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Last April, 20 youth media leaders convened in the foothills of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains to participate in the Youth Media Leadership Institute (YMLI), part of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture‘s Youth Media Initiative. For five days, they discussed their work and strategized. “I felt connected to my peers and more ready than ever to help move forward toward our collective goals,” wrote YMLI delegate Cynthia Carrion, outreach coordinator of Manhattan Neighborhood Network, in an article for the MediaRights website.
Carrion interviewed other youth media leaders about what they took from their week in Oregon, ways they’ve collaborated with other youth media organizations since then, where they hope to see the field be in five years, and what the challenges will be getting there. “I felt as if I walked into YMLI as an indivdual and left feeling part of the youth media community,” said Andrea Isabel Quijada, director of educational programs at the New Mexico Media Literacy Project.

Last year, two New Orleans high school teachers began the Neighborhood Story Project, which enables local, predominantly African-American students to write about their lives. Since then the project has published five books of personal stories, such as how residents in a downtown Lafitte public housing complex became one young writer’s surrogate family after her mother, who struggled with drugs, passed away, the Associated Press (via USA Today) reported.
The books sold 2,000 copies at local bookstores, corner stores, and block parties. A print run of 4,000 more copies was slated to go when Hurricane Katrina struck, and all existing books-for-sale disappeared in the storm and ensuing flood. Soft Skull Press is helping raise money to print more books. The Neighborhood Story Project plans to use proceeds to help refugee high school students document the stories of life in the Astrodome, the blog Galleycat noted.
If you are working on youth media related to Hurricane Katrina, please contact Youth Media Reporter at editor@youthmediareporter.org.

Two recent publications provide an intimate view of teens surviving war and just surviving adolescence. Last Sunday, the Washington Post ran the first of a three-part series excerpting a 14-year-old Baghdad girl’s diary, which details her family’s daily struggle to survive war.
In conjunction with the cover story “Being Thirteen,” Time magazine published a collection of 13 essays by and about 13-year-olds. Topics include anxieties over grades, peer pressure, sports, friendship, family, diversity, and hope.

During my first year editing Represent, a magazine by and for teens in foster care, a writer I’ll call Leah began a story that painfully detailed her father’s sexual abuse. Though Leah assured me she needed and wanted to write the story, with each new draft she seemed to slip deeper into despair.
Though normally meticulous in appearance, Leah’s long, blonde hair became stringy and unkempt, and she began to smell like she wasn’t bathing frequently. One day she showed up at the office with a black eye, which she would not explain. Leah did say she was thinking constantly about the abuse that had happened several years ago. She found herself crying all the time and said the girls at her group home made fun of her for it. The other day, when her boyfriend hugged her, she said, she got flashbacks to the abuse and began sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m a freak,” she said.
I trusted Leah’s sense that it was important for her to tell her story and work through the thoughts and feelings it stirred up, painful as they were. But I could also see she was suffering, and that worried me. I had no social work training, and I felt unsure how to proceed. Was I doing enough to support her? Who was I, really, to say that she should be working on such a painful story?
My boss’s office was filled with books like Writing as a Way of Healing and Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, which, he told me, confirmed through research my sense that working with Leah on her story would ultimately help, not harm her. But as with many of the more sensitive stories I edited that first year, overseeing it left me in a constant state of self-doubt.
It was fortuitous, then, that I attended a seminar on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a condition that can affect people who have experienced trauma such as sexual abuse. There I learned how creating a narrative about the trauma can help heal the damage. While awareness of the potential therapeutic benefit of my work at Represent did not dramatically change the way I managed my writers, it did provide the framework I desperately needed to feel more confident in guiding young people telling painful, personal stories. It also reminded me that because I did not have social work training, I shouldn’t hesitate to seek out mental health professionals’ advice when I felt in over my head. I was able to work more effectively with my writers and avoid becoming overwhelmed myself.
Since then, editors at Represent have understood how useful it is for us to pick up social work skills wherever possible. We’ve made a point of attending seminars that give a therapeutic perspective to our work and have come up with guidelines to help both writers and editors feel more secure when a young person is plowing away at a particularly painful story. The following tips resulted from attending conferences for therapists, talking with student writers about Represent‘s process, sharing tips with colleagues in the field, and working directly with teens on narratives about trauma.

Create a sense of trust and safety from the get-go.

“When a young person brings up a traumatic event, the way adults respond to it is very important,” says Libby Hartigan, who has worked at the teen-written paper L.A. Youth since 1989. “If someone says, ‘I was raped’ during a group discussion, it’s critical for the adult in the room to say something like, ‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ or, ‘I didn’t know that happened to you.’ It doesn’t have to be a lot. Just ‘I heard what you said and I have a response to it, and that response is that it makes me sad to hear that and I appreciate your courage to bring it up.’ It helps not only that kid, but the other kids in the room.”
But avoid asking intrusive questions initially, especially in front of a group. “Show you’re receptive to it and not nosey. Nosey can come later,” says Hartigan.

