The people who helped us create Teens As Community Builders led us to a number of lessons and observations about what makes - or breaks - a program for young people. What do teenagers value? How can they and adults work effectively together and get beyond stereotypes? Below are some tips and guidelines for both adults working on programs and for young people who want to participate or start something of their own.

If you are an adult planning to launch a teen program
If you are a teenager who wants to get something started

1. Lay the groundwork
A common flaw in youth programs is that planners don't give enough thought
beforehand to exactly how they want to partner with young people and how it will work. It's easy for adults to say they want a youth advisory council and not really give any authority to young people - or simply bring them on after most decisions have been made. Whatever the case may be, be clear with young people about what difference their advice is going to make and how it will be used. They won't keep coming back if they sense you don't make good use of their input. Many times, a board of trustees will try to represent youth by appointing two or three young people, but unless youth represent at least a quarter of the total board, they'll feel inadequate and will never become effective members. Also, staff time and commitment is a big issue - but finding an adult who really hangs in there can solve most of your other problems.

2. Find committed liaisons/point persons/staff members
Young people come to people, not programs, so programs should revolve around the quality of people involved with them. This means you need a committed adult (or adults) who really knows and understands young people: someone who cares about them, helps train and orient them, helps them before and after meetings, clears obstacles, gives them rides to the meetings, and makes sure they show up. Often, such adults are young themselves (in their 20s or early 30s), which can help significantly in gaining the trust of participants.

3. Foster partnerships between adults and teens
Involving adults in a teen program opens it up and lets teens and adults learn from each other. It gives adults a chance to work directly with teens, not just worry about them. Adults have much to offer young people - wisdom, experience, etc. - but the giving must not be paternalistic or patronizing, condescending, etc. It should be based on interaction between the two groups, and based chiefly around responding to what young people are saying they want. Therefore, such programs should be set up using a partnership model, where all parties learn from each other.

4. Know when to focus on people, not young people
Like anyone, teenagers need to be treated with respect, and as resources for and assets to a community, not recipients of some kind of hand-out. They have all kinds of interests and capabilities and can get involved in programs or organizations on a number of levels. Besides being a general participant in a program, they might help create policies, develop or manage activities or sit on a board of trustees. Don't set the bar too low - it's better to start off by giving teens more of a role in running things rather than less. Doing this also requires someone who can recognize the talents, desires and interests of particular participants and set them up with goals and challenges.

5. Expand expectations & responsibilities with age
This is kind of a corollary to the tip above. Many youth programs lose kids at about age 14, because at that point they want more say in what's going on and many adults are unwilling to give them that. These teenagers might continue to be engaged if they had an opportunity to move into leadership or decision-making roles and take on more responsibility. Again, this points to the difference between programming with teens and programming for them.

Also, young people tend to be action-oriented, so programs should provide a balance between advisory or administrative roles and actual activities and projects: The younger the person, the more short-term a project should be.

Older teenagers need the chance to take action and gain leadership skills in a program, not just follow the directives of adults and receive benefits of a program put together by them. They want to actually be a part of putting together the program. They also want to gain meaningful skills and experiences - not just do "gofer" work.

6. Provide choice
As with a restaurant menu, a program will appeal to and draw more people if it offers them choices in how to be involved. However, you need to set parameters and be clear on areas and activities where help and involvement are appropriate, so that participants' input on responsibilities and activities don't go off in every direction.

7. Promote your program
Oftentimes the benefits and opportunities of community involvement are not promoted, but more young people would get involved if they knew what was available to them. In promoting your program, use the youth participants. They advertise better to other youth because they know what is most attractive and desirable about a program. So make sure you're finding out from current participants how best to attract future ones.

8. Understand teen pressures
Young people are often discouraged by their peers from getting involved in community programs. It's easier for teens to follow the crowd instead of stand apart to participate in - or retain a commitment to - a program that interests them. Understanding this can help you to promote your program (see above) more effectively.

9. Create sociability & publicity
Social, public events and activities attract more people and tend to be more fun than indoor meetings. After all, getting to know other people is major reason for teenagers (or anybody) to participate in a program; and receiving attention from the larger community affirms that what they're doing is worthwhile. So even if a program is largely "indoors" or insulated from the public, it should eventually include some kind of attention-getting event. Also, you can't have too many parties, celebrations, rewards and other types of recognition. Besides providing the social component for a program, they show participants that their involvement is valued.

