Last weekend at the Oxford Belfry Hotel, Oxford, Tribe held its first ever Youth Professionals Network conference. ‘Engage 2014’, a three day event, was attended by over 25 Youth Professionals working within the United Synagogue’s communities. The Scholar in Residence for the weekend was Rabbi Steven Burg, Eastern Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Former International Director of NCSY who spoke on how to inspire, engage and empower our youth.
Guest speakers at the conference included Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Stephen Pack, President of the United Synagogue.
Participants during a session
The conference saw the creation of the Youth Professionals’ Network an initiative to encourage ongoing support and knowledge sharing amongst youth professionals. The conference itself focused on building the leadership, organisational and other skills of the US’ youth professionals and highlighting all the ways in which Tribe can support them in their work.
The weekend was packed with a variety of creative and interactive programmes from how to build a successful year round youth programme and running successful youth services to inspiring pre university students and fostering new and improved local networks.
David Collins, Executive Director of Tribe said: “We are delighted with the fantastic success of Tribe’s inaugural – Engage, Youth Professionals Conference. The ideas and experience sharing that has happened this weekend is priceless. We want to make sure that all those working with our young people have the tools they need to engage with the youth in their communities. Tribe is here to do everything it can to help them achieve this.”
Jonny Fishel commented at the end of the weekend: “The interactive format of this conference was extremely helpful to me as a youth professional. Hearing from such great speakers and sharing ideas has given me a real boost. I am looking forward to continuing peer support through the newly created Engage Conference.”
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