If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14-24 where we'll be doing community service work, library programs, hosting guest presenters, and making connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.
Tonight was the first night of the Young Adult Action Society that I didn't lead the program. I was lucky enough to find two guests who presented very different programs for Black History Month including our first-ever guest presenter, Antoinette Cauley. She did a fantastic presentation about her work and work that inspires her, mostly focusing on an upcoming black artist Kehinde Wiley.
Kehinde Wiley did Obama's presidential portrait, and has been on the rise in the art world for quite a while. Antoinette explained that he usually paints portraits of people with a bold floral background. His art is unique because he brings the bold, noticeable background into the foreground, instead of letting your eye focus only on the subject of the portrait.
After the 20-ish minute presentation and a quick Q&A, the youth were turned loose at a table of art supplies to create their own Kehinde Wiley-esque portrait! Their subjects were people or other living things (we had one cat and one human with their entire upper half covered by flowers) from magazines, and then use collage, pastels, and acrylic paint to make their backgrounds.
Here are some pictures I snapped of Antoinette teaching and the youth working on their art...
And here are the amazing finished products displayed in our library entryway along with info about the program.
Antoinette was a fantastic guest and I'd have her back any time!
If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14-24 where we'll be doing community service work, library programs, hosting guest presenters, and making connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.
This week we met in our library's makerspace to learn how to make tiny origami stars. These were the main slides of my PowerPoint...
And then we watched these two videos to learn how to make the stars:
While the videos were helpful, I found that most of my group are one-on-one learners when it comes to something this complicated. I was too bust walking around helping people to take many pictures of the youth crafting! The only picture I have from tonight is my own star jar that I made as an example. I wrote happy memories on mine, so that I can open the stars when I'm feeling overwhelmed and remember a happy time in my life.
Overall, this program was not a total bomb but also not one that I'd do again unless I had more time. After we got through introductions and explaining what we'd be doing, there wasn't much time to make the actual stars. I sent a lot of kiddos home with empty jars and multi-colored half-inch strips of paper. Some of them got frustrated with the complexity of the craft also, so this will probably be the last time we do a maker program this advanced. But, live and learn. Several of them got the hang of the stars right away, and one even had her friends write encouraging messages on hers so she can open them when she's feeling sad, which I thought was super sweet and creative.
I entered today's Young Adult Action Society meeting still on the high of 21 participants last week, but also incredibly stressed about technology. I was counting on our big screen and projector to show videos on tonight's topic because I am not a scientist, and the AV equipment was incredibly difficult. It ended up taking six people an hour and a half to figure it out or fix whatever was wrong, so I was very short on prep time for this program. Even so, it turned out great and I think some of the kids really took the content to heart.
If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14-24 where we'll be doing community service work, library programs, hosting guest presenters, and making connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.
Tonight, the program was called "Attitude of Gratitude." It was very instruction-based, and centered around the scientific fact that anxiety and gratitude cannot simultaneously exist in your brain. If you purposefully rewire your brain to regularly remember the things you're thankful for, it might lower your anxiety levels if you're prone to panic attacks, have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or just get nervous sometimes. I did feel compelled to announce that I'm not a scientist or mental health professional, and none of the program contents should be taken as medical advice.
So, I started out the program by going around the room and having each participant say one thing in their life that they're thankful for. A lot said friends and family, some said their pets, one said memes. After everyone had a turn, we watched the first video:
This video, "Why Are You Anxious," does a better job of explaining the scientific side of anxiety and panic attacks than I ever could. After it was over, we had a brief group discussion on what we learned from the video. I also posted a short summary for the visual learners.
After that discussion we watched our second video, "The Gratitude Experiment."
This one is clearly just one video in a series on a health and wellness channel, but it did a pretty good job explaining what we'd be doing for our hands-on activity to go along with the lesson. After viewing, I asked everyone to recall what they said earlier as something they're grateful for. Then, I asked if they take that person or thing for granted; almost all of them admitted that they do. That was when I saw the turning point in a few pairs of eyes, from "Why are they telling me this" to "Wow, maybe this does apply to me after all."
