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What Kids Can Do, Inc.
What Kids Can Do, Inc.
Last May, we published a book called What We Can't Tell You: Teenagers Talk to the Adults in Their Lives (Next Generation Press, May 2005) that gathers the voices, insights, and stories of over 60 teenagers nationwide. In it, they talk "straight up" about what they need from the adults around them—parents, teachers, employers, neighbors, mentors—if they are to do their best.
MetLife Foundation underwrote the book's development. It has also put funds into helping What Kids Can Do spark public dialogue between teenagers and adults in communities across the country. In the six months since we began this public engagement effort, we have been struck by the sheer absence of public occasions where adults and young people can find common ground across the divide that separates them. We have noticed the extent to which adult concerns for teenagers focus on keeping them from negative behaviors, rather than supporting them as positive contributors to their families, schools, and communities.
We have heard teens say, again and again, how they wished they had more caring adults they could turn to for support and inspiration. We have concluded that we owe our teenagers more.
For those who would like to join us in creating public conversations between teens and adults on issues that matter to both, we have created a free 40-page guide filled with sample panel discussions, interactive exercises, handouts, tips, resources, and readings. We are also making available ten small grants of up to $500 to schools or communities that would like to host one or more teen-adult public forums (along with deep discounts on multiple copies of What We Can't Tell You). To learn more about this opportunity, please contact info@whatkidscando.org.
To download a PDF version of A GUIDE TO CREATING TEEN-ADULT CONVERSATIONS IN YOUR COMMUNITY (2.8 MB), go to www.whatkidscando.org/NGP/teen-adultformumguide.pdf.
By: Barbara Cervone, (401) 247-7665
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