What Can Communities Look Like When They Really Respect Youth?

Parents, donors, activists, youth, agency representatives, and even a judge and a juvenile prosecutor came to discuss that question on June 7, 2006, at the Celentano Museum Academy in New Haven.

The question was based on feedback we received from a previous forum.

Divided into groups of 6-8 people, evenly representative of the various constituencies, the participants were invited to ponder the questions below:

1. Question for Adults: What did you do to add value to your community when you were young?
2. Question for Youth: What are you doing now to add value to your community?
3. Question for Adults and Youth: (ADULTS) How did this change or (YOUTH) how is this changing your life or the way you look at your community and the world?
4. Question for both Youth and Adults: What do communities that respect their young people look like?
5. Question for Youth: What can you do to make your communities respect young people?

We received very forthright feedback from everyone. Below, for example, are the ideas for future topics that everyone suggested. Take a look at them, and please comment on them... add more if you like! I'll be including additional feedback for your review and commentary in future posts.

Ideas for future topics:

Future orientation

• To effect change or impact policy, consider narrowing the topics for future forums to allow time to drill down deep into the issues.
• Make dialogue about now and the future, not about the distant past = more equal for everybody
• Come up with possible solutions. Don’t just do a dialogue that talks about what has been done, but more so what could be done and how to go about doing it.
• I think there should be a take-off from this forum and bring more youth together to actually conceptualize and bring vision of a community to life. We should invite young people to work on that vision, and as adults we need to make it happen.

Education

• What does the community need to know about the “achievement gap”?
• School system
• Charter schools vs. public education
• Parents and grandparents roles in children’s education
• How to improve the educational system
• Do the teachers / administrators at your school work hard to prepare you for the “real world”?
• Urban education

Youth Programs

• After-school and summer programming for youth
• Mentoring programs / connecting community
• Need for youth programs.
• Why can’t the city open recreation centers?
• Jobs for youth.
• Other people can learn more about programs.
• I would suggest that people share ideas about programs that work for them.

Youth-Adult Dialogue

• I think we could make more group meetings (forums) for youth and adults to learn how they think and for better knowing how to relate with them.. That will help the community to grow for the best with less crime.
• Increasing listening between youth and adults
• Have a panel full of youth who are willing to talk about community issues
• I would have young people talk more about what they do and what they wish to see.

Community Building

• Community event organizing
• Mix different races to talk to see what we have in common and differences.
• I’d like to see this done in each neighborhood – Fair Haven, the Hill, etc.
• Inequalities for youth
• Community, not just the kids’ involvement, but the whole community.
• It would be interesting to discuss how community residents, agencies, etc., can collaborate to address tangible projects.

Addressing Violence

• What are the root causes of youth violence?
• I would like to talk about the amount of violence going on nowadays.
• Police and youth in the community: building better relations
• Violence, families, breaking generational cycles of bad families