Assess whether the timing is right.

It takes time to acquire the necessary perspective to reflect productively on a painful, personal event. To determine if a writer is ready, gauge whether they have moved beyond merely recounting an event to being able to reflect on their role in it or how it has affected them. Hartigan has found that this takes about six to nine months, which is exactly what psychiatrist Edward Rynearson, an expert on violent death, discovered through his research.

Know your legal responsibilities.

In certain states you are required to report abuse when you hear about it. Know what your legal responsibilities are and be upfront about them with your young people.

Educate yourself about PTSD, and don’t hesitate to seek help and refer young people to mental health professionals.

Ten to forty percent of youth in violence-ridden neighborhoods may develop PTSD. This can leave them in a chronic state of hypersensitivity and anxiety, so that they feel certain they’ll be able to get out of a bad situation fast. Chances are, a young person recalling an intense personal trauma, whether through writing or talking, may experience PTSD symptoms as well.
Purposefully calling forth a traumatic event in a safe environment with boundaries, dignity, and a trustworthy adult is how therapists help a person associate the trauma with something manageable. Through that association, a person can eventually have some control over trauma and feel less overwhelmed by it. (This process is similar to those used at many programs pioneering therapeutic models for using narrative to engage hard-to-work youth, including Represent or The Beat Within, a publication by incarcerated youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
As I learned with Leah, things can get worse before they improve. Memories of trauma may bring with them the old feelings of helplessness, depression, or worthlessness, or suicidal thoughts.
When working with a young person, stay alert to these symptoms and educate yourself about why they are happening. Seek help from professionally trained therapists and social workers whenever you feel uncertain about how to proceed. Remember that your role is not that of a social worker’s, and you are not expected to be one. Identify therapeutic resources young people can use. At Represent, editors often refer writers to programs offering teens free therapy, like The Door in New York City.

Identify and normalize the symptoms of PTSD.

Let a young person know upfront that tackling a difficult and personal subject is likely to bring up a lot of emotions. To normalize the experience for the young person, explain PTSD and its symptoms.
Let the young person know that people with symptoms of PTSD may have many of the feelings my writer Leah experienced: recurring flashbacks or nightmares, or unexpected outbursts of feelings such as extreme anger or helplessness.
PTSD can also involve “trigger” responses, where something unexpected—like the tone of someone’s voice—can cause a person to overreact impulsively and sometimes violently, or to have panic attacks.
Because the hypersensitivity that comes with PTSD is exhausting, many people with symptoms will numb themselves through drinking, drugs, or sex. They may also learn to avoid situations that trigger them, which can be fine, unless that leads to trying to avoid the unavoidable, like relationships, jobs, or going to school.
Giving young people an overview of these symptoms may help make them feel less frightened about what they’re experiencing and more comfortable exploring their feelings and reactions in their narratives, resulting in richer stories.

Assign a lighter story.

My first summer at Represent, one teen said she had flashbacks of being beaten with a bat. She wrote about being abused in the present tense, even though the rest of her story was in the past. She soon stopped participating in group meetings, putting her head on the table whenever her peers spoke. Her writing was affecting not just her, but all of the staff, including me.
I’d attended the PTSD seminar by that time, so I had an idea of what was happening. After talking with her about PTSD, to no avail, I eventually told her I could not continue working with her on the traumatic story anymore if she did not also start another, lighter story. So she began a story about how much she loved running. This helped immensely.
Working on a story about something light and “normal”—like a sport, first love, or hobby—can remind a young person that there’s more to life than pain. It also makes the workload more manageable for the adult in charge.

Ask about the future.

When a writer dwells on something difficult in her past—especially a situation she had no control over—balance her perspective by asking her to take a break to write about the future. Ask her to describe who she wants to be in five years, what she wants to be doing, what kind of people she hopes to be surrounded by, and how she plans to get there. This reminds a young person that as she gets older she’ll have more control to create a life she wants. It’s also helpful for the adult collaborator to be reminded of the writer’s resiliency and future hopes.

Build trust by being persistent, nonjudgmental, and patient.

“It’s all about timing,” explained Antwaun Garcia, who has written for Represent for over 5 years. “You have to be patient for that individual to tell their story on their time, and persistent in getting it out of them. After a while the adolescent sees this person is really caring, and they’re not just doing it ’cause it’s their job. That’s when they’ll open up.”
Avoid putting a story about personal difficulty on a tight deadline, added Garcia. Highly personal stories develop at an unpredictable, often idiosyncratic clip, and it’s most respectful to allow young people to explore them at their own pace.

Help identify triggers.

