Regional Urban and Community Froestry Train-the-Trainer Sessions for Youth Corps Staff (NA-98-0255)

Regional urban forestry training sessions and evaluation.

The National Association of Service and Conservation Corps conducted a series of intensive, hands-on training sessions for senior staff of youth conservation and service corps, in cooperation with host local corps, urban foresters, and citizen forestry groups. The four regional training sessions prepared 85 representatives of corps and cooperating community groups to play a larger role than at present in urban and community forestry nationwide, through pursuit of projects and partnerships at the local level. In addition, the training sessions better equipped corps to expose corps members to best practices in urban and community forestry, thus to prepare youth and young adults to become part of the professional and volunteer forestry workforce of the future. After-the-fact evaluations confirmed that the training sessions: 1) Built informal regional networks of corps staff working in the UCF field; 2) Spawned significant numbers of follow-up training sessions at corps sites nationwide, and additional corps member interest in the field -- some corps members have already secured internships and employment; and 3) Participating corps are laying the groundwork for greater expansion into urban and community forestry projects, are building technical and community relations skills, and are improving the working relationships between corps and forestry groups.

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