The How and Why of Youth Development in CTCs

Adults often ask me to explain how our community technology center ( CTC) is effective. But the young people of YouthMAP don't need an explanation because they are an integral part of the center. They understand that the whole point of our CTC is their development. Trina, our 12-year-old assistant teacher, said it best, "You love to watch us grow." She understands our success is not about the new iMacs, the color printer, or the flashy Flash piece produced by one of her eight-year-old students. Trina knows our CTC is all about youth growth and development because she is part of what makes it happen.

In this article, I want to share how we've focused our CTC, emphasizing community over technology, involving individuals instead of serving a population, refusing to sacrifice the richness of the learning process for the sake of a sexy product. How did Trina come to recognize the real goal of our program? How did our CTC compete successfully for Trina's attention against hanging out at the mall or watching TV? What about our CTC interested Trina enough for her to invest her time and herself?

The answer lies within Trina's and her cohorts' journeys in becoming teachers for younger neighborhood children and leaders within our CTC. Though program planning is important, it's not always the structured, carefully planned activities and interactions that encourage youth leadership. A respect for youth and a recognition of their assets must permeate all aspects of a CTC. This means more than just providing services for youth; it actually requires working with them, listening to them, inviting them to meetings, encouraging them to be the experts that they are. This kind of working with youth translates into programs meaningful to young people and supportive of their communities.

Youth Should Be Seen and Heard

Hear them roar: If young people aren't making suggestions or participating in decision-making, chances are they aren't being provided the opportunities. Youth are usually capable and want to improve their programs, as any adult staff would be.

Introduce young people to the staff and others important to the organization: If the Executive Director comes into the lab with a funder, the youth should be introduced as individuals. Each of the them has a name; use it. If their only connection within the organization is their teacher, mentor, or supervisor, they cannot feel included or participate fully in the center.

Provide youth staff a workspace and territory: To be effective, they need a place for their work, just like all of us. Often a separate desk or computer is not realistic (for adult staff, either!), but designate physical space for personal belongings and paperwork. Don't forget to designate cyberspaces: voice mail, organizational email, and a section on the agency Web site. In addition to the productivity benefits, the designation of these spaces for youth symbolizes their inclusion in the workplace.

Mentoring And Supervising Youth Staff

Actively including youth staff in decision-making means actively involving them in the everyday aspects of the CTC as a workplace.

Include youth leaders in meetings: both internal (staff meetings) and external (meeting with collaborators, funders and other stakeholders). Decisions are made and confirmed at meetings. In order for youth to take part in decision-making, they have to be there when it happens. Participating in meetings also allows youth to build various workplace and personal skills, including participating constructively in dialogue, staying on topic, generating new ideas, and tracking action items. Most importantly, a young person's attendance at a meeting signifies their inclusion in the CTC. It makes them a part of the workplace community. Also, it shows that others are confident in their ability to act professionally and productively.

Tips for supporting youth as participants in meetings

• Prepare youth for meetings by reviewing the purpose of the meeting, the context of the agenda, and the backgrounds and affiliations of the other participants.
• Discuss their role for the meeting. Ask for suggestions and opinions when appropriate. In some meetings, youth staff will not have the opportunity to participate actively in the decision-making process. In other meetings, youth staff may lead the discussion. Make sure it is clear to them, BEFORE the meeting, what their role will be.
• Ask a young person a specific question or to share certain information based on their known competencies (Ex: Sharlene, you had a great idea for involving the elementary aged girls in our new Web site project. Will you share that with our contract Web site developer?)
• Debrief after the meeting (see next paragraph).

Ask youth leaders to observe more experienced CTC staff working: This strategy works particularly well for teaching, making presentations, and conducting meetings. After a young person observes, debrief with them. Ask their opinions about what worked and what didn't. Point out the salient moments or techniques from your perspective.

When Appropriate, Neutralize Or Reverse The Guru/Learner Power Relationship

Go to lunch: Going to lunch is a workplace ritual: a one on one or small group activity that helps create the professional personal relationship. It's also a ritual that allows for a reduction in the youth-adult power relationship inherent in other, more formal settings. Going out for chow mein or a slice of pizza is as familiar to young people as it is to adults. A ritual such as sharing a meal can help shed the learned hierarchy of meetings, a familiar ritual to adult staff but potentially foreign and intimidating to youth. Participation in activities that facilitate peer-to-peer interactions between adult and youth staff helps build young people's confidence in their role in the CTC and helps adults see young people as valuable members of the workplace community. Do not always pay for lunch - that maintains the power relationship. (Of course, always be sensitive to the economic realities of your youth staff members.)

Ask youth for help: Asking young people to help you do things that they are better at or have more knowledge of is a powerful way to bring about youth development. For example Maria, Katy and Julia, now in middle school, have lived in the South of Market neighborhood since they were in 1st grade. When YouthMAP is planning outreach activities for this neighborhood, the outreach coordinator asks them about the local hangouts and what types of print materials are most appealing to the youngsters they know. In deferring to their expertise, we show the youth and others at our CTC that young people at YouthMAP are valued and respected.

Say, "I don't know." Adults often feel pressure to always have an answer, especially around young people. We know we don't always have the answer, but are we willing to admit that around the youth at our CTC? There are two kinds of questions when "I don't know" is the most appropriate answer.

Adult Development Is Also Key

Youth development is most likely to happen when the adults are also developing. When we're actively learning and thinking about ways to improve the program and our own work, we're providing role models for the youth in our program.

Learn From Your Own Mistakes

When I invited Sharlene to a meeting last week on program evaluation without prepping her, she was bored. When I talk more than I listen in a session, Maria asks me to stop talking. When I'm able to learn from my mistakes and take criticism, my program's participants and youth employees are more likely to do the same.

Learn From Others

What I haven't learned from youth, I've learned from other youth workers. Observing and learning from fellow staff and folks from other organizations has been the most effective form of professional development for me. Being a former staff member of Plugged In, Open Voice and many other youth-serving organizations taught me everything from my first HTML tags to techniques for structuring a long-term design project. Now I learn from San Francisco folks at the Embarcadero YMCA, Oasis, the International Institute of San Francisco, and the South of Market Recreation Center, among others. Connecting and regularly communicating with other programs in the area has been critical to the development of our program.

Why Youth Development Matters

The mass media tells us that it's cool to be young. Is it just as "cool" to work with young people? Is teaching teens Web page design just a flavor of the month?

We must challenge ourselves to raise our programs above the hype; to truly support young people in their development. The stakes are high. Within our society, youth are not often regarded as experts or leaders; they are second-class citizens. Youth coming from communities marginalized by their faith, sexual orientation or ethnicity are therefore treated as third class citizens. Because youth-serving CTCs serve the most vulnerable members of our marginalized communities, how we treat youth is especially critical.

If our CTCs are to truly serve our communities, we must understand that youth are the promise of their community. Respecting them by supporting their development is the only way we can join with them to build the best possible future.