Ask the young person whether any current situations set her off, making her feel the way the original trauma did. Pinpointing how a trauma continues to affect a young person not only helps the writer gain more control over her reactions, it will make the narrative stronger.

Help identify avoidance or numbing techniques.

This could mean using drinking or drugs to numb feelings, or it could involve avoiding certain types of situations or relationships. Identifying these coping mechanisms can help a young person explore more direct ways to deal with feelings associated with trauma.

Take care of yourself and don’t be overly attached to outcomes.

Identify coworkers you can speak with about what you’re hearing and how you’re feeling. Stick to a manageable schedule and workload. If you don’t know how to proceed, ask for help. And try not to be too attached to a young person’s progress.
Of course, all of us working with young people who have been through trying circumstances want to see our teens flourish. After working at Represent for several years, I have seen firsthand how writing can exorcise demons from the past and make room for other concerns, like school.
At the same time, experts say that many who’ve gone through severe trauma never recover completely, and that those who do, do so on their own schedule. Expecting clear evidence of a young person’s growth—something out of your control—can be a recipe for burnout.
Instead, appreciate the fact that unlike teachers or therapists, you have evidence of tangible progress—a product—that you and the teen have collaborated on together. When one of the young people you work with is in trouble, allow this evidence of achievement to remind you that the young people really are accomplishing a lot.
Despite what experts say about who does and does not get past trauma, take inspiration from Garcia who, having written dozens of personal stories, is convinced that finding one’s voice through youth media is one of the best ways to begin processing and moving on from a difficult childhood. “I think most troubled kids just need that one person who listens to them,” Garcia told me. “Soon as you have that one person and give them that voice everything else just falls into place.”
Above photo: Writer Antwaun Garcia says he is wary of therapists but enjoys writing about his life and even finds it therapeutic.

Continue reading Social Work 101

A recently published study found that over time, children from low-income families who participated in after-school programs were reading at a higher level than peers who were not.
Meanwhile, one teacher complains in USA Today that heavy textbooks featuring abridged, bland, and monolithic writing are ruining the joy of reading for young people.

Frustrated by unresponsive school officials, a high school student used her camera phone to expose to health authorities the roach and rodent problems in her home economics class, WAFF.com reports.

New York-based Girls Write Now and Los Angeles-based WriteGirl match professional women writers with teenage girls who love writing, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

Unlike most articles about teen-produced media, this Washington Post piece explores the popular, Iowa-based website Your Mom not for the effect it has on young participants, but as a thriving example of citizen journalism, in which the members of a community get involved in reporting on it. It is one of the first articles that recognizes (even if indirectly) youth media as a prototype for the budding citizen journalism movement.

The following article originally appeared on Wiretap.
On July 13, a large auditorium at the Washington Convention Center lit by 19th-century chandeliers wasn’t hosting the usual crowd of elderly men in gray suits. For the first time in 30 years of liberal organizing, Campus Progress brought together over 600 progressive twenty-something activists to the capital of political establishment.
Recovering from the steady stream of recent defeats, liberals argue over the future of the Democratic Party. And as with the recent AFL-CIO split, there is no agreement on winning strategy in sight. Progressives blame the centrist ’90s and want to move away from corporate sponsors to pulling together a new, lower- and middle-class majority of Americans. But beltway moderates can’t seem to abandon conservative-leaning elites.
Political differences aside, progressive grassroots organizers seem to agree on one point. While the left has been more effective in local activism, including college campuses, when it comes to national politics the right dominates the agenda more than ever.
Over the past 30 years, right-wing groups poured over $35 million annually to college campuses. Even though a vast majority of students identify themselves as being closer to the left, for every progressive publication on college campus, there are two conservative ones. When it comes to affecting the national agenda, conservative groups have been more effective at organizing students, in large part, through campus publications.
But it looks like this trend could be changing. Campus Progress—a division of the Center for American Progress—is the only group in the U.S. today that financially supports progressive publications on college campuses. It currently sponsors 14 progressive publications, with plans to hit 50 next year, helps students bring progressive speakers to their schools and organizes national editorial conference calls. Student publishers receive money for printing, training and mentorship, says Elana Berkowitz, editor of the Campus Progress online magazine.
Their first annual conference was an attempt to gather hundreds of small student groups to kick off a national debate about progressive agenda.
In a day-long, free conference, students heard from Democratic moderates like President Bill Clinton and the first female White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers. There were also more-progressive writers and organizers, such as author Thomas Frank, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation and Stephanie Nyombayire—a young activist from Rwanda working to bring more visibility to the ongoing atrocities in Darfur, Sudan. Morning panels attempted to define progressive values while afternoon workshops focused on strategic training shared by veteran organizers.
A young woman in her early twenties in a flamboyant dress and pink high heels confidently introduces herself to everyone at the table. She is an intern from Americans for Peace Now. Her head shook violently as she laid out her carefully crafted talking points with a confident, at times deafening voice. I put a finger on my ear to hear my soft-spoken neighbor. Rob Cobbs is a full-time student at Amherst College and a board chair for Massachussets Student PIRG (Public Interest Research Group). He spends more than 30 hours a week on political organizing. Jamia Wilson, a veteran pro-choice activist with maturity well beyond her 24 years, has thoughtful insight on any topic that comes up. This group of students is every college professor’s dream&@8212;motivated, smart and articulate.
With 4.7 million more 18 to 24 year-old votes cast in 2004 than 2000, these young leaders are also becoming every progressive politician’s dream—from Democrats to Greens.

