CEF YouthWise™

The CEF YouthWise Program seeks to teach young people how to apply Creative Problem Solving to make positive changes in their own lives and to collaborate with youth and adults in their schools and communities to solve challenges creatively and for the common good.

CEF YouthWise is an outreach program of the Creative Education Foundation, addressing two of its key focus areas:

• Creative education and youth, and
• Creative communities and cities.

CEF YouthWise offers children and youth an experiential introduction to the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Process and the principles of Applied Imagination and creativity. Its purpose is to provide participants with the tools, strategies and techniques of CPS so they can apply them proactively to challenges in their lives, their schools and their communities. CEF YouthWise is presented by qualified CEF leaders, members and teachers.

Take a look at our pilot project at the Paul Roos Akademie in Stellenbosch, South Africa

The CEF YouthWise Program may be used in a wide variety of settings and formats to teach young people creative thinking and the creative problem solving process and to help them use these skills and ideas to make a positive difference in their own lives, their communities and the wider world.  The following briefly outlines the curriculum content and outcomes within the program.

• Developing Personal Creativity: Individually identify ways you see yourself as creative and ways you would like to expand your creativity.
• Creative Thinking and Problem Solving: Learn the steps of the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model. Deepen understanding of CPS by facilitating others in using the process. (We learn more when we teach something to others.)
• Effective Communication: Learn about how to communicate in a way that facilitates other people’s learning and understanding.
• Leadership Development: Identify and use the skills of facilitation by leading others through the CPS process.
• Application of Learning: Participants will use the CPS process in their own lives – in meeting challenges as well as in planning and completing school projects.