All young people can be engaged fully and wholly, everyday in every way. I have spent a career promoting the concept of an engaged world for all people, especially children and youth. Studying others practices, conducting research, and doing my work, I have come to define youth engagement as the sustained connections young people have to the world within and around them. I teach individuals, organizations, and communities that becoming engaged in any way affects everybody. … Read More
Planning afterschool programs for children and youth is tricky. Stuck without enough time to plan or strict guidelines for curriculum delivery, afterschool program workers can feel powerless over what they do with the young people they serve. In my own experience working in the field for more than a decade, I had this experience continually. In the last decade, I’ve worked with more than 200 nonprofits across the US to help them re-envision program … Read More
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” In an earlier post, I entertained the idea that afterschool programs should teach young people to advocate for themselves. While that sentiment was well-meaning, the essence of Dr. King’s call was that each of us, as living, breathing, sentient beings, has … Read More
Every day, young people around the world—including Pittsburgh and all of Allegheny County—struggle to connect in meaningful ways to the world around them. They’re yanked on and dragged around by the adults in the lives, being sent to school, dropped off in afterschool programs, made to come to dinner, forced to kiss their great aunt Bertha… They struggle to make those connections meaningfully. In the meantime, businesses are marketing products to children and youth … Read More
A lot of people are increasingly concerned with how to more successfully engage children and youth in afterschool programs. After working with young people in afterschool programs for a decade, I started consulting organizations about youth engagement in 1997. In the last 15+ years, I’ve worked with more than 500 nonprofits nationwide. From my own work and working with others, I have learned that one of the most important ways to promote youth voice and … Read More
Nike, Levi’s, and a lot of other brands that sell things to youth have realized that the secret to marketing to youth is personalization: Let them help design it, and young people will spend a lot for it. At the same time, many websites allow young users to develop sophisticated personal profiles, letting them connect their friends, identify with organizations and causes they want to be affiliated with, and personalize the look and operation of … Read More
Talking with groups of young people around the country, this spring I’ve been asking youth what is essential for them to become engaged in youth programs. Over 100 young people from urban and rural communities, low-income and working class neighborhoods, on the East and West coasts of the U.S., responded. Here are some ways they said adults could engage them. 8 Practical Ways Afterschool Workers Can Engage Youth Be ALIVE. Having a passionate … Read More
In afterschool programs, its important to consider all the different ways young people experience things they’re involved in. Decades of teaching people about youth engagement has taught me there are different ways young people experience their lives. Each different way is responsive to the situation young people find themselves in. These types of experiences should be clarified before we talk about youth engagement directly. Types of Youth Experience I am … Read More
On, April 4, 2013 — Officials of YouthWorks, Inc., and Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania jointly announced the merger of the two human services organizations effective July 1, 2013. Based in downtown Pittsburgh, YouthWorks has been a free-standing youth workforce development agency since 1999. It will now function as a program of Goodwill and continue to operate all of its career exploration and job readiness training programs for at-risk youth. “We are very excited and pleased to … Read More
There are less than 24 hours until the April Symposium on safety and security. If you’re still not registered, check out the panel bios below. They’re definitely some experts worth hearing from! Click here to register. Toya Jones is a licensed therapist conducting individual, as well as group therapy with children, adolescents, young adults, couples and families at the Center for Victims in Pittsburgh. She has been addressing the needs of children and families … Read More
