Team Up With Youth!
A Guide for the Media
Why team up with youth?
Media are in a unique position to promote Positive Youth Development, an approach that builds on the assets and potential of youth. Key elements of Positive Youth Development include fostering relationships between young people and caring adults who can mentor and guide them; providing youth with opportunities to pursue their interests and focus on their strengths; supporting the development of youths’ knowledge and skills; and engaging youth as active participants and leaders who can help move communities forward.
Media can provide mentoring and expertise, practical training, and hands-on experience. Young people need a public forum for sharing their experiences, exploring the issues that affect their lives, and identifying their common concerns. For young writers and artists, participating in the production of a publication or Web site can be a meaningful learning experience.
But it’s not just the youth who benefit. Engaging youth can give news outlets a different perspective on community issues. Young people are more likely to read and heed stories that accurately reflect their experiences and concerns. And often, parents want to know what their kids are reading. So, involving youth could lead to a wider audience for your publication or Web site.
How can the media team up with youth?
- Interview youth to get their perspectives on local events or policies affecting them
- Invite young people to write editorials
- Dedicate a section of your publication or Web site to youth issues, and include interactive items like writing contests and opinion polls
- Offer internships for middle or high school students and provide mentors for interns
- Invite youth to brief reporters and give a fresh perspective on community issues
- Initiate a column or a radio or TV spot written and produced by and for young people
- Help start a youth-run publication or volunteer to advise a school paper or TV station
- Conduct workshops on effective methods for working with the media for staff of community youth organizations
- Help a local youth agency start a youth-produced newsletter or Web site
- Sponsor a youth writing contest with youth helping to organize or judge the contest
- Hire youth reporters
- Invite youth to participate on your advisory or editorial board
- Offer awards or scholarships for young writers and reporters
- Offer grants for community and school projects that promote youth media
Read all about it!
The Seattle Times’ NEXT is a forum for young people to voice their opinions and to communicate with each other. It has its own team of freelance writers, mostly high school and college students, and its own advisory board, made up of young people and veteran journalists. Every Sunday in The Seattle Times' editorial section and every day online, NEXT features commentary, polls, and letters that take a smart, fresh look at issues important to young readers. Online at seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/next/.
YO! Youth Outlook is an award-winning 28-page magazine by youth in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a national distribution of 25,000. Featuring in-depth reporting pieces, first-person essays, comic strips, and poetry pages, YO! chronicles the world as seen by young people between the ages of 14 and 25. In addition, YO! has an online news service, a local-access weekly TV show called YO!TV, partnerships with local and national radio broadcasts, and an annual expo of youth communicators. YO! stories also run nationally and internationally over the Pacific News Service wire. Online at www.youthoutlook.org.
Represent is a bimonthly magazine written by and for young people in foster care. It has a paid circulation of 10,000 with subscribers in 46 states. Represent provides a forum for an open exchange of views and gives a voice to young people living in the foster care system. In addition, many adults, including social workers, group home staff, and advocates read the magazine to understand what foster youth are thinking and experiencing. The magazine is written by a core staff of 15 young people, but accepts and receives submissions from across the country. Online at www.youthcomm.org/Publications/FCYU.
Extra! Extra!
The following examples will give you ideas about how to involve youth in your work:
Newz Crew
www.newzcrew.org
Street Level Youth Media
www.street-level.org
The Freechild Project
www.freechild.org/youthmedia.htm
Youth Communication
www.youthcomm.org
Team Up With Youth! A Guide for the Media was developed by the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) for the Family and Youth Services Bureau; Administration on Children, Youth and Families; Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For more information on positive ways to work with youth, please go to ncfy.acf.hhs.gov, or contact NCFY at (301) 608-8098 or ncfy@acf.hhs.gov. Revised June 2006.
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