S 4 EP 7: Teen Talk Series: Why We Need You feat. Youth Ambassadors from Afterschool Alliance

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello, hello everyone, welcome to school after hours podcast. We talk about all things related to out of school time program and education. I am your host, shelly, and on today's show we have some amazing guests with us. Since this week we'll be celebrating a lights on after school, which is a nationwide event that just celebrates out of school time programming and all the wonderful work that they do, I thought it would be a great idea to have youth on the show so they could share some of the things that after school programming has done for them and how it has impacted their lives. So I reached out to after school alliance and they were able to get two of their youth ambassadors to come on the show and kind of share their experiences with out of school time programming. We also have their program manager on the show, so we'll be learning a little bit more about the youth ambassadors program for our school alliance and how the youth ambassadors are advocating for out of school time programs as well. So we'll be hearing stories, we'll be getting tips on youth voice, but also we'll be getting some advocacy from youth at the same time. So I hope you're ready to tune into the show and enjoy all the great conversation that we are about to have With. That being said, let's go ahead and go over to our community corner. Community corner is a segment of the show that allows guests on myself to share tips, advice or information on a specific topic with young people, families or community members. Without further ado, let's go ahead and get into our community corner conversation. So we are at our community corner section. So for community corner, my question for you all is based on your experience how do you think after school programs affect youth as they become young adults? Leah, can you lead us in that conversation?

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yeah, happy, happy to jump in. I think the after school programs help students on a multitude of levels. Right, there's at the baseline, providing academic support and enrichment. That could be in the form of homework help or education opportunities that connect to the school day and reinforce the learning that happens in the school day. A lot of programs now, especially for older students, do career prep and readiness, giving students exposure to a variety of career opportunities. Really, the list goes on and on in the way that after school programs help students and I, speaking from my own experience right, it helped my parents as well as me, because they had the peace of mind that I was in a safe place when I was in my after school program. I think you'll probably get a better and more present answer from Jamora and Avery, who are participating in the programs as they exist now, though Awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:16

We're going to go ahead and utilize that Jamora. So tell us, based on your experience, how do you think after school programs affect the youth as they become young adults?

Speaker 3: 3:27

So in my personal experience, my programs have significantly helped me as I developed from an elementary schooler all the way to high school. They have provided me both academic and professional support and just provided me with these opportunities to grow as a person, building confidence and leadership skills, and also just being able to help me narrow down what career path I want to go into, and I've been able to understand it at such a young age. I've been able to put all my efforts into pursuing a degree in environmental sciences so that I can have a future career in building sustainable habitats on Earth and outer space. So just being able to have those programs allowing us to explore in a safe space is such an amazing opportunity for us.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Awesome. So, avery, how about you?

Speaker 4: 4:19

But Leah and Jamora really covered a lot. But I'd say having these programs in schools and they really affect youth and to become adults because it gives them a community that they feel comfortable enough. And I'm an extrovert, so when I'm in a group where I feel comfortable, I feel even more extroverted and I feel lifted and it just goes up and up and up and it's just a great experience and just a good people to be around. And so when you're really with a good program that really wants to benefit you and your own passions and goals, but also you as a person and your personality, and wants you to shine, I think that really gives you the confidence you need when you become a young adult.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Nice, nice, very good, all right. So, with that being said, we're going to go ahead and jump into our interview question. So, with that being said, we're going to go ahead and jump into our questions, starting with Leah Leah. How are you Doing? Well, how are you doing tonight? Doing alright. So my question for you is how did you get involved in out of school time programming? As far as career is concerned, Hi, my name is Leah Silverberg.

Speaker 2: 5:31

I'm a project manager at the After School Alliance. I use they them pronouns, and my first experience with after school programs was participating in them myself. But how I got into the field of after school and after school advocacy is when I was in college. I had the opportunity to work at a summer program through an organization called the Maker Education Initiative. So I really got into the space through Maker Spaces, which, for those of you that don't know, Maker Spaces are community spaces where folks can go and learn how to create things in a variety of ways. They're often associated with technology tools, things like that that folks may not have at home but are a barrier to making things. And so when I was in college, I got this position with the Maker Education Initiative through an initiative called the Maker Core Program, where you applied and they placed you in a program, and as a result, I ended up working at an amazing after school and summer program in Baltimore City called the Digital Harbor Foundation and I helped design and run eight weeks of their summer programming focused on circuits and coding and all this fun stuff, and if I didn't have the after school bug from participating in programs, that definitely inspired me to continue in the sign of work once I graduated college.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Okay, so, avery, tell us a little bit about yourself and some of the after school things that you do, so.

