January: Elevating and Incorporating Youth Voice
At our first Coffee and Conversation Event in 2024, we brought together 29 individuals, representing 19 organizations across the Denver Metro Area!
We changed the format up a bit in January and featured a panel of individuals from youth-serving organizations. To help facilitate and drive the larger conversation, panelists addressed questions about how they are infusing youth voice into their programming, the challenges they face, strategies they use and more!
Our panel included the following:
Malik Burton from Colorado Dream Foundation
Jack Loats from Boy Scouts of America-Greater Denver Council
Janaya Alirez and Ashley Sanchez from Life-Line Colorado
Tiya Trent from Project VOYCE
John Lewis from DPS Extended Learning and Community Schools and the Denver Afterschool Alliance
John provided information on a few tools and strategies used to measure youth outcomes, including the Survey of Academic and Youth Outcomes-Youth Survey (SAYO-Y).
Here are the resources he referenced during the event:
We also had our Office of Children’s Affairs colleague, Felicia Rodriguez on hand to give her perspective on the topic as the Youth Violence Prevention Program Manager.
Here are some references she referenced:
Office of School Safety Website (includes learning opportunities for partners)
Here is a Resource Guide created for the event with the contact information for our panelists, and additional resources for capturing youth voice.
Here are some *notes captured from the event:
What are your hopes for January Coffee and Convo:
Networking- meet new people
Collective outcome as to why we are together
Awareness of what folks are doing
Ways to honor youth voice while still getting things done
Tools and resources that can be shared and/or created
What small strategy tool can you try now?
Create a culture that welcomes mistakes
Trust and relationships are foundational
Boundaries/expectations/resets
Parental involvement
Leverage what youth are already doing (e.g., Tik Tok, IG)
Create value in all things we put in front of young people
Involve youth in fund raisers/events without tokenizing
Collect data directly from young people (see tools attached for ideas)
Compensating and incentivizing youth participation and input when possible
Financial Literacy (i.e. Parkhill Financial District)
What are you hearing from youth and observing/noticing in programs?
They are experiencing hostile school environments
They are struggling with various mental health needs (e.g., social anxiety, etc.)
Social and academic skill deficits
Exhaustion
Challenging home dynamics
Food scarcity
Youth want to choose what they engage in and experience
They want leadership roles AND want to be compensated for them
Re-establishing expectations post-pandemic
Challenges identified:
Gap in skill at times when given leadership opportunities
Sense of “entitlement”
False sense of “power”
Adults receiving youth feedback and authentically incorporating it
Incentives/compensation as an expectation
Ownership of the space and program
*Note these were brief notes taken during the session and is not inclusive of all the thoughts and ideas shared in the session.
