By Liberty Belote, Program Associate 

 

This summer, UP for Learning launched our formalized Youth Intern Program (YIP) to incorporate even more youth voice and action into all aspects of our organization. The program consists of two groups: Youth Interns, students who co-lead programs and projects happening in their local community or school; and Youth Program Specialists (YPSs), a cohort of part-time employees in their final years of high school or afterwards that are more deeply involved in UP day-to-day operations, included in organizational goal setting, leading professional learning for UP full-staff, and co-leading projects nationwide. 

 

The goals of the YIP are multifold, but as with anything UP does, youth voice and leadership remain at the center of it all. The Program Director, Katie Ingraham, more specifically captures what changes have been made:

“The evolution of the Youth Intern Program (YIP) was brought about by a desire to strengthen the learning and support we are able to provide to youth who are working with UP.  The program will continue to bring meaningful facilitation skills and school-transformation skills to youth. The additions to the program establish goal setting and reflection practices, ongoing coaching and support, access and collaboration opportunities with Youth Interns from all over the country, and professional development skills around workplace responsibilities.”

 

One core responsibility taken up by our Youth Program Specialists is leading the Youth Action Council (YAC). These meetings invite Youth Interns, Youth Facilitators, and any other interested youth to come together, make connections, share resources, and enact projects meaningful to them. YPSs have also lent their initiative, valuable perspective, and leadership skills to a wealth of other projects, including: revising and adding to UP curriculum, planning, training and facilitating projects like the School Safety Dialogues, the Racial Justice Dialogues, and the Youth Adult Partnership Online series, just to name a few.

 

When asked about the program, Ana Lindert-Boyes, a YPS, praised it as a youth-focused initiative:

“The YIP program is key to creating space for youth to feel empowered and supported in their growth as leaders and facilitators. It provides space for them to hone skills as well as develop on a personal level.”

 

As much as YIP creates space, it traverses space. The Youth Interns of our program hail from all over Vermont and beyond, including Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Indiana, Massachusetts and New Mexico. They are champions of their schools and communities, who take the lead on projects ranging from implementing restorative practices, antiracism initiatives, collecting data on the extent of youth-adult partnership between teachers and students, and a plethora of others. Some take on multiple local programs, all of which involve planning, executing, debriefing and improving it for the next go around. These highly skilled individuals are the foundation and continuing center of UP’s mission to empower youth and adults in reimagining and transforming education together.

 

Following the launch of YIP, Youth Interns hold a paid internship position with UP for Learning. They gain access to a whole community of interns and YPS’s leading transformative work just like theirs through the YAC. Also, Youth Interns set goals with UP, and we help them break down those goals into steps and reflect on them at the end of the year.

 

Ellie Neckers, a YPS, expressed high hopes for the changes and for the program as a whole:

“The YIP now reflects a more diverse population of our students and is now entering a really exciting phase of better structure, better involvement with other projects, and most exciting, more interconnection with other youth in the YIP.”

 

We’re confident that moving forward, YIP will continue to reflect this diversity, excitement in connection. In its pilot year, the Youth Intern Program supports 11 YPSs and upwards of 40 Youth Interns in their work with UP through connection to each other and UP faculty, as well as space and resources for their projects, programs, and goals. 

 

The early success of YIP can really be attributed in part to the youth it serves, who are phenomenal, insightful activists all within their own right. Unsurprisingly, but in no way less amazingly, they’ve taken on the challenge of setting high-aiming goals surrounding the implementation of strong, positive change within their communities. I’m incredibly grateful to have the opportunity, through YIP, to meet with them, hear about their accomplishments and lessons and offer our resources to help see it through. I’m excited to keep improving it as the Program Associate, alongside Katie and all youth who participate, in our shared mission to make YIP youth-centered, youth-informed, and at the forefront, led through youth-adult partnership.

 

We look forward to the lessons to be learned within this time that will improve and sustain the program for years to come, each with its own unique cohort of innovative and active youth leaders!