Tom Friedman vs. Naomi Klein?

The week after the conference, Campus Progress heard a few loud boo’s on its blog inspired by Sam Graham-Felsen’s article in The Nation. Critiquing the conference for its lack of more radical viewpoints from the progressive circles, he pointed out that no one challenged President Bill Clinton on the war in Iraq or his welfare policies.
Most Campus Progress bloggers debated the merits of a national conference that brings together more centrist students, who typically vote for the Democrats, and more radical participants, who vote for the Greens or even start their own parties. Do they have enough in common, or is this a waste of time, a project doomed to failure once they get down to policy?
Activist Jamia Wilson thinks the conference was a good idea and was impressed by the diversity of students, but she doesn’t see much future in compromising with the more centrist views. “I’m sick of the appeasement sentiment. Even though I truly appreciate Campus Progress, there is definitely this lean toward moderate, centrist propaganda. The Republican Party is winning and they never appeased us, ever,” she argued. For Wilson, the issues discussed were too safe—poverty, social security, sex education—compared to tougher turf like gay rights, a woman’s right to choose, or affirmative action.
Gilowen Jenkins, 21, a senior at the University of Massachusetts, recently changed his more radical stance and moved to the center for strategic purposes. “I feel that to get some positive progressive change we need to get the seats of power back. It’s okay to dream—we need visionaries—but you have to be realistic about the nature of power in this country and how to get it,” he explained.
Berkowitz, editor of Campus Progress, views these disagreements as an asset of the progressive movement, “At the core, Campus Progress students share a number of values—a commitment to economic opportunity and justice, maintaining civil liberties and reproductive freedoms, pursuing a thoughtful, effective and humane foreign policy.” She views finding common ground as key to effective progressive activism. “Students who don’t always see eye to eye on every political issue will have to work together to create a movement and to make change on their campuses and in their communities.”

Don’t Just Organize, Mobilize

Most students spoke with conviction and clarity about their values and goals. There were savvy strategists, organizers, and promoters. But as with the rest of progressive community, student organizers often fail to mobilize larger groups of people beyond their immediate activist circles.
This is where Campus Progress comes in. The group helps some of the most effective progressive student activists go beyond short-term mobilization on one issue—voting once a year, getting their schools to divest from Wal-Mart, or stopping a polluting plant—to becoming long-term, strategic organizers who stay in touch with non-activists in their communities on a day-to-day basis.
Through campus publications, these organizers can connect big political issues—like global warming—to the personal lives of people who are working too many jobs, taking too many classes or watching too much TV. The success of long-term organizing that can shape national agenda requires engagement of our less politically active neighbors.
John Wilson of the Independent Press Association, which that also supports college publications, comments, “If you look at any category of activism—the number of student organizations, the number of campus protests and events, the number of students actively organizing—progressives far outnumber conservatives. But the current model of progressive activism on campuses is a huge number of disparate organizations focusing on their own issues.”
Campus Progress can be that missing tool for all progressive students—radical or centrist—to effectively communicate with their base, build broader coalitions and win bigger battles. David Halperin, director of Campus Progress adds, “Trying to force conformity is doomed to failure. But we can get smarter about presenting our case and figuring out when it’s best to come together.”
For one day, for the first time in 30 years of progressive organizing, there were students from Ivy League schools and community colleges, students from Tennessee and Florida—all seeing each other as part of a cohesive whole. Public service seemed like a hip thing to do. And most participants were challenged to focus on what the progressive movement agrees on and stands for, rather than what it is that divides the various factions. For a movement that prides itself for its inclusion and diversity, I say it’s a good thing.
Kristina Rizga edits WireTap, AlterNet’s youth-oriented section.

Continue reading Speaking of the Future Establishment

Youth Media Reporter previously ran an in-brief item about the teen journalist who went undercover to see how far the army would go to get one more soldier. His “sting operation” drew national attention (and criticism). An Editor & Publisher article takes a closer look at how the young reporter got his story and the aftermath of his investigation. The piece provides a good way to get teens talking about what constitutes ethical reporting.