Youth Membership Now Available on the GSN!

The dog days are over, the school year is nigh, and we have an exciting announcement for the Generator School Network — Youth are now welcome! By introducing the unique perspective of our future leaders to the GSN, we hope users will gain valuable expertise and continue to create partnerships between educators, service-learning practitioners, and students across the country.

To make this transition possible, we’ve beefed up our security. The GSN has for years been a safe place for our users to convene, share resources, and partake in professional development. We want our youth to enjoy that same environment. Our security updates include:

• A revamped Report Abuse function. It is now easier for users to flag inappropriate content.
• An age requirement: you must be at least 13 years old to join.
• An updated user agreement with clear privacy policies for youth members.

For existing members of the GSN, there’s nothing to fear with these changes. We will continue the same strong focus on providing professional development, and not one resource previously provided in the network is going away. In fact, bringing youth into the site will only expand its utility for users.

How can youth utilize the GSN?

Do you work on projects in an afterschool or extracurricular setting (like a youth advisory board or service club)? You can now use the GSN as remote meeting place. The online format allows the flexibility to juggle mismatched schedules and still keep your group connected. Teachers may also now integrate youth voice into the planning aspect of service-learning by hosting a safe, creative space for your students in the GSN.

The GSN already serves as an ongoing learning community for youth who attended this year’s National Youth Leadership Training. These young leaders formed teams that aim to address the achievement gap through a service-learning action plan. The Plan section of the GSN is the virtual home for their projects, where they can upload their action plans and monthly progress updates. The NYLT group they created in the Connect section will allow NYLC staff to guide these youth through regular activities and reflections focused on particular skills or topics. These 44 trainees formed 16 teams which, together with their home groups, will give the GSN its own youth voice like never before. NYLC’s Project Ignition grantees also have a GSN presence, where they utilize those same groups and project features to report on the progress of their teen driver safety campaigns.

We encourage our existing members to involve their youth, get students in the network, and use it as a creative extension of the classroom. We’ll be glad to have them, and you’ll be glad you did.

Questions? Email gsn@nylc.org.