Speaker 4: 7:14

I'm Avery and some after school things that I do, obviously after school alliance, I'm involved with that and I'm also involved with a youth ambassador board for kids rank, which I explained a little bit briefly earlier. And now I'm a youth ambassador for a nonprofit organization called Morgan's Message which basically looks at student athletes, mental health and yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Awesome. How about you, Jamora?

Speaker 3: 7:44

My name is Jamora Rui Jefferson. As far as my local organizations, I participate in the Children's Trust of Miami-Dade County Youth Advisory Committee for the past three years, a program of surface and community volunteerism throughout Miami-Dade County, the Prez Art Museum of Miami, the Teen Arts Council for the past three years, where I've been the social media manager for the Art Ambassador Program, and also the Miami Water Keepers Junior Ambassador Program for also the past three years, which we deal with environmental advocacy and activism training. But the program that has had the greatest impact on me has been Breakthrough Miami, which I've been a scholar since I was a rising fifth grader, so that's been about eight years, and it's a year round program that provides academic and professional development for underrepresented students. Nationally. I've been the floor representative for both Afterschool Lions Youth Ambassador Program and the Million Girls Windshot Flight Crew COREHORN.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Cool, all right. So, leah, tell us a little bit about the youth ambassadors for people that do not know and have no idea, because I didn't know there was a youth ambassador inside. I looked on the website. I was like really no shush. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about the youth ambassadors and what they do.

Speaker 2: 9:06

Yeah, so the afterschool alliance has had a youth ambassador program for about the last five years and really this work took off during COVID, when, in 2020, when we put out a national call for youth voices, because everyone really wanted to try and understand what was happening in the afterschool space and we figured that the best place to get that information was from the students themselves, and so from that initial group we selected seven students and that has kind of been the basis of our programming since. So we do communications and advocacy training over the course of about eight months, and then we need to provide a culminating event where our students come to Washington DC and we connect them with opportunities to meet with their legislators Along the way. We provide them with kind of tools and resources to advocate at the local level as well, one of those being connections to their statewide afterschool networks. There's a statewide afterschool network in every single state and they do what the afterschool line says, but at the state and local level, and so making sure that the students are having the opportunity to nationally advocate on behalf of afterschool programs, but also connecting them with those local opportunities, is really really important to our programming.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Awesome. So, based on your experience and what you know, in what way has this program helped students become advocates for out of school time programming? But also, how are they continuing that work after they leave you all?

Speaker 2: 10:42

So I think that 90% of the work that we do is confidence building, and part of that is telling young people that their stories matter and their experiences matter, and then connecting them with folks that are ready and prepared to listen. The second part of the work, though, is the know how a lot of young people want to be advocates, but the how of how you actually advocate for something is something that can sometimes seem unobtainable. So, we provide the know, how we say here's how you reach your representatives, here's how you write a letter to the editor of your local paper to talk about an issue that matters. This is how you would have a meeting on Capitol Hill to talk to your representative. And then our students leave our program and we stay engaged with them and continue to provide them with opportunities. Just because a student has been in our program for a year doesn't mean that opportunities don't still come their way, because, really, what comes down to is the more voices that speak on behalf of after school programs, the more likely it is that we're going to be heard. And the voices that one matter the most are the young people, and the voices that are heard the best are from the young people as well.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Are you a program director or thinking of starting a program? Maybe you need new curriculum that focuses on character development or technical skills. Maybe you need help establishing effective program logistics to have an impactful program culture, or, overall, you just need a program evaluation. Well, school after hours consulting case here to help contact us at schoolafterhourscom, and our contact information is in the show notes. Hope to hear from you soon. Very true, what are some of the challenges you believe at school programs face, as you know as a community, and what are some of the things that government can help them, how they can help them with some of those problems?

