in what you do
  • Purpose: exercises and concepts
• Life/Growth: living and growing into the best version of you
  • Mindset: This one needs a section of its own
  • Personal Growth
    • Physical Health
    • Financial Health
    • Relationship Health
    • Learning
  • Professional Growth
    • Productivity
    • Professionalism
    • Promotion

We continue to add, refine, regroup and rearrange these topic areas to better reflect the areas that we feel people could benefit from understanding

We have developed the KAI model (Knowledge, Action, Improvement). You start with acquiring KNOWLEDGE by watching videos and other resources. You’ll turn the knowledge into power by doing exercises and activities as your ACTION. Then you’ll constantly IMPROVE with periodic check-ins.

The goal is to offer the information through self-service e-learning to start.

Then to provide live workshops which are meant to be bite-sized (typically 45, 60 or 90 minutes), accessible (in-person, virtual, recorded), and actionable (tactical tips and tricks with a plan of action as an outcome).

Then perhaps in-person and more on-going sessions to ensure

Then we pair that with Confidence Club (CC) groups to provide accountability and follow up to see if you’ve taken the action you had planned so that we can build a community around career success

Enroll in the YSA here: https://ysa.focusinspired.com/

Find upcoming YSA events here:  https://pwyc.corpu.ca/search?s=ysa 

Also published on Medium.