Youth Work is Leading with
While reading the article Pega wrote, it really showed me how important youth-led spaces are. Youth in Action is the perfect example of what the adult-youth relationship should look like. YIA is empowering their youth and helping them build off their own potential to reach their goals. When I look back at my own experiences being a youth in an after school program, I realize that I never had much control over the programs that were run or the things we did on a day to day basis. Looking at the ladder, I think the boys and girls club falls under assigned but informed with some tokenism because when donors came we had to be on our best behavior or they would select a handful of the "best" kids to parade in front of them. It was really just a space to keep us entertained until our parents got out of work. When a space is youth-led, there's more focus on individual experiences and the success of each youth outside of the space. Giving them power in that space will help them ...