SSYP Teens Host 1st Ever "Teen Panel"

By Maya and Angel, Teen Program Participants 2023-2024

The teen panel was run by our teens here at St. Stephen’s Youth Programs with additional support and help from our teen program coordinators DeDe and Lanaya. A teen panel was important because it allowed teens to ask other staff members that we may not see consistently or be able to talk to questions that we had regarding both in-program and out-of-program topics. Doing a teen panel was something we wanted to do to be able to get closer to the rest of the St.Stephen's team and to get a better understanding of what opportunities we have. We spent several meetings with teen staff dividing up roles such as food, hosts, activity planners, and more. Us teens had creative control over the event as Dede and Lanaya helpfully guided us through the process.  

During the teen panel we had Daja, one of our teens at YLC, as our host, making sure everyone had food, was comfortable, and guided us throughout the whole panel. We started with food then went into our ice breaker, a fun St. Stephens game called links. Then the panel started with six of the teens as the panelist asking staff members questions and also answering questions that some staff had for us as well. Some things that were discussed were payment for teens, snacks at the LEARN site, college support, our current experience with staff and kids at our sites, and more. The biggest success of this panel was everyone at St.Stephens gathering together and having a discussion to better understand how everyone feels. 

A key take-away of the panel was getting a better idea of the program funding, where that money goes , and how everyone is trying their best to support teens. Our biggest, and really only challenge, for the teen panel had to be our seniors not being able to get more funding for college. But nevertheless we feel like the panel went smoothly and was a great success. We feel as though the community space we have here at St. Stephen’s Youth Programs has grown due to this panel. We've been able to get answers to the questions we had but were unable to ask.