Updated September 22, 2022
As a professional in youth development and justice, I’ve attended many conferences, meetings, and trainings where young people speak. Sometimes, how adults involve youth is downright cringe-worthy. Other times, it puts the young person in danger.
I know that most, if not all, of the adults who seek to engage youth as speakers do so with good intent. But good intentions are not enough. Even when youth are not equipped to advocate for themselves in these situations, as they sometimes aren’t, adults bear responsibility to practice these basics.
Here are my practical steps adults should take to do more than “check the box” of youth voice and make it a safe, meaningful experience for adult and youth participants.
101-level best practices
Avoid asking youth with juvenile records to share their charges or specifics of their offenses in public settings.
You risk negating the protections of confidentiality central to juvenile records.
Value the experience of the young person AND what their experience taught them about policy or practice decisions.
Youth are experts in their lives with the capacity to apply that expertise to systems change. You would never restrict a PhD to sharing their dissertation research, so why would you keep a young person from applying what they learned to your questions?
Don’t “put youth on the spot” with questions you haven’t vetted with them beforehand.
The spotlight may pressure youth to answer these questions even if they wouldn’t otherwise.
Recognize the traumatic nature of what you’re asking youth to share.
Ensure youth receive support from you, other trusted adults, and/or peers with more public speaking experience to avoid re-traumatization. Depending on the nature of the event, consider planning a safe word youth can use to privately signal discomfort.
201-level best practices
Partner with youth throughout the process, from planning the iniital proposal or agenda through debriefing after the event.
A co-designed workshop will better accomplish your goals for and will avoid tokenizing young people. A token panelist is readily apparent to your audience.
Feature youth as a majority of the panel rather than have one youth represent all youth voices.
The experiences of young people, while they may share commonalities, are as unique as each person. Limiting your youth panelists to one risks leaving out crucial diversity of experience and, again, tokenizing an individual youth speaker.
Prioritize youth speakers at multiple points in an event, not just during the meal break.
I’ve been to so many events where youth are relegated to talking over clinking forks and knives. Not only will your attendees appreciate having a moment to break bread with colleagues without interruption, you signal equal value of youth voice by giving youth equal representation in main event sessions.
301-level best practices
Support youth to step into moderator or leadership roles.
Youth who have served on panels or spoken at events before may be ready to step into moderator roles or manage a panel themselves. One goal of engaging youth in events can and should be to facilitate their professional development in diverse and evolving ways.
To delve deeper on these tips or for direct support engaging youth in your organization’s upcoming events, contact me.