Healthy Schools Engage Students as Partners

Today is the last day of the Weight of the Nation conference here in Washington, DC. I'm beginning my day at a session called "Raising a Healthy Generation One School at a Time." The panel (this conference is all panels) includes Jessica Donzes Black from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, who has a student-driven program called empowerME; Howell Wechsler, the head of the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the CDC, which funds my work at the the WA state Dep't of Health; and Robert Bisceglie, who is with Action for Healthy Kids, which runs a student-driven program called Students Taking Charge, and for whom I am the co-chair of WA's team.

This is yet another session where we're hearing about students without actually having students involved, either as speakers or participants. Let me be clear that I'm not entirely against that; rather, I challenge that by routinely excluding young people from these conversations we're broadcasting our true intentions. In this case it is clear that we, as the adult decision-makers and implementers of obesity programs in schools, intend to do *for* students, not *with* them.

Of all people, after almost 10 years of working and partnering with WA's state education agency and K-12 schools across the country, I understand that is the norm in schools. However, in the field of public health there seems to be a frequent awareness about equity. Our outreach to students must incorporate student/adult partnerships and youth/adult equity as a primary mode of operation.

Healthy schools are more than beacons of physical fitness and nutrition. Instead, they're safe and supportive and engaging environments that systematically seek to grow and expand the relationships all learners have with learning. Engaging students as partners is the key to creating those places. Research has shown the outcomes go beyond obesity and get to the core of healthy choices, healthy lifestyles and other steps to successful students and lifelong learners, not to mention active democrats and civic agents. Why are we waiting?


-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

Four Walls to Youth Voice

Why create systems that exclude youth voice? There is a growing consensus that engaging youth as parnters is vital to successfully working with children and youth as partners. So why are there still nonprofit organizations, private foundations, government agencies and other institutions throughout society that aren't actively engaging youth as partners?

I'm here at day two if the CDC's Weight of the Nation conference, and right now I'm listening to a presentation on community organizing. I'm here to hear Yvonne Garrett talk about engaging youth as evaluators in a San Diego program focused on policy and environmental change. It's making me wonder why, after all these years of change, we still have ignorance and resistance to engaging youth as partners throughout society.

I'm going to boil it down to four primary barriers, or walls to Youth Voice:

1. Awareness. Everyone needs to learn about the necessity of youth engagement. Parents need to learn that engaging their children at home and throughout community is vital. Teachers, youth workers, politicians and others need to discover why young people are key partners in their work.

2. Skills. It's important to acknowledge that the ability to engage youth isn't born into all youth allies. Instead, there is a unique set of skills that must be learned, including active listening, systems advocacy, deliberative allyship, and so on.

3. Opportunities. There is no limit to different ways to engage young people as partners: research, planning, teaching, evaluation, decision-making and advocacy are how I describe the tip of a very large iceberg. We need institutions throughout society to see children and youth as more than the simple targets or recipients of our services. Instead, we need to see young people as effective and sustainable partners in our social change efforts.

4. Resources. Fancy programs, long books and powerful research abounds, each demanding the attention of folks trying to make positive headway in this work. However, accessing these tools can be hard for poor families, underfunded organizations and under-resourced agencies. We need to put tools in the hands of the people who actually DO this work.

Identifying these barriers is a means to an end: we must identify and share lessons learned in addressing them. Only in this way can we begin to construct deliberate cultures that support youth engagement throughout society. I want to do nothing less.

-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Learn more at The Freechild Project and SoundOut websites.

Youth Engagement: Support People or Change Systems?

The "golden mean" of the youth engagement movement has been seen as systemization for at least ten years, and I have been a proponent the entire time, at times leading that movement and at times following. Today I'm wondering if I have been on the wrong path.

Somewhere along the way I learned that the charismatic, energetic and enthusiastic youth worker wasn't enough. I came to believe that those of us who have the ability to draw young people out of their reticence were somehow anamolous and inherently flawed: rather than having a "gift" or some type of special ability, we are marked with some "X" that acts as a blight for sustainably engaging children and youth, because one person being able to do something is inherently unsustainable.

I came to believe that it can't be all about us, these workers who have this ability. Instead, it must be about transforming systems in order to realign organizational priorities to focus on youth engagement. I came to understand that these single individuals are inherently going to be the "work horses" of youth engagement; instead of focusing on meeting their needs, we must focus on the larger systems surrounding their work. This is partially what has driven me from spending my time on the single-user focus of the Freechild Project website to working within the Washington State Department of Health, this desire to change the systems that affect youth workers rather than support youth workers directly. Today is catching me wondering why.

There is a dearth of adults whom fit the criteria of being able to successfully engage young people. These people must be:

• Authentically and genuinely committed to engaging young people
• Humble and determined enough to actually learn directly from young people
• Motivated and intentional in their professional and personal lives to sustain youth engagement

I never believed it was wrong or incorrect to be these ways; rather, I came to believe it was the systems these folks work in that need transformed to better sustain and nurture these traits, and to build and develop them within people who don't already have them.

