Creating Opportunities for Meaningful Collaboration with Youth

On April 26, 2022, the Cooney Center presented the first in a series of virtual workshops and associated research briefs devoted to promoting tween and teen collaboration with public media. These capacity-building events are an exciting part of our work on the By/ With/ For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences initiative. Designed for producers, directors, and others interested in supporting greater youth participation in public media, the workshops are focused on highlighting research-backed best practices for engaging youth as meaningful contributors and partners. Each virtual workshop seeks to complement the deep work happening with our Peer Learning Community and Accelerator cohort, drawing from research and youth engagement work happening outside of the public media ecosystem.

At the first workshop, which focused on Models of Youth-Adult Collaboration for Public Media, we welcomed scholar Ben Kirshner from the University of Colorado, Ben spoke about his work with CU Engage, a center at the University of Colorado that works with community groups to address complex public challenges through academic courses, research projects, and creative work. Ben shared practical lessons learned from his work developing equity-oriented partnerships with youth organizations, and how he has applied those insights to build features of reciprocity into youth-adult partnership projects. CU Engage describes their unique approach  to reciprocity as follows:

“We seek to build relationships with community partners that are mutually beneficial and collaborative (“doing with”), rather than exploitative (“doing to”) or paternalistic (“doing for”). Reciprocal relationships like this begin when both partners can articulate their self-interests and, over time, work together towards common goals. This working together acknowledges and respects different forms of culture, knowledge, expertise, and capacity.” 

Among the many important takeaways from Ben’s presentation was an invitation for participants to center five guiding questions when designing youth-focused work (see below).

Following Ben’s presentation, we heard from a panel featuring Molly Josephs, founder of the This Teenage Life podcast (which spotlights the ideas, stories, and unique perspectives of teenagers). Molly was joined by several of her talented youth crew members (Cami, Alexis and Jayden) who took time out of their school day to speak with us. The youth panelists shared reflections about what motivated them to get involved with the podcast, what they have learned through their experiences, and what aspects of the program structure help to create an authentically collaborative environment where teens feel respected and supported.

Participants then took part in working sessions with break-out groups to reflect and consider how to apply various insights from the workshop speakers to their organizational contexts. Of particular note was an activity that invited station staff and other attendees to consider how they could make various features of reciprocity in their youth-adult collaborations “come alive.” Among the key reflections offered by the groups were the following:

On How to Inspire Collaboration

• Communicating in an informal way
• Working with youth to create agendas for meetings
• Surveying and working with youth to get their feedback regarding what works best / worst for them

On How to Promote Mutual Respect

• Creating activities that allow youth and adults to connect
• Welcoming all identities and ensuring that all identities and voices are heard
• Being willing to pause and reflect on what works / what doesn’t work.

On How to Create Moments for Group Reflection

• Giving youth and adults space and time to discuss the “goods” and “bads” of the project
• Taking pauses to allow relationship-building
• Allowing youth and adults to co-author blog posts after events
• Establishing regular and formal check-in meetings

Each of our youth delegates was assigned to a breakout group and tasked with identifying some of the key priorities discussed during the workshop that they felt were most important to include in future youth-adult collaborations. As part of our closing discussion, they were then invited to assemble a “virtual values quilt” that illustrated a collection of features they hoped to see “sewn into” youth and public media projects. The quilt (displayed below) suggested that teens crave youth-adult collaborations that champion compassi​​on, authenticity, and structures that support open collaboration. In viewing the quilt, media creators were encouraged to reflect on ways in which these and other themes can be incorporated into their company media project plans and company cultures.

 

 

For those who are interested in learning more about the brief and Ben’s talk, the video is available here: