Create Safe Community Spaces for Youth

Before You Begin

• Familiarize yourself with existing literature and guidance associated with youth-friendly community spaces.

Resources:

• The Routledge Handbook of Designing Public Spaces for Young People offers a plethora of techniques for engaging youth in the development and design of youth community spaces.

• Developing Spaces By And For Teens In Out-Of-School-Time Programs offers guidance on collecting youth voice.

• The United Nations offers guidance on engaging youth in the creation of community spaces that serve young people.

• Identify policies or practices that may be sending messages that young people are unwelcome in community spaces such as parks. Does your community have limits on where young people can skateboard? How many young people can enter a facility? Does your community have curfew laws or loitering laws? Too often, these policies are unequally implemented and cause unequitable harm to young people of color.

Resource: 

• Injustice in the lowest courts: How municipal courts, rob America’s youth

• Identify and connect with other organizations and individuals working or interested in this area, as well as those that hold decision-making power. Working with other organizations and/or individuals is the best way to maximize your coalition’s power and allows for a greater influence. Before selecting implementation activities, your coalition should take time to understand who is already working in this space, who has power to influence decision making, and what efforts are already underway. Reaching out to these organizations and individuals can help you form partnerships and learn from current and/or previous systems-level work in this area. 

Resources:

• The National Academy of Community Organizers offers A Guide to Power Analysis in Community Organizing, which can help coalitions understand where power sits within a community around a particular issue.

• Understand how social determinants of health and structural causes of disparities are related to youth access to community spaces within communities. Neighborhood socio-economic status is linked to the availability and quality of community spaces and programs for youth, so as a coalition, you should seek to understand the connection to ensure your efforts do not further entrench inequities.

Resources:

• The Race Matters Institute of Just Partners, Inc. offers a free guide on conducting a Racial Equity Backmap, which helps groups and individuals consider and identify the various drivers of a given inequity.

• Consider using an Equity Impact Assessment to better explore and understand such consequences. Both the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Race Forward offer free resources.

• The Government Alliance on Race and Equity offers Racial Equity Toolkit An Opportunity to Operationalize Equity.

• Co-create a vision for youth-friendly spaces with young people. Starting with youth-adult-partnerships allows for adults and youth partners to co-create a shared understanding. Engage a diverse group of youth in conversations about what a youth-friendly space means to them. Specifically include young people across different experiences (e.g., age, class, race, gender identity, ability, socioeconomic status). If you do not currently engage young people directly, you can reach out to existing youth-serving organizations and schools within your community.

  1. 1. • Provide explicit context for why you are engaging youth in these conversations: Explain why you are having these conversations. Explain how these efforts can build protective supports for youth. Create a space for youth to react to these ideas — do they agree/disagree/have commentary? 

        • Discuss: What are youth-friendly spaces? How do you define this idea? Who decides? Work with young people as partners to discuss the qualities that they identify as creating a “youth-friendly space.” What does the space look like (is it physical, is it attached to an existing location, is it a new location, is it in a school)? Have they experienced a youth-friendly space before? If so, what was it like? What qualities made it feel friendly? Was it welcoming to everyone, or just some people? Who goes there? What services are offered? What makes something feel welcoming? What are the qualities of adults that work in the spaces?

• Identify existing community spaces for youth in your community. To begin this work, your coalition should understand what options are available to youth in your community, how often they are utilized, and by whom. Pay special attention to young people who may be underserved. As you are identifying these spaces, consider how you(th) might evaluate them, based on the criteria developed by young people re: “youth-friendly spaces.” Are they aligned?

  • 1. • Make sure youth are integrated into every step along the way. This can look like adults doing the leg work to identify partner organizations and reaching out first to give context on the project prior to young people doing further investigation.

       • Young people could be involved in visiting and/or communicating with the leadership of organizations within your community.

       • Support young people to be authentically engaged by helping them to co-create a set of questions, practice their interviewing skills, and debriefing after each conversation.

Resource: 

• The Colorado afterschool partnership has created a map of current offerings it can be found here. When doing existing mapping, try to consider community demographics, including socioeconomic status and racial/ethnic background to identify unmet needs.
  
