Development and Retention (Phase III)
Now that you have assembled a YAB, your focus will shift from planning your YAB to facilitation and retention. Retention means keeping your YAB members involved and meaningfully engaged. Throughout phase three we will focus on steps your organization can take to keep your members engaged and satisfied with their work and manage any conflict that may arise. Finally, we will conclude with how to continue recruiting members as needed, evaluating your YAB, and conducting YAB closure activities.
Supporting YAB Members
Supporting individual YAB members and the collective group is vital to sustaining a happy and functional board. Support starts with understanding the needs, wants, and goals of YAB members. Your YAB facilitators will oversee building these relationships and advocating for members. This relationship building should be worked into regular meetings, communications, and chances to talk with each of your members.
Some examples of how to build these relationships are:
- Co-creating expectations for members, facilitators, and speakers (guests).
- Discuss with members their personal and professional development goals.
- Being flexible and adaptable to the needs of the group.
- Starting each meeting with a group activity such as an icebreaker.
- Having regular meetings.
As human beings, we all encounter challenges, emergencies, and bad days. For young adults – especially those living with mental health conditions – these challenges and bad days may be more intense and more frequent.
As a YAB facilitator, it is important to show empathy and compassion to members but also set clear boundaries on what your role entails. Some examples of how to do this are:
- DO understand if a YAB member needs to miss a meeting due to mental health.
- DO listen and be supportive when a YAB member shares their lived experience with mental health in a meeting.
- DO set and maintain clear boundaries around communication (e.g., not answering emails outside of work hours, only discussing YAB-related content, and only providing cell phone numbers if comfortable).
- DO NOT try to serve as the primary support of a YAB member – you may lack clinical training and your facilitator role does not include providing services.
- DO NOT compromise your own mental health by not honoring your boundaries.
It is important for the success of the YAB to be clear in your boundaries and role as a facilitator, not a service provider, family member, or friend.
