Karen Pittman Podcast: Please Speak Freely

Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment sat down with Eric Gurna, Executive Director of Development Without Limits to talk about the importance of "low-stakes accountability" strategies for encouraging rigorous practice while still letting creativity and risk-taking thrive.  Listen to Pittman and Gurna discuss youth development, out of school time, and more in this fascinating podcast. 

Here's how Gurna described the conversation:

"I got to sit down with Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment and a national leader and advocate for positive youth development. Ms. Pittman has received many awards and has advised the top levels of government, foundations and nonprofits on how to create programs and policies that promote the values of youth development and address the holistic needs of young people and communities. We had a great conversation about the importance of "low-stakes accountability" strategies for encouraging rigorous practice while still letting creativity and risk-taking thrive, as well as the range of challenges facing the field today.

"Ms. Pittman was refreshingly reflective about how the youth development field could frame the issues in a way that connects with people, and insightful about the language that she now prefers. She also talks about how the OST field can educate and support the regular classroom, and vice versa. Ms. Pittman will be the keynote speaker at the Bridge Conference in Seattle, WA next week, where I will also be presenting a session that screens the documentary,  Race to Nowhere. Hope to see you there!

"This episode of Please Speak Freely is sponsored by the School's Out Washington Bridge to Afterschool and Back Conference, happening on October 17-18 in Seattle Washington. Come to the Bridge Conference to connect, act and transform!"

Highlight quotes from Karen Pittman:

"If I had to roll the clock back, I would question the language that we selected around youth development ... When we're talking to folks outside the youth development field--and we don't even have to be far out of the field, we could be talking to educators or health providers--  somehow in early childhoood development we were able to think about early childhood development holistically, and recognize intuitively that if were going to develop children, we have to pay attention to cognitive, social, civic, emotional, all together as a package. I think because by the time we get to school age and older, once we hit the formal education system, the academic piece has such prominecence that its been difficult to have a conversation about youth development in the same way we had a conversation about early childhood devleopment, in which the cognitive development of youth people is in one piece."

Check it out at the link directly below!