jobs 4 youth work- free team building resources for youth workers & those working with young people

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Team Building

Team building resources for youth workers and those working with young people

Aim: To find out more about participants hobbies, families etc. and to show connections among participants

Materials: Enough space in the room for making a circle of participants, it can be done with or without chairs

There is no big explanation needed. The facilitator invites the participants to share smaller or bigger “secrets” or interesting information about themselves (hobbies, family, etc). The facilitator can start him/herself telling that on his/her left side shall sit/stand a person who likes Jazz music and on the right side shall sit a person who has 1 brother just like the facilitator. Then participants are welcome to sit/stand in the places next to the facilitator if they have such interests or things in common. It might happen that people "fight” for the places, but there is only one participant on either end of the facilitator. The new persons can then mention one charactarastic or secret that links another participant to their free side. if nobody shares this particular characteristic, another characteristic should be chosen untill one of the remaining participants shares this characteristic.
In a small reflection at the end the facilitator can make the point that the whole group made a one circle where everybody has something in common with somebody else form the group

Smartie Hunt - a game of team building, building leadership confidence.

- For groups of ten to thirty dependent on the room size.
- Before the session hide the smarties around the room.
- Split the group into two or more teams - ideally 5-7 per team - and have each group appoint a leader or facilitator choose.
- Write down on pieces of paper the names of as many animals as there are team members. Animals should be those associated with recognizable noises, eg., pig, horse, cow, donkey, snake, duck, chicken, monkey, frog, etc. (For very large groups you can double the number of available animals by prefacing each one 'little'/'large', or 'mummy'/'daddy', and stipulate that the noises should differ accordingly - high and low of course...)
- First have each team member take a piece of paper which shows the animal they are to play in the game. The object of the game is for team members to find the hidden smarties, and direct their leader to them by making their own animal noise (actions are entirely optional in this game)
- The team leader who collects the most smarties wins the game for their team. Team leaders are not allowed to look for smarties. Team leaders are not allowed to follow the sounds of animals belonging to other teams, but opposing team members areallowed to follow sounds of animals of other teams, and then to make their own noises on seeing the smarties.
- his game requires leaders to remember which animals are in their teams, so a minute can be permitted for this before starting the game. You can also allow a couple of minutes for teams to prepare game tactics, although this is not essential.
- Give a time limit

REDS AND BLUES - a game of negotiation & trust

AIM: To get the highest score possible but NOT to beat opposing team. (this must be stressed!)

DESC:

Split the group into two teams put into separate rooms /areas where they cannot talk together.
They have to pick either red or blue.
If both pick blue each team gets 3 points.
If one picks red and the other blue then the red team gets 6 points and the blue get 0.
If both pick red then both teams loses 3 points.
Once each team has chosen then they are told what the other team has chosen.

Three rounds are played like this then 1 person from each team is picked as a negotiator to agree with the other team for the next three rounds. The teams do not have to stick to this agreement.
After a further 3 rounds then the negotiators meet again to agree for the next three.
And once more before the final round.
The final round is worth 10 times the score and the one before that 5 times the score.

This game can be used to demonstrate WIN/WIN situations and the issues of trust.e.g if one team changed to red on the last but one go because they did not trust the other team, then they may have to spend the rest of the time trying to regain the trust of the other team!

SAVE THE EGG

AIM: Team building

MATERIALS :
An egg, two balloons. sellotape, some elastic bands, two straws and four pieces of paper.(per group), prize?

DESC:
Split the group into small teams.
Allow 20 mins for each group to make a 'vehicle' to carry the egg.
The 'vehicle' should be strong enough to withstand a 15 foot drop onto a hard surface.
Prize can be awarded for most succesful team.
Group dynamics/processes can be discussed after.

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