Brainstorming Ideas

The goal of completing a brainstorming activity is to have the youth team consider what’ s going on in their community and to think outside the box. As a result of their brainstorming, they will have a list of community issues that they believe affect youth. This brainstorming could help with identifying the issue or range of issues that their CNA covers.

Brainstorming can take place in various ways, and the approach taken should be whatever works best for the team. Let the youth decide on the format they want to use and get brainstorming!

Get sticky notes, have the youth write as many ideas as they can on them, and stick them up where everyone can see them. Next, help them organize the sticky notes into clusters of similar ideas and then discuss each as a group. This allows them to record their own personal ideas while also having a visual while working with the rest of their team. You can also provide the youth with a time limit to help them stay on track.

Assign a teammate to take notes to record everyone ’ s thoughts and have everyone take turns sharing their ideas. You can ask someone to share an idea, have the team pause and discuss it, and move on to the next teammate ’ s idea. To ensure everyone is involved, encourage everyone to share at least once, but allow teammates to share as many ideas as possible.

Give them 10-15 seconds to write an issue down and ask them to pass the paper on to the next person until everyone has written an idea. The time constraint will force them to write down the first idea that comes to their mind, which they may have thought wasn ’t “ good enough. ”

Leading this Activity

Here are a few suggestions for brainstorming:

1.

2. Have a group discussion.

3. Have the team sit in a circle and give one teammate a piece of paper to start with.