Dear Bertha,
How lucky the youth in your community are to have a good advocate in you! Starting a youth center is a big endeavor, and success will depend on finding the right partners and building a team to work together. In this response, I will try to give you some first steps for starting youth center in your community.
It's great that you know you want to serve young people. My first thought would be to refine the focus of your passion and skills and knowledge to find a specific niche. Are you also passionate about animals and want to focus a program that brings youth into contact with animals? Cooking? Music? Art? Climate Change Advocacy? Gardening? Sports? Do you want to work with youth to support social justice and/or inclusion efforts (e.g., racial justice, disability rights, LGBTQ+ inclusion). Identify something you care deeply about so that you can attract others with similar passions.
If you haven’t already done so, my next recommendation is to do a full inventory of youth-serving organizations in your area. Then, if you have not yet done so, volunteer some of your time in one or more of the programs for young people at, for example, your local libraries, schools, churches, youth sports organizations — even places like zoos and museums. This can connect you to others with similar goals of providing opportunities and supporting youth development— you may discover a program you didn’t know existed and be able to apply your leadership to build or revitalize something that is already in existence.
To ensure that a new youth center in your community functions successfully as a resource to young people , it will be really important to engage the end users it will serve. A good place to start is to create a planning committee of youth and parents. You will want to do a community inventory to understand the organizations and resources that exist and where your new ideas might fit. Quickly, you will want to figure out the purpose of the Center, and will need to answer questions about what needs are currently unmet?
CTB has a toolkit for this: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/assessing-community-needs-and-resources
To take the first step, I would suggest by approaching the strong “anchor” organizations in your community where there are either 1) youth or 2) youth-serving services. For example, you could consider reaching out to church leaders or local school administrators (e.g., principal, athletic director, or superintendent) to see what existing clubs or youth groups exist, and whether you can establish a “working group” or “task force” within that structure to explore creating a youth center.
Chapters 8- 12 provide a wealth of ideas for this work: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents
Instead of creating a youth center, you may consider developing a youth mentoring program as a stand-alone, or as part of an existing organization.
Chapter 22 is a good source of information: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/implement/youth-mentoring
Another similar option would be find any organization that is interested in being inclusive of youth and work to establish a youth leadership board so that young people can serve as ambassadors for organizational missions that are near to their hearts.
Check out Section 8 of Chapter 9: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/organizational-structu...
There are many options to create spaces and experiences for youth in your community, and I am glad you found the Community Tool Box in your search for answers. We send you all good wishes in sorting through what is the right path for you and for the youth in your community.
Thank you for reaching out,
Sharon M. Wasco, PhD
CTB Ask An Advisor, July 2021