But all these years after researching and training, watching organizations wax and wane, and seeing systems change slowly disintegrate in the face of massive governmental budget reductions and foundation giving dissolve, I'm not so convinced that systems change is the way to go.

This is me considering where I'm at, where our movement is at, and where to go next. Let me know what you think.

Youth at Conferences

This week I'm attending the CDC's Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, DC. The first of it's kind, this morning President Bill Clinton spoke and recieved an award for the development of his Alliance for a Healthier Generation. The rest of the conference is chock full of researchers, policy makers, and government officials promoting public health as a way to challenge obesity.

This event is exclusively for adults. The participants here are government-funded, like myself, as well as nonprofit, academic, and private sector. While I'm interested in the topics here, my head feels like a match head, flaring with issues related to the exclusion of young people from this event.

Some early questions, which I think apply to all conferences, include:
* What does the routine exclusion of 26% of the population tell that population? What does it tell the other 74%?
* How does the efficacy of youth-inclusive conferencing compare to non-youth inclusive conferencing, both on young people themselves and on the larger field represented at the conference?
* What are the factors motivating adults to routinely excluding young people from conferences?
* What transitions need to be made to motivate the mass meaningful inclusion of young people throughout academic, social, cultural, educational, political and other fields?

Ultimately this issue isn't about conferences, as they are merely a mechanism for delivering messaging. And that gets to the larger issue at hand: we need to change the very way we communicate social change throughout society in order to relay the imperative necessity of meaningful youth involvement. Let's start now at conferences like this.


-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

Are Youth Allowed On Nonprofit Boards?

A board of directors is a legally-designated decision-making body in a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that is charged with establishing and maintaining an organization. They set the goals and objectives of the organization and maintain the authority to govern the organization throughout its existence.

Can youth participate in nonprofit boards of directors? It depends. In the United States the right for youth to create or participate in the boards of directors is made at the state level, so that what holds true in California may not be the same in Florida, and so forth.

In 2007 I co-authored a book with Youth On Board out of Boston called "15 Points To Successfully Involving Young People In Decision-Making." In that book there is a table (pp 113-114) that provides a state-by-state analysis of the laws that effect youth involvement on boards. Eight of 50 US states disallow people under 18 from being on their boards of directors. In the other 42 states there is no specific age for directors specified in state law. Nine different states disallow young people from incorporating nonprofit organizations.

Want to know more about your state? Ask me specifically, or buy a copy of the book for yourself.

Top 10 Youth Voice Publications

There is a lot of chatter out there about listening to youth, engaging young people, and promoting meaningful youth involvement. But sometimes it is hard to find resources that value what you think and feel as someone committed to young people and social change.

Following are the Top 10 Youth Voice publications I have found through December 2006. They come from across the spectrum of youth voice, and each values diversity, transformation, and community. I have included a separate list of my own publications at the bottom for your use, and indicates free download. I'll update this list again soon - Let me know what you think I should add!

10 Creating Better Cities With Children and Youth by David Driskell. This UNESCO publications provides examples and activities that can help young people become engaged throughout their communities. It gives youth participation a global perspective by contextualizing young peoples' engagement within an international movement for citizen engagement. The tools within this booklet cover a variety of topics, and can be useful across the board.

9 Youth Voices in Community Design Handbook by The California Center for Civic Engagement and Youth Development. This is a spectacular, free how-to guide on getting youth involved in local policy making and community planning. While its really specific to community planning, this handbook provides a step-by-step guide to youth engagement and is supported by an extensive online library of articles and activities that can be used by any

youth voice group.

8 Occasional Paper No. 01: An Emerging Model for Working with Youth: Community Organizing + Youth Development = Youth Organizing by LISTEN, Inc. This paper would blow away the populist youth voice "effort" if people actually read it. It explores the influences of community organizing and youth development on youth organizing; describes a continuum that identifies different levels and models of youth engagement; and outlines the fundamentals of youth organizing: its processes, guiding principles, practices and impacts.

7 Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century by N. Welton and L. Wolf. Another book to wake up the so-called "youth voice movement". This book moved my insides by sharing the stories of the new global youth movement for peace and justice. People are telling their own stories and sharing their own work through Told through personal narratives, poster art, poetry, photographs, and interviews with new and seasoned activists. Global Uprising captures the spirit of youth activism and honors young people's power to effect serious change.

6 Best Practices in Youth Philanthropy by Pam Garza and Pam Stevens for the Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth. This is the mother of all youth voice resources, in that it provides everything that anyone needs to know about youth voice in this particular area. It should be a blueprint for other books to follow.

5 What Works in Youth Participation? Case Studies from around the world by Sylvia Golombeck. This report asks a variety of interesting questions that contextualize youth voice in the global setting. By reaching across interest areas, this shares “what works” in many different areas, in many different ways. It is also written by authors of different ages - something most publications can't claim.

