Examining Ways in Which Youth Conferences Can Spell Out Gains in Community Youth Development and Engagement (original) (raw)

Planting the Seed: An Evaluation of a Community Youth Summit

Journal of Youth Development, 2010

Meaningful youth engagement produces benefits both to youth and to the community in which they live. This paper discusses a day-long youth summit held for 289 middle school students. Youth attended a combination of mass and break-out sessions based on America’s Promise Five Promises. Planners and evaluators assessed proximal student outcomes throughout the day. A two question visual analog scale was developed and utilized to assess students’ perceptions of learning and enjoyment.

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Given the emerging interest among researchers , practitioners , and policymakers in youth participation , it is important to examine and assess carefully the promise and challenges of youth engagement . 1 Introduction : Moving youth participation forward

2003

FIVE YOUTH from the San Francisco Bay Area recently joined twenty-five other young people and over one hundred adults at an international conference on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. “It was the most un-youth-friendly place,” explained one young woman. “Every day we woke up early and spent hours listening to adults lecture about the experiences of youth. There was no time for us to talk to anyone, no time to move around, and when we tried to tell them about our feelings, they didn’t really listen. Nothing really changed—until the last day when we finally got to do our presentation. One of the adults tried to come up and facilitate our question-andanswer period, and we just said, ‘No, thank you. We’re prepared to do this for ourselves. Sit down please.’ I don’t think the adults really got it until then.”1

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Examining Ways in Which Youth Conferences Can Spell Out Gains in Community Youth Development and Engagement (original) (raw)

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