Finally, we explored the societal myth that it takes 21 days to form a habit with this video, "Can Habits be Formed in Only 21 Days?"
As it turns out, habits CAN form in 21 days, but the average is 66. It can even take eight or nine months to form a habit! Each person's brain works differently, and how long it takes is no reflection on an individual's intelligence or willpower.
This was a long half hour or so of instruction, so the group took a fruit snack break. When we reconvened, my fantastic volunteer Sebastian passed out the gratitude journals I made for the group. To make them, I used a simple quarter-fold template on Publisher so each one was just a single sheet of paper folded in fourths.
I left them with these final challenges:
I told the group that if they wanted to share their finished journal with me in three weeks, I would love to see it. They are equally welcome to keep it private. It seemed like a handful of the participants really got something positive out of the workshop! Others were clearly yearning for something less instructional, which they will get next week when we make origami star jars.
The best part of the night came right at the end. A very shy teen who is new to me (tonight's program was the second time we've met) coming up to tell me the following: "I just stayed behind to tell you that I think you're really cool, and I think I want to be a librarian now because you make it look really awesome. I've been thinking about what I want to do, like for a job, and it was basically down to undertaker or [I don't remember her other option], but now I'm seriously thinking librarian." SO TO RECAP, I INSPIRED A CHILD'S FUTURE CAREER CHOICE BECAUSE I'M COOL. This was one of the moments you keep inside your locket, so you can snap it open and admire it when the world around you is crumbling into dust. I was so incredibly touched and honored that she overcame her natural quietness and got up the courage to come up to me, a relative stranger, and say that. I told her how much it meant to me, and offered to help her out in any way I can as she moves along in discovering what all it means to be a librarian. Even if the program had been a total failure, this moment would have saved the whole night.
But the program wasn't a failure, we had 20 participants and an empty fruit snack box by the end of the night. I am loving everything about this program.
The first-ever meeting of this program I've been planning for six months and talking up to anyone who will listen is FINALLY HERE!!! I am so excited, and so proud of myself for all the work I've done to make this program a reality. I was honestly surprised by how many people showed up. I would have considered six or seven participants a success, but we had a total of TWENTY-ONE! If you've ever sat in a room with cold pizza and a single volunteer, you know that number is basically unheard of for a teen program. Not only were participant numbers through the roof, about half of them were kids I've never met before. They weren't past or current volunteers, nor did I recognize them as library regulars. That means all the flyers I've been passing out and all the word-of-mouth advertising I've been doing WORKED!
If you'd like detailed info about what YAAS! is all about, you can refer to the What is YAAS? entry. It will hopefully answer most of your questions. If it doesn't, feel free to email me. My work email is all over the city on hundreds of flyers now, including the flyers on this blog, so it should be pretty easy to track down.
ANYWAY.
If you click this link, you can view my First Meeting PowerPoint in full. There are a few epic animated transitions that don't translate to that website, but all the info is still there. Here are screenshots of the more interesting slides in case you're not feeling up to opening a new tab and flipping through 12 slides right now.
Up as youth are walking in and getting oriented.
The intro and icebreaker questions are also listed for easy reference.
Important to explain what this group is
and why they should be excited about it.
Explanation of the four main programs we'll be exploring monthly.
Getting the youth involved in making the rules of the group
gives them a sense of ownership of the group. They'll keep coming back
if they were one of the original members and made these norms.
Is it even one of my programs if there's not a Broadway reference?
I feel it's important to give the youth ownership of their space.
If they make the rules, they're more likely to follow them.
Important to add that as group members change, the norms might also be amended.
Bribery always works
Since the above is basically an overview of our meeting, I'd like to share some pictures from the first meeting that show the plan in action!
The angle on the presentation photos is weird because I took them from a tiny, squishy chair very close to the ground.