4 Future 500: Youth Organizing and Activism in the United States by J. Kim, M. de Dios, P. Caraballo, et al. Features analysis of the modern youth movement, interviews with 25 young people changing the world, and profiles of 500 of the most important youth-led organizations across the country. It also includes statistics on youth organizations, listings of youth-friendly foundations and national networks, and amazing art from the movement.

3 Knock-Your-Socks-Off: Training Teens to be Successful Activists by Wendy Lesko. A great introduction to training for youth voice. Comprehensive, easy, and approachable in a way that a lot of manuals dream of being.

2 15 Points to Successfully Involving Youth on Boards by Youth on Board. This is the essential guide to youth involvement in decision-making for organizations and individuals. Focuses on YoB's popular method for youth participation, giving needed tips and success stories throughout. Includes a rationale, steps to follow, and assessments for your organization.

1 Youth Voice Begins With You! by Jennifer Kurkoski, Karla Markendorf And Norma Straw for the Washington Youth Voice Project. Provides a far-reaching introduction to youth voice & involvement, including useful tips and trainings. This is the original framework that a lot of organizations adapted in their own programs and publications. Unfortunately, the Washington Youth Voice Project is defunct, and this manual is now unavailable - but do not despair! The Freechild Project worked with our local partners to recreate this fine work as the Washington Youth Voice Handbook!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Younger Voices, Stronger Choices: Promise Project's Guide to Forming Youth/Adult Partnerships by Michael McLarney and Loring Leifer. An old-school original that it seems like everyone has borrowed from. This book is an important primer on youth participation in meaningful ways. This is the foundational text for many other books on youth involvement.

Building Community: A Tool Kit for Youth and Adults in Charting Assets and Creating Change by The Innovation Center. This publication incorporates ideas and tools from a variety of sources to make it possible for individuals and groups everywhere to bring an inclusive, asset-based approach to creating positive change in their community. Filled with detailed information and case studies, it gives users what they need to create youth adult partnerships and lasting community youth development.

Youth as Equal Partners by Wendy Lesko and Adam Kendall for United Way of Amerca. This is a comprehensive, easy-to-use manual that provides a hyper-useful introduction to youth voice and involvement.

Bomb the Suburbs by William Upski Wimsatt. This book served as a manifesto and call-to-arms for my generation of youth activists who live in cities. The author is now a renown thinker of this generation, and this, his booming clarion call, sounds the charge with analysis, weaponry, and empowerment for today's youth activists.

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How To Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewelyn. "Your life, time, and brain should belong to you, not to an institution." Another dangerous wake-up call for youth voice advocates. This book is a "how-to" on youth voice for young people who want control over their own lives. Details all the issues surrounding learning from life instead of schools, including the legal implications, dealing with adults and learning once outside school. The final section includes stories about what people have done with their lives after they bail out of school.

The Abandoned Generation: Democracy Beyond the Culture of Fear by Henry Giroux. Offers a vital and critical critique of the US political and popular culture 's influence on the lives of young people. In this controversial book, Giroux argues that there's a war on in the US these days against young people.

More Than Service: Philadelphia Students Join a Union to Improve Their Schools by What Kids Can Do. This is the story of PSU, a group of students working citywide to promote a youth-created, youth-driven agenda for school and community improvement.

Youth Rights Library by NYRA by collection of research-based and opinion papers by authors around the world on various topics included in youth rights.

Student Voices Count: A Student-Led Evaluation of High Schools in Oakland. by REAL HARD. This is smooth. In 2003, students in Kids First Oakland's REAL HARD program conducted their own youth voice in schools project, designing and collecting 1,000 report card surveys evaluating teaching, counseling, school safety and facilities at three Oakland high schools. The students compiled their findings, analyzed the results, and made concrete recommendations to improve the schools in this exciting, comprehensive report.

Don't Listen!

Okay, it would be better to say, "Don't JUST listen." Over the last 10 years I've had the privilege of watching the field of youth involvement and youth engagement grow. However, a disturbing trend is emerging where Youth Voice campaigns are increasingly designed to simply *listen* to Youth Voice. As i've said before, it's not enough, and ethical practitioners, parents and teachers shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Instead of setting up another online forum or town hall or youth editorial section in the newspaper, ethically responsible adults seek to actively engage every young person in critical social action designed to create powerful, positive democracy. Learn more about going beyond simply listening at http://www.freechild.org/YouthVoice/cycle.htm


-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com

Writing History

You've heard the adage "History is written by the winners." Reading through the social history of the US only confirms that according to the dicotomy eastablished by that old saying, youth are history's losers. Fortunately for history students today that isn't true, and with a little digging you can learn a lot from young people in the past.

I think researching the ways young people have changed society throughout history is a complicated, but not impossible thing. What do you think?


-- This is Adam Fletcher's blog originally posted at http://www.YoungerWorld.org. For more see http://www.bicyclingfish.com