More Feedback for "What Can Communities Look Like That Really Respect Youth?"

What follows is participants' comments on how we could improve the next forum.

Please tell us one thing we can do better next time.

Invite more youth

• Youth attendance seemed slim.
• Have more youth
• Next time there should be more youth from the communities and not just from organizations. Should be advertised more in schools. Get youth from different schools: Hillhouse, Shelton, Greenwich, Cross.
• Do more youth outreaching.
• I think that the one thing that I thought should be better is having more youth come around the age of 10 – 16 so we can get their opinion too.
• Make sure you have many more young people. We need to hear from them.
• We need more kids. Less adult talk if we really want to hear from kids.
• Try to attract a different set of kids, and have us talk more.
• More young people involved in the program
• Increased student / youth involvement.
• Having more youth would be good.

Equality of participation

• Ensure a good mix amongst the table groups before starting.
• Sharing with equal numbers of representatives from the staff / board, youth and community people.
• At the beginning, less adult talking and more everyone talking. No separate questions for adults and youth.
• For next time, you can probably have more time so all of us can have equal amount of time to speak.
• Higher youth:adult ratio at each table. Facilitator sets ground rule about air time for youth.
• Mix the groups so there are even mixes of youth and adults.
• Better listening on the part of the adults involved in the workshop
• Make time for the youth to talk. Maybe even have them prepare something in advance so that they will be able to get their point across.

Tell us what happens next

• I think opening dialogue between youth and adults, community leaders is good for idea but I’m not sure it is a catalyst for change.
• A sense of where this is going, what it’s for, what will come of ideas suggested…
• There needs to be an outcome whether it is a collective letter or something that is sent to a law maker or decision-making forum or some kind of follow-up.
• Understanding where / what this dialogue is accomplishing – our facilitator took no notes. Just too much adult talk.
• I would like to incorporate next steps.
• I would love to see a plan to reach an engaged / invested youth society.
• True follow-up to let folks know that something was done with the information

Provide a clearer, more specific agenda

• I feel like you should be more realistic [about the questions asked].
• Narrower topics
• The agenda was not as clear as it could have been with regard to the discussion.
• Having a more specific agenda may be more helpful in guiding our conversation. If we had a specific set of problem areas, we might be more productive.

Allow more time

• More time
• Plan more time!
• We needed a lot more time to discuss things amongst each other.
• Time was short for the size of the group.

Youth Facilitation

• Maybe have a youth lead the group discussions.
• Make sure that youth get a chance to facilitate.
• Have youth be trained to be facilitators.

Discuss the outcomes together

• I think after discussion, different groups should be allowed to voice opinions to the entire community of thinkers so we can get everyone’s voice and get other ideas and thoughts.
• I would have liked to come together in the end and discuss the outcome of each group discussion.

Facilitation

• How to get everyone to see youth as equal, as partners.
• One thing you can do better is to get more people involved and participating.
• Smaller groups
• Be a little more realistic about the questions you ask
• Pre-writing activity before attending – get people thinking about what they will be talking about

Discussion outcomes

• Provide more suggestions on what young people can do to make a difference, more encouragement.
• Try to have more fun activities for young people in the community.

Other

• I only received notice on Monday, so additional notice would be great.
• Sandwiches without condiments
• Have data available (statistics, lists of available programs)
• I think possibly coordinating with various other organizations on youth forums would be great.
• The next time you should have a more comfortable environment so the people can be more comfortable and more open