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An innovative mapping technique in which that teens use surveys and and other techniques to identify and document "youth friendly" places in their towns and cities - as well as resources and places that are lacking. As of 2001, young people in more than 30 communities of all sizes had done mapping projects - we take a closer look at two of them here: Denver, Colorado and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. How and why did this program get started? "A main complaint of teens - and a main reason they get into trouble - is boredom", according to Raul Ratcliff, who runs the national non-profit Center for Youth Development & Policy. "And it's no wonder they claim there's nothing for them to do in their communities: In many cases, there are few resources for teens that do exist; in others, there's simply a lack of information about what's out there for them. If teens themselves do the investigating, they not only learn about these places first-hand, but become more invested in the community that they're mapping. This can also motivate them to create resources that are lacking." In Denver, the public school system was looking for ways to get teens involved in their communities - and they wanted to get an overall picture of what was available for teens when they were not in school. They wanted to look at what nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups, churches, schools, businesses, or other institutions had to offer for young people, according to Diane Romero-Campbel of the Piton Foundation, which funded the mapping project. Cape Cod embarked on its mapping project with the belief that a community can't effectively provide for young people if it doesn't really know what they want or need. As coordinator Clare O'Connor found, "the best people to ask them are other young people. We wanted to use the youth mapping as a listening tool, because they have better ideas than most of us." Who is involved? Young people in more than 33 other communities have participated in Community Youth Mapping projects. In Denver, teenagers were recruited through social-service agencies of all kinds, including the juvenile justice system. There was a core group of 60 people who were paid to work 8 weeks through a summer youth employment program (to sign up for the program, they had to qualify for the city's program for free school lunches). On Cape Cod, a core group of 25 youth from towns all over the Cape Cod who are part of a peer leadership program were trained; they then recruited more students from their schools. Ultimately, more than 100 people volunteered to do mapping throughout the 2001 school year on a voluntary basis. What goes on as part of this program? Teens first receive training in developing and conducting surveys; they might also do presentations at their school or to other youth groups to bring others into the process. Once a core group is assembled (the number of participants depends on the community size and the scope of the mapping project), they prepare a plan for the block-by-block canvassing of a community. The mappers basically go door-to-door with surveys through neighborhoods, following up on existing data and adding new information as they discover it. They then distill the data and create findings and a report. In Cape Cod, the students turned their data over
to an Information Technologies class at a local technical school, which
headed up data entry and the development of a web-based directory of all
the information. Throughout the project, mappers made presentations to
the local Youth Council, and gave presentations at a regional Department
of Labor conference and at a National Youth Development Conference in
Washington, D.C. The results have been many and varied: • Teens learn leadership and communication skills • A body of data that is useful for youth and others - they can locate resources related to everything from homelessness and pregnancy to underground rock shows and "youth friendly" coffee shops - but it also shows community planners, local decision makers and nonprofits what is lacking in terms of available resources. In Cape Cod, O'Connor found that the mappers took ownership of the project, attending all the necessary meetings and actively participating; in turn, she found that their commitment to CY mapping generated excitement in the Youth Council group overall. In Denver, the mappers found value in using information for a practical purpose, relating school skills and life skills and, in short, getting paid to use their brains. (Some youth didn't feel like they were "working" because it wasn't manual labor.) To help keep people involved, the Piton Foundation organized follow-up story circles in which participants could discuss their experiences after they had sunk in, and figure out how it had changed the way they approach things. In all, they found out a lot, both positive and negative, about adult perceptions of youth and their abilities. Denver participants also discovered that most out-of-school activities for teens are after-school programs - though most are not at a school, but provided by a huge array of other organizations - and that they're small (fewer than 100 people involved). They also found paltry offerings for middle-school-aged teens, and learned that the highest-cost programs are usually for the youngest kids. Challenges • In Denver, payment through a city summer employment program was a tremendous incentive for teens to participate, but it also created a lot of bureaucracy and some complications. • Defining the scope of the program can also present challenges - mapping an entire city can be a huge job, and there are transportation issues to consider when teenagers are traveling around the city to do the surveying. • Finding a place for young people to convene for training, especially if there are large numbers of participants. • Defining expectations with community partners • Setting up adequate supervision of mappers using field people
Learn more with an overview of Community Youth Mapping from the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research (CYDPR). Local partners conduct the actual mapping projects.
These partners come from an array of areas: In Denver, the Piton
Foundation headed up the project with a number of partners, including
the city's summer youth employment program and the school district. In
Cape Cod, it was coordinated by the Cape
Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket Youth Council in cooperation with
the Barnstable County Sheriff's Youth Congress. |
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