The youth came up with a great list of group norms. Almost every person thought of one to contribute. While they took a break, my adult volunteer Sebastian and I went through the list and picked what we thought were the six most important ones to assign to the groups. Here's the list in full (norms they presented in blue):
Write the book you're currently reading on your name tag each week
Everyone tries to read weekly
Communication among YAAS members - "don't yuck my yum"
Actively participate
Respect each other
Have fun
No swearing
Always be respectful of other cultures
Come to YAAS with a chill mindset
Don't bring unnecessary drama to group
Be on time
Don't use your phone during YAAS
Don't touch things that don't belong to you
Okay to step outside if you need to
Give a compliment to someone each week
No throwing shade, and keep inside jokes to a minimum
After reading this list, how can anyone not love teens and young adults like I do?? They are so thoughtful and smart, and covered everything necessary to create a fun, safe, worry-free space every Tuesday evening. I couldn't have come up with a better list of norms myself.
If you viewed the full PowerPoint, you might have noticed there was a "Who Am I" activity listed. I was planning to do that activity, but we ran out of time just as the norm presentations were wrapping up. It was a bummer because it's a fun getting-to-know-you activity, but it might also make a good icebreaker to begin next week's meeting.
YAAS is off to a great start! I hope these participants continue to come, and that word spreads until we have a huge group of enthusiastic library youth!
Encouraging young adults to become life-long library users through the promotion of participation in library programs and community engagement, and to assist the library in developing and implementing programs which serve local young adults.
Vision Statement YAAS’ vision is to provide the youth of Mesa with community service opportunities inside and outside the library so that the youth feel engaged in their community and empowered with leadership skills.
Who, What, and Why? The idea came from several different sources. First, I wanted to cut down on my one-time programs in 2019 in an effort to lighten my workload and make the programs I do present extra great. Second, I wanted to get more teens and emerging adults into our library since our Teen Advisory Board disbanded in early 2018 due to low or no participation for months on end. Third, I have been volunteering at One N Ten for over a year and noticed that the structure of their weekly satellite location meetings really works and keeps the youth coming back week after week. A lesser reason is, I hate when 18-year-olds have their magic birthday and are suddenly expected to be Adults 100% of the time. I had no clue how to be a grownup when I was 18, and don't expect our teens to either. They can still benefit from the guidance and camaraderie that programs like this provide, even if they are "grown" in the eyes of society.
Each month, I try to have at least one week focus on each of the following broad topics:
Librarian-lead library program
National day of recognition
Community service and outreach
Group discussion
I also hope to host at least one guest presenter per month. I have already confirmed two guest presenters for January, February, March, and April (and they're all FREE except one!). The guest presenters are especially necessary for the national days of recognition (Black History Month, Women's History Month, LGBTQ+ Pride Month, National Pet Day, etc.) because these are subjects I am not necessarily an expert on. I wouldn't feel right presenting on behalf of a culture I don't belong to; I'd rather bring in a guest who is immersed in that culture and can talk about it with authority.
Running this program weekly has proven to be a huge undertaking, but I'm so happy with the direction the planning has taken. I can't wait to get a core group of YA's involved and write about the program each week!
This summer, I was tasked with being in charge of the teen volunteers. If you've ever worked in (or visited) a public library in June and July, you've probably been at least peripherally aware of teen volunteers working there. They are incredibly important to making the Summer Reading Program happen because it is, as I lovingly refer to it, the children's librarian Olympics. We are constantly running, programming, craft-prepping, and helping patrons at a wildly accelerated rate. We couldn't do it if it weren't for those amazing teenagers who need community service credit to graduate high school (and/or are just good people who want to help out) (and/or couldn't find a paying job and their parents want them doing something over the summer). Whatever the reason, we're thrilled to have them.
After our system's volunteer coordinator forwarded me all 30-odd applications, I sent out two emails. The first was to people who had never volunteered here before, asking them to come in for an interview. I set aside a couple of Saturdays and scheduled four teens per hour. I saw each of them for 10-15 minutes, during which time I asked them a few questions to get to know them better and find out where they would be best suited to work in our library. I didn't turn anyone away; simply presented them with the forms to get their badges and welcomed them into the program. I consider the interview more of a formality than a necessity; it gives the kids job experience and gives me a chance to meet them one-on-one before the summer starts.
