"Community YouthMapping" Teams Hit the Streets
Youth mappers to chart community resources in Belknap and Strafford Counties
Every community has all sorts of places to go, to learn, to have fun,
to work out, to find work and to get or give help, as well as people
who make things happen.
But residents can’t connect with resources if they don’t know about them, and community leaders can learn more about the resources their communities lack once they’ve identified the ones they already have.
Identifying and documenting community assets will provide summer work for about 40 young people ages 14-20 in Belknap and Strafford Counties who will pilot a “community youth mapping” process organizers hope will spread statewide.
Between July 20 and August 5, teams of young people working with adult mentors in the pilot counties will fan out into local communities to identify and “map” their local assets. Decked out in colorful t-shirts that identify them as youth mappers, the teams will canvass neighborhoods, surveying businesses, service agencies, recreation programs, churches, health care facilities, emergency services, and a host of other resources, including many not listed in traditional service or business directories.
Once the teams have designed their surveys, conducted their interviews, and recorded their data, they—and perhaps others—will enter their information into an online database with interactive maps they can update and expand as the project grows.
In addition to gaining valuable skills and gaining a broad understanding of their local communities, those involved in the mapping project will earn either academic credit or cash for their work.
Getting young people involved in asset mapping
“Asset mapping is the name given to the process by which community
members take stock of community strengths and assets,” says Charlotte
Cross, a UNH Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development Specialist who
organized and leads the project. “Youth mapping brings young people
into the process.”
Through her work with nonprofit agencies serving youth, college faculty, businesses, the criminal justice system, community leaders, teachers, school administrators, and parents, Cross had discovered tremendous interest in the concept of youth asset mapping.
“I spent the past three years looking at various models that would offer tools and training materials, and help communities with planning, training and organizing the data collection. The Academy for Educational Development (AED), Center for Youth Development and Policy Research, kept rising to the top,” she said. “They’d developed and tested a model they call Community YouthMapping (CYM) that’s been used in more than 100 sites across the U.S., as well as in other countries, including Haiti, Egypt, the Netherlands and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. AED had credibility and funding from many foundations and government agencies. And they’d developed a nationwide online Community YouthMapping Web site where local teams can store, update and access their information.”
Project history
In March, Cross had recruited a group of five co-sponsoring organizations
(see links at end of article) and convened an orientation meeting to
gauge interest in community youth mapping, inviting an AED consultant
to give a presentation on the specifics of the organization’s CYM
model.
“We had a tremendous response,” Cross says. “Seventy people showed up, representing youth-serving organizations from all over New Hampshire, and 30 said they’d be willing to serve on a statewide CYM steering committee.
“What’s more, two agencies immediately stepped forward and offered themselves as pilot sites for this initiative: the Community Response Coalition (CoRe), in Belknap County and the Transition Resource Network at Strafford Learning Center, covering Strafford County. The two groups collectively committed $77,800 of their existing funding to pilot the initiative locally.” The county sponsors recruited youth for the project through schools and youth-serving agencies.
Youth mappers develop individual and team skills while serving
the entire community
“Community youth mapping is designed to be the foundation of a
community’s information infrastructure,” says Cross. “It
involves a comprehensive process that supports the entire community,
while serving those youth immediately involved in the process.”
“Overall, it’s a youth development initiative. I think of it as ‘supervised fieldwork,’” she says. “The youth involved learn valuable workforce skills, such as how to conduct interviews, record information, work with databases, analyze, report, and present what they’ve learned.
“They also develop important job-readiness ‘soft’ skills: teamwork, conflict resolution, communication, professional behavior. They take leadership roles that help build self-esteem. They learn more about and become more engaged their communities.”
In trainings held July 18-22 in both counties, the teens and their adult mentors were introduced to the Community YouthMapping process and the survey tool they’ll use to collect and record information. “The training features role-playing, canvassing safety, dealing with difficult people, professional protocols, interpersonal relations and daily expectations on the job,” says Cross.
Next steps
“We’ve received a $25,000 grant from the N.H. Workforce
Opportunity Youth Council we’ll use to purchase the statewide license
that will enable all participating communities to access the online CYM
system and pave the way for future projects among the dozens of organizations
that have expressed interest in sponsoring youth mapping programs locally,” says
Cross.
This fall, Cross says she’ll bring all interested parties together for a follow-up workshop to share the results of the summer pilots and form a statewide CYM steering committee.
“State legislators have also expressed interest in the project,” she
says. “In June, I was invited to give a presentation to the Legislative
Caucus for Young Children, and they’ve invited me back this fall
to discuss the results of our summer pilots.”
For more information about Community Youth Mapping Initiative, contact Charlotte Cross at (603)862-2495.
For more information about CYM’s co-sponsoring partners
