After five years of working with the internationally acclaimed Passport to Success (PTS) system of imparting life skills to at-risk young persons – first as a Trainer of youth, then as a Master Trainer teaching adults to be Trainers – Tameka Stanford has now qualified to be a PTS Master Coach. She explains:
“A Master Coach at a Trainer of Trainers (TOT) workshop can offer guidance and advice when various issues and challenges arise, and provides any support the Master Trainer may need.”
Tameka, who was one of the first local PTS Trainers, and later among the first group of four Master Trainers in Jamaica, is now the island’s first and only PTS Master Coach, and one of only four in the English speaking Caribbean.
The PTS Curriculum, developed by the International Youth Foundation (IYF), equips young people with a range of skills that will help them stay in school and acquire the education, professional skills, employment readiness and confidence they need to succeed in life and at the workplace. Its highly participatory approach employs a variety of innovative teaching methodologies rather than traditional, lecture based ones. Critical skills taught include self confidence, teamwork, communication, interpersonal skills, problem solving and decision making.
Tameka is especially appreciative of the unique aspects of this Curriculum, noting,
“I like the simplicity of it, and the fact that it’s applicable all over the world – that’s amazing. No matter where you are it’s easy to take it and insert it into your country, your culture, and it can reach the young people.”
In fact, Tameka is one of many adults working with the PTS Curriculum who report that in addition to the life changing benefits it brings to vulnerable youngsters, it also helps them as adults. Speaking at the June 27-30. 2022 Train the Trainer workshop at which she completed her practicum as a Master Coach, she shares her experience:
“I was doing administrative work at The MultiCare Youth Foundation in 2017, when the opportunity came up to train as a PTS Trainer under the New Employment Opportunities for Youth (NEO) Jamaica project. The MYF was the executing agency for NEO in Jamaica, so the training took place in the same space. The opportunity appealed to me because I wanted to expand my skills, while also getting to know more about young people. I have always been interested in young people; I did a lot of community work when I was much younger, even in my teens, I did a lot of volunteer work, with at risk young people. In fact, my work then as a mentorship project officer with the MYF developed out of volunteer work I had done at the MultiCare Foundation.
“As a result, that PTS training opportunity did appeal to me, and it would also help to raise my self esteem, I was very shy. I’m coming from being very reserved, very much in the background, and now I am not shy, I like that about myself, I have gained a new level of confidence, and my self esteem is far different from what it was. In fact, if you were to meet the old Tameka then, and Tameka today – it would be like two different Tamekas.
“So I did the first TOT (training as a Trainer), and the workshop was wonderful. I loved the energy. I was very motivated, especially because I delivered my practicum as a Trainer at Dunoon High School, my old school, with a group of young people exhibiting behavioural problems”.
Tameka recalls that although youngsters such as these might start out skeptical and reserved, she was able to create a bond with them. She reports that they loved what she was doing with them, liked the activities and participated. She was rewarded not only when many stayed the course of their workshop, but especially when she would notice them using what they had learned, and even passing on the lessons to their peers.
Becoming a Master Trainer in 2018 along with three other Trainers, Tameka says, brought a different set of challenges, but was just as rewarding.
“When we did our first workshop as Master Trainers,” she remembers, “It was scary, but at the same time, it showed me that I could do it. Training adults is rewarding. It’s rewarding to see that it works, and especially to see that they are receiving what is being shared with them. Because the adults that we train work with young people, and I’ve worked with young people, I still do, and so do the other Master Trainers, so we can relate. We are aware that there are a lot of similar issues, familiar problems that we have all experienced. It’s also great working with adults, as they are very interactive, they participate fully – and I love that about adults.
“It’s nice to see when we put together thoughts and ideas, that we can help to come up with solutions, and to know that the change goes further and I’m a part of it. So that’s looking at the macro picture, knowing that my little micro aspect contributes to that, so it’s lovely.”
Tameka adds that she is deeply grateful to those at the IYF who have produced such a versatile, far reaching tool for change. She says:
“It’s an amazing curriculum that they have designed.. I am very grateful because they have created so many opportunities…. Not just for young people and youth at risk, but for adult learners. the facilitators, persons who have to interact with and work with young people to help develop them to create a better tomorrow for everybody.
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Newly qualified Passport to Success (PTS) Master Coach Tameka Stanford (centre), takes part in one of the interactive teaching games used by the PTS Curriculum. Tameka is Jamaica’s first and only PTS Master Coach. As such, she provides critical support to the PTS Master Trainers who train adults as Trainers who impart important life skills to vulnerable young people.
Tameka Stanford (left), Jamaica’s first and only Passport to Success (PTS) Master Coach, receives a ‘thank you’ gift from MultiCare Youth Foundation Executive Director Alicia Glasgow Gentles, for supervising a PTS Train the Trainer workshop in June 2022.
