Youth Communication

Youth Communication uses writing and journalism as tools to promote youth development. Core activities include:

• Trains teens in journalism and related skills. Each year, more than 100 young people participate in Youth Communication's school-year and summer journalism workshops. The majority are African-American, Latino, or Asian, and - according to organisers, have uneven skills as a result of poor education, living under extremely stressful conditions, or coming from homes where English is a second language. The teen staff members work under the direction of several full-time adult editors. Story ideas are proposed and discussed in group meetings and also in one-on-one meetings between writers and the adult editors. To complete their stories, students must successfully perform a wide range of activities, including writing and rewriting, reading, discussion, reflection, research, interviewing, and typing. They learn to read subway maps, verify facts, and meet deadlines.
• Publishes magazines, books, and other materials written and illustrated by young people - including: New Youth Connections, founded in 1980, which is a general interest magazine with a readership of 200,000 in New York City. Represent, founded in 1993, is written by and for young people in foster care and has a national readership of 12,000. Rise, founded in 2005, is an offshoot of Represent and is written by parents with children in foster care or who are receiving family support services. Visit the Youth Communication website to read these publications online. Also, Youth Communication has published 70 anthologies of young people's writings and sold 60,000 copies of these books. Youth Communication publications are illustrated by a staff of teen artists and photographers, under the supervision of a professional illustrator and art instructor. Teens in the illustration workshops meet year-round, usually in twice-weekly 3-hour workshops. There is also an intensive two-week summer illustration workshop.
• Encourages teens and the adults who work with them to use Youth Communication publications to stimulate reading, writing, discussion, and reflection. Youth Communication publishes guides to accompany most of its books and magazines to help teachers, counsellors, social workers, and others use them with teens. Click here for access.
• Offers workshops and lesson plans for educators who want to use Youth Communication stories in schools, after-school programmes, and foster care agencies.

From time to time, Youth Communication runs projects such as girls' writing groups, after-school reading and writing clubs, and leadership development programmes. They often undertake editorial projects, such as devoting issues of their magazines to specific themes such as relationships, immigration, religion, teen activism, loss and bereavement, family court, and domestic violence.

Advocacy work is also part of Youth Communication's strategy. Represent teen writers are involved in systems change work, such as speaking at conferences, workshops, and forums related to foster care reform. Youth Communication's teen and adult staff frequently serve on local and national advisory boards. The organisation works closely with advocacy groups, and their stories are frequently used in advocacy efforts to show how public policy issues affect teens.

Youth.

Several underlying principles inform Youth Communication's activities:

• "Teens need a public forum for sharing their experiences, exploring the issues that affect their lives, and identifying their common concerns....[Youth Communication's] magazines are designed to provide that forum.
• Teens who read little else are more likely to read and heed stories which accurately reflect their experience and concerns. The stories...[are designed to] provide a rich source of information and peer perspectives, and influence many teen readers to change their attitudes and behavior.
• For young writers and artists, producing a magazine for their peers is a powerful learning experience...[They] acquire a range of skills and develop the self-awareness necessary to effect change in their lives and in society at large.
• To grow and change, young people need to interact and bond with their peers....[Youth Communication offers] an environment in which teens from diverse backgrounds learn to support and respect each other.
• Reading and writing remain the best ways to encourage reflection and discussion, and stimulate the imagination. Literate, thoughtful citizens are essential to the survival of a diverse, democratic society."