Youth Council Collaboration: From Start to Finish

As it turns out, many youth councils have very similar training needs for their youth leaders, no matter what the purpose or structure of the group. Last weekend, NYLC participated in an organically-created Twin Cities Youth Council Collaborative Training, which brought together nearly 70 high school students from seven different youth councils/boards. Students from Brooklyn’s Youth Council (from Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, Minn.), the East Metro Integration District Youth Executive Board, HandsOn Twin Cities Youth Executive Board, Higher Ground Academy’s Student Council, ISD 622 Youth Leadership Council, the Minnesota Youth Council, and NYLC’s Youth Advisory Council came together to network, learn about each other’s work, and participate in joint-led trainings to prepare for the year of leadership ahead. It was a great afternoon filled with energy and a collaborative spirit.

The idea for this training developed when another youth council advisor and I were sharing training ideas that we offer for our respective youth advisory councils, and we realized that despite the fact that she ran a local group and I oversaw a national group, we still wanted the youth on our councils to be ready to facilitate meetings and reflections, speak publicly and share the work that they do with confidence, be ready to represent the organization at professional events, and work respectfully and deliberately with people from all walks of life.

Through that conversation we realized there was no need for each of us to be working in isolation to plan our own trainings using our own resources — so why not collaborate?! And if we felt this way, surely other adult advisors of youth leadership groups felt the exact same way. So we sent out an email invitation to the short list of youth council advisors that we each knew to see if they were interested in joining efforts, and soon the planning was underway.

We worked in partnership from start to finish, with different organizations taking on the responsibility of organizing a schedule based on each student’s session preference, compiling and printing nametags, creating posters, facilitating various workshops based on needed skillsets, and collectively contributing to the snack selection. What might have been a large undertaking for one person or one organization to manage alone seemed like very little work when we each took responsibility for various elements of the event. 

While the cooperative training was a fun event that brought us all together for an inspiring afternoon, it was only the beginning of collaborations to come. This was a tangible idea for us all to jump into together, but conversations will continue about how we can best support one another’s work. We will also be continuing to connect and share the work of our councils through our group in NYLC’s Generator School Network.

If you are interested in joining the conversation or getting your own youth leadership team involved, please contact me at alarson@nylc.org or 651-999-7362. The more the merrier!