How to be accountable to youth? The first step is simple: understand your relationship with them.
Oftentimes it can be challenging to practice accountability with youth consistently. The realities of precarious work, multiple reports and deliverables in numbers bite frontline workers like myself with no remorse. It can feel like we don’t have enough time to achieve everything. I’m sure you’ve felt this way at least once in your work. And sometimes, that means that our best practices of accountability can suffer, which is a problem.
Previously, I wrote about five ways that we can be accountable to young people. But, as I reflect on those ways, I realize that there’s more to accountability than saying the right things and being aware. With this post, I’m taking it a step further and complementing the previous five ways with five more.
1. Create space for youth accountability
Create a space that is intentionally designed to centre youth voices. That could mean changing the physical space from classroom style to circles of chairs that leave the adults outside. It could mean planning activities that don’t involve your presence or input. It could even mean allowing your youth to lead sessions. The point is to make such a space familiar to youth to the point where they own it and accept it as the new norm.
2. Analyze and evaluate your program curriculum
Gathering data for reports over the course of a program can be a daunting task. However, if you make evaluation a part of the actual program, you have two advantages:
1) You have rich qualitative data to work with for your report(s) and;
2) You normalize their opinions.
Roses – which are positive things – and thorns – which are things that could be done better – is one way to evaluate your session. This process can also make youth accountable to themselves because they realize that nothing can move forward without their input. Be patient and comfortable with the silence that will be there at first.
3. Be accountable to youth by letting them choose
Document what youth are telling you and share it back to them with actionable next steps. Sometimes they forget their moments of brilliance and transformation. Remind them by putting their words around the room. When they return after a holiday or school break, they can remember what they learned by looking around the room. Alternatively, you or your youth can take notes during each session and put them around the room.
4. Model what empathy looks like
Frontline workers often encounter a variety of personalities and people with ideas and values that may be different from our own. Rather than trying to make an example out of these young people, give them the benefit of the doubt by engaging them with questions. It will be uncomfortable and awkward. But you’re doing a great service to the other person; you’re making them think about their beliefs. Additionally, you’re helping them understand how to respectfully engage in disagreement. Furthermore, you’re modeling what it means to begin a conversation with empathy.
5. Share what you know
When we collect data, it often goes from us to our managers and then to our funders. The reports we do almost never cross the proverbial desk of the young people we work with. This isn’t a problem per se, but it can fuel the disconnect young people have with regard to the behind the scenes work you do. When you share the results of pre- and post- evaluation for example, it can empower the youth to commit more to the program and develop a deep understanding of its importance.
This list isn’t all-encompassing. Adapt and add to it as you see fit for the young people you are accountable to. I hope it’s relevant and helpful to you.