Each event, activity, or program must operate within certain parameters, be they financial or policy requirements. The youth professional must outline those outer limits to the teens. The banks are what give the river its direction and momentum. Without the banks there would be no movement. The riverbed itself may be several miles wide, but the banks still exist.
People have to learn new ways of thinking and working.
It does not come automatically. Let's take the fashion review as an example. Often teens do not follow through because they don't know what to do. Examine the role of the youth development professional. When the actual steps in the empowerment process are reviewed, the role of a youth development professional begins to sound much like that of a facilitator, a very different role for many people.