Youth Driven Spaces Initiative

The Youth Driven Space (YDS) project is designed to support out-of–school-time programs that serve older youth implement structures and strategies that use the operation of the organization itself as a pathway to 21st Century skill building and meaningful civic engagement.   Out-of-school time programs that adopt the YDS intervention model learn to utilize the actual operation of their organization as an opportunity to build youth skills and increase participation. The time is right for this model of explicit skill building for older youth given the drop off in participation that programs for older youth face and the interests in investing in afterschool programs for high school aged youth. Additionally the YDS model provides a workforce preparation pathway by helping to build 21st Century Skills among the youth who participate.

For many youth serving agencies it’s hard to attract and retain large numbers of older teens.   Youth-serving organizations know teens want ownership for how they spend their time, but historically, it has been a struggle to give authentic leadership to them within the context of after-school programs.

The Youth Driven Space approach has been effective in increasing participation of older youth, helping provide higher quality programs that are exciting for teens and helping them develop a range of important “21st Century” skills.

The Youth Driven Space (YDS) initiative began as a 2-year pilot project, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in which eight youth-serving programs in Michigan received intensive training and coaching/consulting in order to develop and support opportunities for older youth to authentically lead programs and share in their organizational governance.  

As a result of the Youth Driven Space initiative, we expect the following to happen at each pilot site:

  • more teens will participate and be strongly engaged in programs

  • teens will develop 21st century skills: leadership, communications and critical thinking

  • programs will better meet the needs of youth by bringing in youth voice and leadership when designing projects and initiatives

  • organizations will increase authentic youth leadership by involving youth in higher order roles within their organizations

Partner Introduction

Neutral Zone – The grantee for this project is the Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor’s Teen Center.  The Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor Teen Center, was founded by teens in 1998 to provide a unique, youth-centered venue for needed social, cultural, educational, leadership, and creative opportunities for Ann Arbor area high school teens.

The David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality – The Weikart Center’s mission is to advance the youth development field by positioning point-of-service quality as a powerful public idea. The Center aims to build quality accountability and improvement systems that improve professionals’ skills and change outcome trajectories for youth. 

The Community Evaluation and Research Center (CERC) - CERC  is a unit of Michigan State University’s (MSU) Office of University Outreach and Engagement. CERC acts as a hub for program evaluation activity across MSU, providing training in evaluation and conducting formative and summative evaluations. 

S|Y|N Associates LLC  - is a consulting firm dedicated to expanding the frontiers of leadership which helps leaders build more effective organizations.  S|Y|N Associates is led by Stephen Nose, a former Neutral Zone Board Member.