Navajo Nation Council Delegate Germaine Simonson
WINDOW ROCK – The Navajo Division for Children and Family Services (NDCFS) partnered with Navajo Nation Council Delegate Germaine Simonson to “train the trainers” for upcoming Youth Leadership Training sessions to be hosted by the Division.
The Youth Leadership Trainings are a part of the NDCFS’s P.L. 102-477 Plan to reduce unemployment through workforce development and job training. This event in particular will address the goal in the Plan to improve the health and education of the community holistically and to protect and promote the welfare of Navajo children while promoting and preserving cultural teaching, cultural identity, and the Navajo language.
“The Division’s focus is to develop strong Navajo leaders who will move the Navajo Nation forward with a vision of healthy families. This is a call for unity for our children and families. They need our help now,” Thomas Cody, NDCFS Executive Director, said.
Train-the-trainer
The train-the-trainer model is a framework where a subject matter expert teaches a group of individuals how to train others on the subject. The purpose of this train-the-trainer session was for NDCFS staff, including training instructors, community involvement specialists, and others, to learn and adapt other Native youth leadership curriculum to incorporate Navajo language, culture, and teachings. In essence, NDCFS staff will help grow our future leaders.
Delegate Simonson has been working with NDCFS to put together a manual to train staff on how to facilitate the Youth Leadership Training sessions across the Navajo Nation.
One session that Simonson showed the staff involved identifying a problem and creating a superhero to address it. The staff took on the roles of students in coming up with creative solutions using their imaginations and arts and crafts supplies.
Staff from the Department of Family Services, Department for Self Reliance, Navajo Treatment Center for Children and Their Families, and the Office of the Executive Director learned the curriculum to facilitate the youth leadership trainings.
Youth Leadership Training
The interactive Youth Leadership Training is two and half days and rooted in traditional teachings, Delegate Simonson said. Stories about the first animal leaders and the mountains as leaders will be shared with the young participants.
“We’re going to follow a curriculum where we are going to do some work to find what are the issues and concerns in our communities. We’re also going to talk about the good things, what are our strengths, what good things do we have?” Simonson said.
She said youth will select top three challenges and make a plan for how they want to address them. Simonson is training the NDCFS staff to facilitate the Youth Leadership Trainings to accomplish this.
“The point is you’re finding some kind of solution to the problem and you’re going to do something about it,” she said. “You’re giving them all the tools they need to learn how to take action.”
“Youth as early as middle school have the ability to do this work and they rose to the challenge with our first training,” she said. Simonson and the NDCFS held the first Youth Leadership Training at Twin Arrows in September 2025, where about 50 youth between the ages of 9-18 participated.
That youth leadership event showed that youth are very insightful, creative, and intelligent. They are aware of community issues and stand ready to come with solutions, Marlinda Littleman, Delegated 477 Program Manager, said. “Our youth really just need our support so they can carry on who we are as Diné. Therefore, the work we are doing is very important as we are influencing and teaching young future leaders,” she said.
“It is believed that when taught at an early age, young children tend to learn, retain, and influence others. The concept is to teach young children how to become effective leaders while learning how to identify and address issues through the process of planning,” Littleman added.
Other topics at the upcoming Youth Leadership Trainings will include the clan system and the characteristics of and cultural teachings relating to the naat’áanii. Joseph Sandoval of Navajo Treatment Center for Children and Their Families will also be teaching the youth how to sing the mountain song in the Diné language.
NDCFS is recruiting children ages 9-18 years old for the Youth Leadership Trainings. The trainings are free for up to 30 youth at each site.
The tentative schedule for the Youth Leadership Trainings is as follows:
| June 8-10, 2026 | Navajo Preparatory School Farmington, NM |
| June 16-18, 2026 | Navajo Division of Transportation Tse Bonito, NM |
| June 29-July 1, 2026 | Navajo Technical University Crownpoint, NM |
| July 7-9, 2026 | Chinle High School Chinle, AZ |
| July 13-15, 2026 | New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology Socorro, NM |
For more information, contact Marlinda Littleman at mlittleman@ndcfs.org.
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