Cultivating Leaders: Scaffolding Successful Youth Outcomes

Holding hands, seven young people stood in a circle doing final breathing exercises before their entrance onto the stage — the culmination of months of work to create a day where youth voices, including theirs, would be in the spotlight. The general message they received in their lives is that they don’t have what it takes to be visible. Their opinions don’t matter, aren’t worth something. They aren’t worth something. But on this day, their ideas — and those of the 120 young people in the audience — were everything.

Clad in a green shirt designating her as a member of the Youth Summit Coordinating Council, Heaven walked onto the stage and declared with nervous excitement: “Welcome everyone to the sixth annual GSS Youth Summit!”

The audience echoed her enthusiasm with energetic applause and eager
howls and hoots. With that launched a day of youth-led workshops devised and
facilitated by teams of youth ambassadors from Good Shepherd Services’
programs across New York City.

Read the entire article on Youth Today, here.