Speaker 2: 13:05

So the first problem is funding, and I don't think anyone's going to be surprised about that. For every one student enrolled in an after school program, there are four waiting to get into one If one were to exist in their community. So that immediately shows a huge disparity. Right, and part of that is after school programs need to be funded. The second huge issue that after school programs are facing is staffing. It's really really hard for after school programs nowadays to maintain and attract staff members. I feel like we frequently talk about how teachers are underpaid, but that goes to paraprofessionals as well. So what it comes down to right is funding. Again, we need to be able to adequately fund high quality programs for students, and we need to be able to fund high quality staff to engage with those students Right.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Very true, very true, giving them the resources. And part of giving them the resources is making sure that you're able to, like you said, attract those individuals that want to do programming for them right. We'll also have opportunities to give mentorship at the same time. So, like the teachers say and we are consistently fighting about where you know, that's where education, as far as teachers, and after school time programming are kind of parallel to each other as far as when it comes to pay, is making sure that we are cut a decent check so that we can do all the things that we can do for the wonderful children. Yes, ladies, do you want to weigh in and give your opinion on this?

Speaker 3: 14:47

Well, I completely agree with Leah. If we had greater funding for programs, a lot more students would be able to participate in them and programs would also be able to provide a lot more opportunities. One of the programs I'm a part of, Miami Waterkeepers. We had the opportunity to go do shark tagging, do snorkeling, do a lot of activities that without proper funding we wouldn't be able to have, and it really just those opportunities spark different interests in students in pursuing a career in environmental studies and marine field research and just having more funding would be able to have a lot more kids having the same experiences, which are just incredible.

Speaker 1: 15:29

Very true, very true. How about you, avery?

Speaker 4: 15:34

Oh yeah, jamar, you said some very amazing like trips that you could go on and stuff. I've never experienced something like that but I do agree like traveling and the amount of students. Like Leah said, not that many kids can really get into these programs because of funding and they can't have a very large group numbers because of staffing and all that jazz. But I think if there was more funding it could provide a space that could really benefit greatly. I mean, it benefits now more, but if they had proper funding and proper resources it could be something really amazing.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Right, very true. So, ambassadors, being that I have you on spotlight, go ahead and answer this question for me. How has out school programming affected you as far as you and your life?

Speaker 4: 16:30

I'll go ahead After school programming. It really affected me because every time I moved it was kind of I was lost and confused. Personally, because I moved a total of six times and I don't know where I was doing, I don't know what I was at, I didn't know anybody, I was just this kid who was here and when I go to school it was just so many people and when I got involved it just made me feel like I belonged somewhere and I had this group of people that I could like I know, and then when I go to school then I'm like, oh hi, hello. So it really made me feel comfortable and it just made me feel comfortable like a sense of community. Like I've said to many people before, how about you?

Speaker 3: 17:21

So for me, I've been able to participate in so many high quality after school and summertime programs which have had such a tremendous impact on my lives and the lives of my peers. For me, growing up, I had I have really engaging parents. My parents would always help me pursue my dreams, but not everyone has parents who have the same time as my parents do to commit to me, and these programs provide an opportunity where students had these mentors outside of their house and they were able to commit as much time as possible. They were able to be their mentors, be their tutors and just be there for them, and just that aspect of creating that safe space for students After school programs has done such an amazing job with that and it has really transformed the lives of students.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Awesome. My next question for you, ambassadors, is do you feel like these programs has helped students find or shape their identity in some way or shape or form, and if so, how? I'll go.

Speaker 4: 18:29

I'll go first for this one. Go ahead, Jo. Go ahead. Sorry, I'll take positions One 2302 today.

Speaker 3: 18:36

So I've been able to participate in a lot of programs and I think each and every one of them had such an amazing impact on shaping the lives of students. And, for me at least, the Children's Trust Youth Advisory Committee has given me this opportunity to fulfill my goal of giving back to my community. Through volunteerism and service and the Press Art Museum, we're able to use our creativity to connect and engage with so many members of the South Florida community or Miami waterkeepers, where we're able to create this strong environmental advocacy program and help anyone who's interested in being in environmental sciences be able to pursue that. There are just so many opportunities through these programs to truly shape who you are as a person and be able to learn how to advocate for yourself, which I think afterschool alliance is such a perfect example of this, since both in the afterschool alliance youth ambassador program and in the Milling Girls Moonshot program, we've been able to have this platform to advocate on behalf of students and girls in the area and be able to promote the programs that have helped shape their lives.

Speaker 4: 19:50

Yes, I do think that these programs help students find and or shape their identity because they provide a lot of or at least for me a lot of hands-on experiences which not really you find in school and in a normal classroom. They really go out and they go all around in these field trips and in kids' rank they really did. Their motto was connect, lead and serve. So we connect to our community and our peers, we lead, we're leaders and then serve, and that's like we go to other programs or organizations that you can give back and, for example, feed my starving children. That was a one that I remember off the top of my head, which was very beneficial and I got to see, I got to work hands-on with something that you don't really do in school.