Practical Matters:

• Commitment - Have clear, realistic, and positive expectations. Specify what benefits you believe young people can get out of a program - as distinct from the rewards and incentives they get from being involved. Ask yourself whether the demands of the program realistic for young people and for the program's staff.

• Reliability & responsibility - If your program involves services for the public (mentoring younger kids, for example, or selling products), you need to ensure that participants show up at appointed times and take care of tasks that need to be done. This means having a clear sense of what's involved, matching up the right people for the right tasks, and providing motivation, incentives or rewards.

• Supervision - What activities or aspects of a program require supervision, and do you have the right kind of staff to provide it (see #2, above)? It's also important to provide opportunities for people to work independently and trust them to get the work done.

• Age levels & target groups - Some programs can work with a wide range of young people, but 18 and 19-year-olds have far different goals and levels of maturity (for instance, they might be looking ahead to college and want specific skills from a program) than 12 or 13-year olds, or even 15 and 16-year-olds, who may be more interested in simply having fun. Similarly, think about what kinds of teens is the program designed for: youth-at-risk, those with prior experience in leadership roles, or those in between? Some programs can appeal to teenagers from a range of backgrounds - especially with talented staff who can relate to a varied group - but their needs, goals, and expectations can be vastly different.

• Transportation - How will young people get to meetings and events? Is use of public transportation realistic (especially during evening hours), or will participants spend too much commuting to stay involved?

• Numbers - How many people can the program accommodate, and how will you deal with those you can't accommodate?

• Meeting times - Programs must accommodate various school schedules, as well as the other responsibilities and extra-curricular activities of participants.

• Meeting Place - Finding a place for teens to meet can be difficult, especially if more than a dozen or so are involved. How do you accommodate teens in a setting where they're welcome? What happens if you have large numbers of teens congregating, where they might be perceived by some as a nuisance?

• Other Logistics - It's probably impossible to anticipate all the snags that will come up in implementing a program, but note them as they do arise so that you can formulate a response and incorporate it into the next round of the program.

If you are a teenager who wants to get something started:

Below are some of the kinds of organizations that may be able to help you start something in your neighborhood. They might also have a program already going on that fits with what you want to do.

1. Parks department or parks nonprofit (see Prospect Park Alliance Youth Council)
2. Library or nonprofit "Friends" group for a library (see Teen Central)
3. Local nonprofits with a youth component (see Riverside Skate Park)
4. Youth bureau or youth council of your city or municipal government (see Youth Planners)
5. Community development corporation (see Chinatown Alleyway Tours, Teen Neighborhood Leaders, or Chain Reaction)
6. Community gardening, horticultural or greening organizations (see Youth Garden Internships and Urban Herbals)
7. Chamber of commerce (see Community Youth Mapping)
8. High schools
9. Churches

• If you're not getting a response to your ideas, be persistent! Call people back if they don't return your phone calls. Also, try going straight to the top of the organization: the director or president of an organization, or someone on its board of trustees, might be more responsive than whoever's answering the phone.

• Make sure that you voice your concerns, opinions and desires about the program and how it should run. If you want to take on a responsibility, or have ideas about how something could be improved, speak up! Adults don't necessarily have everything figured out, and usually welcome new ideas and input.

• If you're given responsibility, step up to the plate and take it. Notes Diane, who was part of the Prospect Park Youth Council, found that "people are taken by surprise by how much control they have in our program. Some never really get it, and they tend to drop out." But she sees the responsibility as a benefit: "We get to do everything with minimal interference from adults. Other youth programs are like 'oh how cute, getting kids involved' - but then they tell you what do. Here, what we want to see happen, can happen."

• Be willing to accept assistance from adults. Just as you might feel that adults stereotype teens, there are probably a lot of stereotypes about adults. Try to give them a chance. If they stick around with the program, they're probably committed to trying to make it work.

• Have patience. Hamley Cabrera, a teenager who helped build a skatepark in New York City, found that it was essential: "It takes patience to make a project succeed. Without patience this project wouldn't have succeeded… [for example], our construction materials were not on time, and we were put to filling in tree pits while we waited for the materials to arrive."

• Click on our "Links" section for more places to turn to on a national level, which may be able to help you launch a program locally.

• Still having a hard time? Click here to email us about your ideas for improving the public spaces in your town or city - we'll see if we can hook you up with a person or organization to help get it started.