The YouthScan Project workshop is facilitated by an adult and youth co-facilitation team. All workshops range from 45 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on the time allotted by the partner organization (i.e. one class period vs a 75 minute workshop block at an event).

In the workshop, youth go through an interactive, trauma-informed process of brainstorming issues affecting youth, and ideas for strategies to prevent or address those issues. Youth are not asked to share their personal experiences. Based on their knowledge as a young person tapped into their communities, they are asked to reflect more broadly on prompts about things youth are navigating.

Each participant reflects on what issues they would like to share with The YouthScan Project through the anonymous portal. They then partner with another youth to brainstorm possible strategies to prevent or address their issues.

At the end of the workshop, youth login to the portal, where they receive a random username. The platform walks them through the steps to submit: 1) an issue they want to share with decision-makers, 2) why they chose that issue, 3) ideas to solve that issue, and 4) self-identified demographic information. During the process, they are asked to select the dashboard “issue category” and “solution category” filters where they would like their responses to show up. Youth can submit up to 3 issues.

All data is reviewed for identifying information, hate speech, and statements promoting violence. Parts of submissions that meet certain criteria are redacted or removed (approximately 1% of submissions).

Interested in engaging young people as partners in making your community a better place?

The YouthScan Project partners with youth-serving organizations to bring The YouthScan Project workshop to youth. The workshop format is flexible to meet the needs of a multitude of environments, including classrooms, after-school programs, nonprofit youth programs, youth leadership groups, as well as youth summits and conferences.

The YouthScan Project Interest Form

 Interested in connecting with The YouthScan Project team to learn more? We’d love to hear from you!