Speaker 1: 20:48

Alright with that. My last question for you is based on your experience and kind of getting a view of everything that's happening, you know, with not just funding but also with things that's going on in education and how it can affect after school time programming. Right, what are some things you feel after school programs may need to help them with broadening their reach to young people?

Speaker 4: 21:14

Okay, well, after school programs really need to help broaden their reach to younger people. I think is social media aspect. Everyone is on social media and everyone's on TikTok and Instagram. I'm guilty of this, but I think really, if these programs really took advantage of these apps that are available and out there, like TikTok I think if you're scrolling through and you have a fun interacting, tiktok of your program and they're doing a certain activity and then other kids see this and they're like, oh, I want to do that, I want that opportunity and I think that taking advantage of social media is a huge advantage to have, because personally I know a lot of young people are on TikTok nowadays, so yeah, Alright.

Speaker 1: 22:07

so using social media to kind of broaden their platform to show what they do, it's a good marketing strategy. You kind of tag other people. If you're at multiple centers, you could go ahead and tag those other people and kind of get them in on the challenge or the fun, and it also brings awareness about what you do in the program as well. So, using social media to your advantage, every I definitely agree with. How about you, jamona?

Speaker 3: 22:31

So, in addition to using social media, I've often mentioned at various events and activities that I strongly feel offering students stipends in exchange for their participation in programs Definitely broadens the level of engagement for younger people because, especially in high school, we have the opportunity to either have a job after school or go to these programs. So being able to combine both of them definitely allows your students to be more engaged and have these opportunities to learn new skills and become more knowledgeable about their own communities and make a difference in their communities.

Speaker 1: 23:11

So paying them for participation? Oh, I know how to go feel about them. I know how to go feel about them. I know how to go feel about them. Oh, it's a whole conversation. It's a whole conversation. But I understand what you're coming from when it comes to, like, high school students, right? Because sometimes in high school like participation for out-of-school time programming could be really low. So one of the contributing factors is that is that you have some youth that are helping taking care of their families. They have younger siblings. Some of them are working to make sure that they have a couple of dollars in their property or they're contributing to their household, right? So one of those things that could be done is, if you're in a training program or if we're making ways for you to learn a skill during out-of-school time programming, for you to make money, then why not give you a couple of dollars in your pocket or a stipend for a particular amount of time so that you see that you've mastered the skill, but also to link you to people in the field of whatever you might be doing, so that you could kind of get internships and experience but also broaden your network at the same time. It starts early, right. So if you don't know or if you're not in the room, how can you begin to have those conversations and learn those skills right? So I appreciate that Everybody needs to check.

Speaker 2: 24:30

In compensation right can look different. It doesn't necessarily mean paying students right. There's a huge movement in the after-school space right now for credit for learning, so receiving credit for the learning that's taking place in out-of-school time, whether that's college credit that they can apply to their degrees moving forward, or high school credits so maybe they graduate early.

Speaker 1: 24:56

Awesome. So, Leah, my question is the same for you what are some things you feel after-school programs need help with to broaden their reach to young people outside of more money, because we know that's all going back.

Speaker 2: 25:10

Well, you took my number one, which I was gonna say at risk of sounding like a broken record. After-school programs need more funding. Other things that could help after-school programs expand their reach Listening to young people. We've got some great ideas in this room and from these two wonderful young people that we're talking to today, but the young people have the answers, and one of the things that is challenging about expanding reach is that we've always had trouble reaching hard to reach communities right. By definition, hard to reach. Communities are hard to reach and we've kind of hit a wall with that, and so I think things like asking young people, how do we reach other students, how do we reach students in your community, how do we reach students outside your community, is a great starting point at least. I also think we need to get creative in what it means to provide programming, and we kind of have touched upon this in a few ways, whether that's programs providing internship opportunities, whether that's programs meeting. Virtually One of the greatest shifts, I think, in my thinking of the work that I've done was when one of our youth ambassadors in a previous year started talking about the Youth Ambassador Program as one of their after-school programs, and I had this moment of just because this didn't fit my in-a-box way of thinking about out of school time. I wasn't considering us one of the many opportunities that students could participate in, and there are more programs like ours out there, and so I think that's part of the equation. I think during COVID we explored virtual programming a lot, and I think there's still a place for some of that as well. All of the programs that we provide are virtual programs because we work with students across the country. There's still obviously also the place for that in-person connection and all of the benefits that that provides as well. But that last thing is, I think, expanding our idea of what the out-of-school time space is, and then part of that can be talking to young people.