  

• Facilitate community mapping (sometimes called “asset mapping”).  Community mapping is a data-driven process that results in a visualization of community resources (social, cultural, economic), assets, concerns, and opportunities located within a community. Hot spot mapping, which can be a part of wider community mapping activities, is a data-driven activity that supports communities by identifying spaces that are safe and unsafe. The mapping process can help uncover current spaces that attract youth, current areas that may promote anti- and pro-social behavior, and provide insight on efforts that can expand spaces that promote prosocial involvement and healthy development. To emphasize Positive Youth Development, be sure to include young people in all activities as decision makers and facilitators, not solely as participants.

Resources:

• The are numerous online resources that include a “how to” guide, as well as case studies showcasing how the community mapping process has been used in communities:

  • Participatory Asset Mapping Toolkit

  • Community Asset Mapping Guide

  • Mapping Our Common Ground

  • The National Institute of Justice’s report, “Mapping Crime: Understanding Hot Spots” is a comprehensive guide to hot spot mapping.

  • Watch a Colorado community that has utilized hot spot mapping here and read more about the use of hot spot mapping in Colorado here. 

  • This resource offers instructions on how to use Google Maps, a free and easily shareable online resource, to facilitate community mapping.

• Create partnerships to support existing community spaces for youth by increasing       enrollment and addressing barriers to youth access. Your community may already be home to several existing spaces for youth. If this is the case, your coalition can create partnerships to support their growth and reach.

Resources:

• Identify existing locations and programs in your community and build relationships with their leaders to hear more about their specific needs.

• Learn more about what these partnerships can look like using Chapter 26 of the Community Tool Box.

• Assist existing spaces with recruiting to increase participation and visibility in the community. Various strategies are outlined in Chapter Six of the Community Tool Box.

• The United Nations offers a framework for evaluating safe, healthy spaces for youth in communities. 

• Consider that young people have different needs, based on age and developmental stage. This means you will need to tailor the way you engage with young people based on their age group. Research suggests middle school students seek experiences that focus on choice, leadership opportunities, cultural enrichment, health and wellness and a chance to give back to their communities. High school students seek college preparation, access to higher education opportunities and exposure to careers and workforce training. Older youth, particularly high school aged youth, are often better served by more targeted, in-depth curricula that address a specific area of interest.

Resource:

• National League of Cities’ strategy guide provides cities with guidance on how to create enriching, relevant and supportive OST environments for middle and high school youth that will help put them on a path to success. The guide outlines key strategies that show the most promise for maximizing scarce local resources for the benefit of older youth, coupled with city examples from small, mid-sized and large cities. 

• Create partnerships with stakeholders who may be able to support the creation of new spaces for youth. It will be necessary to work with local leaders, policymakers, business owners, and organizations to successfully identify and/or establish new spaces. 

Resources:

• Understand important stakeholders to these efforts using Chapter 26 of the Community Tool Box.

• Learn about successful efforts across the U.S. here.

• Support the establishment of joint use agreements that allow use of public facilities for recreation by the public during non-school hours. Successful examples of this are provided by the Prevention Institute (p 8).

• Support efforts to build public support. Strategies are outlined in Chapter Four and Chapter Six of the Community Tool Box.

• Engage community leadership to understand ways in which a new space may need to be funded, and support efforts to find funding for this center. This may look different in each community (federal grants, new local tax included on ballot initiative, repurposed funding within local budget, etc.)

• Support partners in creating and maintaining a safe community space for all youth. To best serve youth in your community, it is important that those building, hosting, and running community spaces for youth are creating safe spaces for young people of all identities and that are accessible to all.

Resources:

• Conduct a Racial Equity Impact assessment in advance of development to ensure the spaces you create are inclusive for all youth across racial/ethnic backgrounds and do not result in unintended consequences for youth who are already structurally marginalized. Both the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Race Forward offer free resources.

• Learn how to ensure spaces are accessible to and safe for youth with disabilities using the Community Tool Box.

• Learn how to create safer spaces for LGBTQ youth via this toolkit from Advocates for Youth.