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July 2, 2004
Listening to local teens
JCC youth department aims to improve programming.
BRYAN SILVERBERG SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
It's amazing what teens will tell you if you just ask them. Jewish
teens in Greater Vancouver were recently surveyed within the framework
of the Greater Vancouver Jewish Teen Initiative (JTI) and the preliminary
results are fascinating.
For the past two years, the Greater Vancouver Jewish community has
been involved in the Partnering Communities Program of the Jewish
Education Service of North America (JESNA) and the Institute for
Informal Jewish Education at Brandeis University. This project is
led by the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC) in
co-operation with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and
the Jewish Family Service Agency, with support from the Jewish Community
Foundation of Greater Vancouver.
Vancouver is one of five pilot cities in North America participating
in this project, which aims to discover and disseminate new strategies,
models and approaches for working with teens, and to identify and
support best practices in the areas of community planning, programming,
personnel recruitment and professional development. The Vancouver
goals include developing a strategic plan for youth programming,
professional development for youth professionals and advocacy and
financial resource development.
Over the past year, the Jewish Teen Initiative executive committee
has collected data from engaged, under-engaged and unengaged Jewish
teens, their parents and lay leaders in Greater Vancouver about
why or why not teens chose to participate in Jewish programming.
The committee has collected more than 280 completed questionnaires,
out of the 750 circulated, soliciting a wide range of information
about what teens want, what programs teens are currently participating
in and their reasons for participation.
The committee also has conducted approximately 10 focus groups of
teens, parents and lay leaders from Vancouver and Richmond, soliciting
even more information about the current state of involvement of
teens, what might attract more teen participation and what resources
are needed to address the important issue of Jewish teen engagement
in Greater Vancouver.
These findings give some insight into what the teens are looking
for in programming. The main things they are interested in learning
are trends in current music and volunteering/social action. Almost
two-thirds of them would like to go on a program to Israel. Not
surprisingly, most teens are influenced by their friends when deciding
whether to attend an event, and it is through their friends that
they hear about activities.
In addition to the needs assessment, the JTI is encouraging community-wide
youth initiatives. Within this framework, Vancouver has established
the Vancouver Jewish Youth Professionals (VJYP), who have facilitated
community youth events throughout the year, and will be working
on professional development for youth workers. Youth professionals
from all of the major Jewish youth organizations in the Lower Mainland
have been co-operating and collaborating to prevent overlap, create
joint programming and use each other for peer support.
Recently, VJYP has created the JTGV Gift Certificate. The certificate
can be purchased through any VJYP youth organization and is redeemable
at all of the Greater Vancouver youth organizations, including the
JCC, summer camps, United Synagogue Youth, National Congress of
Synagogue Youth and others. This is the first such project of its
kind in North America. VJYP has also implemented the community Jewish
teen calendar at jtgv.com.
JESNA will be analyzing all of the data the JTI has collected and
presenting the committee with a comprehensive report about the community
needs assessment. Once that report is complete – within the
next few months – the JTI committee can work on implementing
the recommendations, and begin creating and offering improved programming
for teens, using information from both the report and other data
the committee has collected on the current involvement of Jewish
teens in Greater Vancouver Jewish youth organizations. Along the
way, the JTI will continue to engage members of the community, both
teens and adults, to give direction to this process.
For more information, contact Lu Winters at the JCC, 604-257-5111,
or go to jtgv.com.
Bryan Silverberg is director of program services at the
Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.
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