Over 100 Beacon staff gathered on Tuesday, March 24th for the 3rd Annual Beacon Way Day, a professional development day by and for Beacon staff. It’s organized by Beacon Bridge, a citywide team of staff from each Beacon program, and any Beacon staff member can apply to lead workshops for their peers during the event. Workshops are developed in response to the needs of the field, resulting in innovative, effective, field-building professional development. This year there were workshops for line staff, case managers, site coordinators, directors, family support staff, and others, covering topics such as de-escalation in schools, school-day/after-school alignment, YPQA methods, professional development, youth leadership development, and family engagement.

The day also serves to build community among and celebrate Beacons. The day opened with a roll call and Beacon chant, and a competition for which team could build the best trophy out of recycled materials. See the gallery below for some of the finalists! After the opening, everyone attended two workshops and then came back together to reflect on the day. Attendees wrote postcards to their future selves that will be distributed later in the year, and completed evaluations. Some of the comments included:

• Great way to get Beacon sites to collaborate. I will take back various aspects of each presentation and ways our site can implement these strategies
• It was useful to hear other Beacon staff share their experiences and roles.
• Love to see all the Beacons together focusing on common practices
• I will definitely take back all the tools from the sessions and do my best to implement them
• Beacon Way Day is a great way to gain new info. I found this day full of information I can use
• The diversity of topics in the trainings was great
• Both workshops were extremely relevant and provided excellent ideas

Beacon Way Day is an integral part of how SFBI grows not just the next generation of accomplished youth leaders, but the next generation of youth development professionals who go on to spread the Beacon Way throughout the field. Thanks to Beacon Bridge for coordinating, to SF State for hosting, to Company Cater for the delicious food, and to all the Beacon staff who showed up to make the day a success!