Youth Communication NY Center

Writing program: we base our professional development programs (see section 4b below) on autobiographical stories by teens in our writing and Youth development program. Each year, our instructors work intensively with 45 teens (including 10 in foster care) as they write about personal experiences and social issues. Most writers are young people of color from lower income households who attend under-performing schools. We published produced more than 75 stories on covid, racial justice, inequality, race, friendship, anti-asian bias, gender, sexuality, foster care, families, and immigration. More than 21,000 peopleincluding teachers, foster care staff, advocates, parents, and other significant adults in teens lives--subscribed to the stories. We also published discussion guides to help educators use stories in group work.thousands of others read our stories as they were reprinted by commercial publishers and magazines. Skyhorse publishing released three anthologieson money management, healthy living, and peer pressurethat included 93 yc stories. Chalkbeat, a leading educational digital publication reprinted 11 stories. The nation republished 11 stories. Actively learn, a major online textbook publisher, included 20 of our stories in its high school english curricula. These stories offered educators insights into the lives, strengths, struggles, and aspirations of the Youth they teach and counsel. These insights helped educators to build more supportive learning settings and to improve staff-youth relationships.

Professional development: we train educators to use story-based curricula to strengthen youths social-emotional learning skills (sel). These storiesdeveloped by teens in our writing program highlight sel skills defined by the collaborative for academic, social and emotional learning: self-awareness, social awareness, responsible decision-making, self- management, and relationship management. Our training enables them to create settings that foster engagement, nurture positive staff-youth relations, and make all students feel welcomed and valued. Staff also improve their facilitation skills: leading open-ended discussions, drawing out reluctant participants, active listening, etc. Last year, we trained more than 600 educators at schools, afterschool programs, foster care agencies, and other organizations. They worked with more than 15,000 Youth. Since 2014, we have produced 11 sel curricula. Each consists of an anthology of stories by our writers and a 300-page leader guide with dozens of reading, discussion, and writing activities. The new programs focus on transitions to high school, transitions to college, identity and relationships, and responsible decision-making.