Speaker 1: 27:48

Exactly so and this conversation has kind of happened like in other episodes on the show is that when we're building, we don't often think about adding the opinion of our youth. But they are the ones that we're here for, they are the ones that we are here to serve. So how can we begin to build and grow but we don't take in account, like their thoughts, their opinions, their ideas to help mold programming and what it could look like and what it should be for them? Right, yeah, so that's a good one, leah. Thank you for sharing. With that being said, we're gonna go ahead and jump into our youth feed then, and this is the end of the portion of the show you guys, I know, I know it's sad to come to an end, but we had good time while we were here. True thumbs up, all right. So my question for you is, for everyone at the table how can staff or youth make youth voice an active part of their program? Who wants to go first?

Speaker 2: 28:54

All right, take the floor Happy to go first and give Shumor and Avery some time to think. So I think one easy answer to that is just stopping and talking to the young people that you work with. Easy first step requires no planning. Just take a second and do a check-in with the young people. Youth voice can exist in a lot of ways. In programs, it can be as simple as a pre and post survey, right, or asking young people what kind of programming they want to participate in and giving them those options. The important part of any youth voice that work that a program is interested in doing, though, is that the listening has to be active, and part of what that means is that it's a conversation. You may ask your students what they want to do as part of your after school program, and everyone says we want to go on lots of field trips. You can't just end the conversation there. If you know that that's not a possibility, right. It doesn't mean that you have to make that possibility, but it means you have to communicate with the young people you work with about why that's not an opportunity that you can provide, and young people are really receptive to that. They're told no all the time, but they're rarely told why they received a no, and so that's one way to build up those relationships in your program that then give young people the confidence to start talking to you about what's important to them and ways to make your programming better.

Speaker 1: 30:41

How about you ambassadors?

Speaker 3: 30:45

Well, just to build off of what Leah said, I think in addition to listening to the voices is basing a curriculum of a program on the suggestions of the youth voices, so being able to include it in the program's mission and the day to day agendas. So the staff have this skin in the game and they're more willing to put 100% of themselves into the programming, and so will the youth, because they realize that the program is tailored to their desired career paths, to the desired activities that they want to do, so they'll have more engagement in the program overall.

Speaker 4: 31:26

And to go off both of those answers, I say give the youth the opportunity to teach their peers themselves, give them the opportunity to be their leaders in their program. Like I remember, in kids rank we would have a project manager or a director or someone and an attendance person and it was just focused on. It wasn't necessarily a hangout, but it felt like that and you'd feel comfortable and you felt like your voice was being heard, not only when I know it gets scary sometimes when you're sitting in a room and you're like a 16, 17 year old high school student and you're sitting with all these I don't know, really older people. It does get scary. But when you give it to the peers, when it really peers, you feel comfortable and you feel like you're very active.

Speaker 1: 32:31

Well, everyone that brings us to the end of our show. I hope to join us next time as we get into our next conversation, but I enjoyed you. I hope that you enjoyed the show and you'll definitely be seeing us soon. Leah, if there was anyone that wants to get in touch with the youth ambassadors and continue to have this conversation of advocacy right for out of school time programming, how would they get in touch with you?

Speaker 2: 32:54

Yeah, I can be reached at L Silverberg at afterschoolalinesorg. You can also just go to afterschoolalinesorg and go to our staff page. Please reach out. I'm more than happy to talk to anyone about ingrating Youth Voice into your program or some of the youth voice work that you're doing, if you just want to share it out. Awesome.

Speaker 1: 33:20

Well, everyone, that brings us to the end of our show. If you like what you heard and you enjoyed our conversation, make sure that you're following us on YouTube. Also, hit that like button so we know what you're enjoying. You can also find us on other podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, spotify and Google Podcasts. If you want to listen to our audio version as well, to get more behind the scenes stuff, make sure that you're following us on our social media accounts Instagram and Facebook, at school after hours. Well, that's all I have for today. In the words of Mr Arthur Ashe, start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. Until next time, y'all, bye, bye.