Fun fact about the US and youth involvement! Since the United States is not a signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child there is no legal precedent for youth involvement here! Article 12 of the CDC states: Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views […]
Category: youth policy
I want to add something to my earlier post on “So-Called Youth Issues“: we’re not in an era of some type of “post-youth” analysis. While I want young people to focus on issues that are beyond their demographic, I do not want adults to think that for one minute we should respond in kind by ending our work […]
The myth of so-called “youth issues” is pervasive throughout our communities, as young people are routinely segregated from adults throughout society, including mainstream decision-making, problem-solving and policy choices. There has been a frequent temptation to pigeonhole children and youth by focusing on schools, children’s healthcare, youth homelessness, child labor, afterschool programs, social work, nutrition, and […]
Good news! There is more interest in youth involvement in government than ever before! Moving from simplistic youth pages on government websites and traditional youth forums, Youth Voice is springing up from small town administration to state legislative youth advisory councils as never before. Some activities appear to be typical or traditional, and some are […]
This is the sixth of six posts today celebrating the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. Congratulations to everyone out there who worked for Obama’s election and had a role in this vote for change. I’ll share my reflections at the end of this post. Throughout the course of […]
Well, I’m no fan of mock voting, and as a matter of fact I stand firmly in opposition to it. However, I do appreciate that at the very least it raises the visibility of Youth Voice. It seems that the preliminary estimates from the National Mock Election, held last week across the United States, show […]
All of the readers of this blog likely rank as “well-meaning,” in the sense that none of us wish ill in our work with young people. Now, its true that I hold some people in contempt of violating that trust, either consciously or unconsciously. Rather than being as bold as I was last week, I […]
I have been conscious of presidential elections since 1992, when Bill Clinton was making his first run for president and I was a junior in high school. That year was the first time I heard of Rock the Vote, a nonprofit hooked up closely to MTV, where I heard their message. Its not that my […]
The United States is a backwards democracy. Rather than distributing the power to all of its citizens, it throws it into the hands of the few. Instead of bringing opportunities to the under-resourced, it lavishes chances upon those who already have access. In this post, I am concerned most with the reality that instead of […]
Once a youth advocate understands the reality that segregating youth is an injustice unto its own, they have a responsibility to undo that damage. They have a responsibility to integrate youth. For too long that notion of integration has been limited to simplistic notions about youth participation. “All we need to do is invite the […]
