A Voice for Teens, Insight for Adults

Keith Hefner, executive director and publisher, founded Youth Communication to "give teens a voice." Hefner says he hopes young people who read the program's publications receive an accurate reflection of their lives and concerns. He adds that the nonprofit strives to "give adults (i.e. teachers and politicians) better information about teens so they can improve their practice and policies."

Hefner, 51, who received the MacArthur Fellowship in 1989 for his work in journalism and in the youth development field, leads a staff of 10, including four adult editors who work closely with teen writers. Several staff members are alumni of NYC.

Teens at NYC and Represent have written stories about a wide range of topics, including homelessness, drug and sexual abuse, aging out of foster care, adoption, abortion, the death of a loved one, religious intolerance, interracial dating, obesity, immigration reform, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the genocide in Darfur. NYC has also interviewed former New York State governor Mario Cuomo and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Finding Their Voices

NYC and Represent were immediate hits with teenagers after their debut, but some adults were wary of giving teens an independent voice. Tony McGinty, a former editor at NYC, remembers "A couple of schools told us not to send anymore copies." Chris Bell, senior program officer at the Pinkerton Foundation, a funder, says many foster care agencies worried that Represent "would be a series of unconstructive criticisms of staff and child welfare agencies." But Hefner says early support from former New York City Schools Chancellor Frank Macchiarola and former New York City Commissioner of Child Welfare Robert Little (Malcolm X's brother) helped to smooth each publication's path.

Youth are usually drawn to writing for NYC or Represent after reading a story that interests them, by answering an ad in each magazine for staff writers, entering a writing contest, or by being referred by a teacher or foster care worker. The application process includes essay writing and an interview.

Many teens who write for NYC are volunteers. Others earn English credits through internships. Writers at Represent receive a $50 stipend per article. Hefner says the stipend is an incentive and that it "reflects the more dire financial circumstances of the average Represent writer."

Teens learn a range of writing techniques, from investigative journalism to commentary, but the most popular form of writing is the personal essay. "The personal story is the hook," he says, noting that in the early years, editors favored traditional journalism. But annual surveys showed that personal stories "really grabbed readers," says Hefner. "There's really no distance between our writers and our readers," says Hefner. "They're essentially the same people."

The job of the adult editors is to help teens to tell personal stories that also convey information and facts, particularly stories that "intersect with larger political and social issues," he says.

Tough Stories, Done Carefully

Stories grow out of brainstorming sessions and one-on-one discussions with editors. Hope Vanderberg, 33, an editor at NYC, says editors challenge teen writers to "think deeply and critically and to write thoughtfully and with purpose," noting that it can take a writer five to 10 drafts over weeks, months or even years to complete a story.

Editors don't censor young writers' ideas—but they enforce one rule: no stories that attack someone else. This is particularly important when teens are writing about past abuse. Editors become concerned if it seems a writer is too close to a story and that not enough time has passed for reflection. They often suggest a writer wait—sometimes a year—before writing about painful experiences.

But when teens write, the practice can change them. Jarel Melendez, 20, a writer for Represent for two years, says writing a story about an AIDS walkathon gave him the courage to embrace his sexual identity. "In the process of writing it, I was scared and timid," says Melendez. "But I said 'I'm going to put it [his sexual preference] out there.'" Melendez said the story was his "baby" and that it gave him self-confidence and helped him to feel "comfortable in my own skin." Melendez, who will attend Baruch College in the fall, says his experience at Youth Communication has inspired him to create his own nonprofit someday.

Nora McCarthy, 30, an editor at Represent, says writing about controversial and painful subjects gives teen writers an insight into their lives. "Something I see in all my writers, they begin to reframe their experiences in a way that showcases their amazing ability to survive and rebound."

Fans on the Front Lines of Youth Work

Peter Kleinbard, director of the Youth Development Institute in New York City, says the nonprofit has a "great" reputation in the youth development field for producing high-quality publications while providing leadership roles for young people in the publishing process. Kleinbard, who recently collaborated with NYC to produce an issue on programs for teenagers failing in school, says Youth Communication is an important media outlet for youth. "We're surrounded by media, but they (young people) feel removed from it. They feel they have no access to it," he says. Youth Communication is a place where young people "can see the imprint of their own ideas."

Alumni have gone on to careers as lawyers, social workers, educators, doctors and youth advocates. The list includes National Book Award finalist Edwidge Danticat, author of "Krik? Krak!" as well as journalists for the New York Times, Newsday and the New York Daily News.

Jessica Vermont, a foster care social worker in Virginia, has subscribed to Represent for one-and-a-half years. She distributes the magazine to colleagues, foster parents and young people in her agency's Independent Living programs. "Foster care is already a hard place and the fact that it's [Represent] written by youth who have gone through tough situations adds to its weight and substance and makes it an effective tool," Vermont says, noting that the articles have helped to sensitize her to the youth she serves.

Making an Impact

Policymakers have responded to the group's work as well. In 1997, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), then the First Lady, was given a copy of "The Heart Knows Something Different," an anthology of stories by youth in foster care, by a teen activist during a visit to California.

Hefner says he later learned from a lobbyist that Clinton read the entire book before arriving back in Washington, D.C. In 1999, President Clinton signed the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal funding for Independent Living programs and provides funding for drug abuse prevention and health insurance for former foster care youth until age 21. Two Represent writers were present at the bill's signing.

"We're especially proud of that," Hefner says.

Represent writers also played a role in pushing mainstream media outlets to recognize that the much-feared "crack baby" epidemic of the 1980s was predominantly a case of media hype that needlessly and unfairly stigmatized many young people in foster care.

In 2003, Represent editors began hearing from writers that they were being called "crack babies" by teachers and their peers. But the editors researched the medical evidence and knew, from working directly with such teens, that they were no more troubled than other young people who had experienced painful childhoods. In spring 2004, Represent published a special issue focusing on the crack epidemic that included a commentary on how the dire predictions of medical experts and the media had turned out to be false. The writers also interviewed Dr. Deborah Frank, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine who, after "years of careful research," called the term crack baby "a grotesque media stereotype, not a scientific diagnosis."

Youth Communication and the Open Society Institute, a funder, later collaborated on a national media campaign to debunk the crack baby myth. The campaign led to a letter in the New York Times and an op-ed in Newsday, both written by Kendra Hurley, a former Represent editor. The New York Daily News was one of about 50 newspapers across the country to run an AP wire story on the topic. NPR also aired a radio segment on the crack baby myth, interviewing a Represent writer, and The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) followed up with its own story in the fall of 2004.

Hefner says that the CJR article "put the entire U.S. media on notice that the crack-baby myth was just that." Hefner says Represent played a part in debunking the myth, but like Clinton's support of the foster care law, "these successes have many mothers."

Looking Ahead

For the future, Hefner says the organization wants to "find more and new readers." To reach teens who are not regular readers, Youth Communication is experimenting with streaming video on its Web site and may continue using professional live performances of its stories to make an impact.

In the meantime, helping to shape the lives of teens like Mai will remain the focus. Mai, who plans to major in journalism at Brooklyn College in the fall, has aspirations to become what all YC staffers hope for their writers. "I hope to be successful, be happy and do what I love to do," she says.

Lisa R. Rhodes is a journalist living in Maryland. She is also an alumnus of New Youth Connections and wrote for the magazine in the early 1980s. Many of the interviews in this story were conducted via e-mail.