The next step was to organize a mandatory orientation. I had one on a weekday evening and the other on a Saturday morning, and let all 35 volunteers know that attending one or the other was a requirement for participating in the program. Orientation included individual introductions, icebreaker games, popcorn reading off a PowerPoint to make learning the rules a little more engaging, and then standing up for a high-energy shelving activity lead by the manager of our pages. At the end, one of our other children's librarians ran a Jeopardy-style trivia game about the rules we had discussed earlier in orientation.
The best part of orientation was inviting any staff member who wanted to attend. This had not been done in the past, which caused a bit of a disconnect between non-youth services staff and the volunteers. This year, several managers and librarians from other departments attended, which was great for both sides to get to know one another.
Once everyone was oriented, I made schedules for the SRP desk, weekly storytime helpers, and one-time program assistants. Some of the scheduling was done manually in Excel, and for other parts of it I used SignUpGenius.com. Something new that I implemented this year was a daily reminder email sent out to all teens who would be working the next day. I found this cut down on the kids forgetting their shifts or being late.
Possibly the biggest bummer of facilitating teen volunteers is keeping track of discipline. We did have several instances of volunteers having their phones out during programs or desk shifts, which can become a disciplinary offense if it happens a lot. The bigger infractions were being late or missing a shift without calling; we made it clear that two no-call-no-shows equals termination, and there were two instances of this over the summer. In terms of discipline, our entire department learned that we will need a more consistent flow chart for next summer.
The best part was pinpointing the volunteers who exhibited leadership skills and having the bility to give them more to do. For example, three of our most dedicated volunteers were my assistants during Theater Day Camp, where they often lead games and acting lessons while I only supervised. I loved seeing these young people blossom into leaders!
An important end-of-summer ritual is the teen volunteer thank you party! All three of our children's librarians worked together to plan the party complete with food, gifts, and activities for the kids to enjoy. The party was held after-hours in the library, and they got to run wild in the empty stacks for a scavenger hunt! After that we had dinner and a karaoke party in the Program Room.
I am excited to say that overseeing the teen volunteers is something I will continue to do throughout the 2018-19 school year, so I might be posting updates about our year-round volunteers periodically!
This program started out as a small idea, and morphed into a pretty big deal by the time it was planned and ready to go. I follow several "daily holiday" web pages that list all the local and national silly holidays, because this sometimes gives me program ideas. It's how I thought of Make a Grandparents Day Card, for example. A few months ago I noticed that National Pet Day was coming up in April. We had done dog toy making as a teen activity last summer and it went over pretty well, so I thought about combining that with a few other stations and having a National Pet Day celebration at the library.
Because the library is a city entity, I contacted the City of Mesa Animal Control Department to see if they had any advice, resources, or even a representative they could send out on the day of the program. They got really excited about the program, and said they would send one human representative from their department and at least one furry friend. Of course, the exciting idea of a dog or cat in the library got the community buzzing.
My mom also happens to be a professional dog toy maker. She knows the exact right size and type of fleece strips to make the perfect long-lasting tug toy. Luckily she was available to help, so she set up at a table and guided kids in braiding their colorful creations. At the end of the night, we had over 30 tug toys to donate to homeless dogs at Animal Control.
The best part was, the Animal Control department totally came through with their furry friends! Their rep brought three seven-week-old gray kittens! I'm a dog person, but the kittens were the best thing that has happened to me this year. Adorable.
In the end, we had an attendance count of 94 people! In my previous experience this is almost unheard of for a weekday evening program. The Vice Mayor of Mesa even stopped by and featured us on his Twitter, and Nearby News was back to photograph for another feature.
Also, enjoy these pictures I took during the event (with parent permission, of course). I especially love the action shot of the two kittens wrestling.
