Youth Engagement
Young people are eager to talk about
the things that matter to them...
Enhancing youth leadership skills is a key component
in all of our youth work.
Our workshops for youth are co-facilitated by
VISIONS Youth Consultants (ages 16-24), who are
trained to teach youth peer leadership skills.
Youth services and resources currently offered include:
- Customized workshops and programs for youth,
as well as for adults who work with youth. - The Legacy Project, a summer employment and
leadership skills training program. - YES! Kit, a printed training curriculum with
DVD support available for purchase and use by
adults and youth workers.
“Legacy has taught me new ways to deal with problems that I often run into at school when it comes to race and culture. I have also confronted my personal prejudices about certain groups, and extinguished those prejudices.”
— Aaron, Legacy Project participant
YES! Kits
Do you want to:
- Increase respect, empathy, and appreciation of differences among your youth?
- Empower your students with proven, practical strategies that promote teamwork and collaboration across differences?
- Give young people the language and problem solving skills needed to discuss and address difficult issues?
- Have youth be able to critically think about their internalized biases, assumptions and beliefs?
The YES! Kit contains a 5 session training guide and 36-minute DVD.
YES! Kit Guide
The guide is divided into five distinct sessions that focus on each key element of the process of learning and change. With this tool, educators and youth workers can move youth from awareness to action, guided by topics such as recognizing varying forms of exclusion, understanding the impact of personal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and translating new information and insights to the real world.
The DVD showcases youth in action at a Youth Engagement Strategies (YES) conference hosted by VISIONS and its partners.
Within the three sections of the DVD, youth participants progress through a series of learning, change, and action oriented sessions and experiences, designed to empower them to challenge oppression in their communities.
Legacy Project
The Legacy Project—a youth employment, training and empowerment program.
Each summer teens and young adults are given the
opportunity to learn the VISIONS model and run
community arts events focused around justice and
equity. During the school year, participants continue
their training in order to become youth consultants
and maintain contact with a positive peer and adult
community.
The program teaches young people how to be
instruments of social change by empowering them to
understand the root causes of systemic inequities, and
equipping them with the skills necessary to be
educators of other youth. Youth gain the ability to
understand their current reality through a historical,
economic, and psychological lens that takes into
account the effect that such oppression has over time
on individuals and communities.
Location and Funding
The Legacy Project is run Fresno, CA with the potential to be replicated in other parts of the US, depending on funding and local interest. Legacy is financially supported by both individuals and private and corporate foundations.
Youth Empowerment Workshops
VISIONS offers customized workshops to organizations and groups that want to engage youth around issues of diversity, inclusion and equity.
Our Youth Empowerment Workshops focus on both
the personal and societal impacts of exclusion—
based on race, gender, class, ethnicity and other
factors—and empower youth to become catalysts for
social change.
Both youth and the adults who work with them report
that VISIONS training has:
- Allowed youth and staff to share a common
framework and language. - Interrupted the perpetuation of bias and “one-downing” of another group.
- Increased young people’s self-confidence and their perception of themselves as leaders and allies.
- Improved both youth and adults’ ability to deal with internal conflicts and collaborate more effectively.
- Made both the organization and the youth more successful in achieving their social justice mission.
