Youth/Adult Dialogues
A series of creative, interactive dialogues between teens and adults. They include arts-based and team-building activities, facilitated by youth and adults.
Topics range from general communication to healthy approaches to endings and transitions to gender stereotypes. Dialogues are produced in conjunction with the Vashon Youth Council and the Prevention/Intervention Team, with support from the King County Community Organizing Program (KCCOP).
Related YAD Marketing and Planning Documents are available for download here.
Buzz Words
YAD #16
“Buzz Words: Talk About Drugs” is the topic of the next Youth-Adult Dialogue, Tuesday May 5 at the Vashon Playspace (formerly the YMCA at Vashon Highway and Gorsuch Road) at 5:30 p.m.
It’s the 16th in a series of Youth-Adult Dialogues, which provide an open-minded space for different generations to talk and listen with each other.
“It was a great conversation, limited only by time,” said one Island teen after the last dialogue, which was about sex (following another about Rock n’ Roll). “I was amazed at how open everyone was.”
The spring dialogue will explore substance use on the Island, using fishbowl conversations, dinner-table banter, individual exchanges, music and more.
The evening starts with good food at 5:30, and goes until 8:30 p.m. It is part of an Island-wide series of events exploring substance use on Vashon, sponsored by Development of Island Teens, Vashon Youth Council, Vashon Island Prevention/Intervention Team, Vashon Youth and Family Services, Vashon Park District, King County Community Organizing Project, and community volunteers.
Please bring your own silverware, bowl and napkin. Come any time. All youth who attend will receive a free Movie Magic coupon good for a movie or a drink.
For more information, or to volunteer, please contact Carol Ellis at 463-9370 or carolellis-burton@comcast.net .
Sex & Love!!!
By the YAD Planning Team
It’s Youth-Adult Dialogue (YAD) time again. Come one come all February 3 to the Playspace at 5:30 p.m. to talk about sex and love.
The 15th Youth-Adult Dialogue topic: Sex: What’s Love Got to Do with It? The dialogues provide a lighthearted space for different generations to talk with each other.
It’s the second in this year’s themes of “Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll.” (October’s dialogue was about Rock ‘n Roll. Another in May will focus on drugs.)
There’s a free dinner (please bring your own plate and utensils). And youth who participate get a coupon that’s good at Movie Magic for a movie or a drink. The dialogue ends at 8:30.
Youth-Adult Dialogues were started in 2004 by the Vashon Youth Council and the Vashon Island Prevention and Intervention Team (VIPIT) in response to the strangling death-suicide of an Island father and his 17-year-old daughter in October, 2003 – an example of the worst of youth-adult communication. Sometimes they focus on specific topics, such as sex and love, and other times they’re open to anything people want to discuss.
Participants in past dialogues have commented that they always learn something from listening and exploring topics of mutual interest to youth and adults. Development of Island Teens (DOIT), another YAD co-sponsor, also offers follow-up grants to youth-adult teams who come up with community service projects as a result of conversations at the dialogues. Examples include a series of articles in the Beachcomber based on interviews with homeless youth, and a Young Women’s Forum for teen girls.
Besides the Youth Council, DOIT and VIPIT, this dialogue is also co-sponsored by the King County Community Organizing Program, Vashon Park District, Vashon Youth and Family Services, Vashon Be Prepared, and lots of interested volunteers. If you want to help, call Maryam Steffen at 463-2603.
The YAD Planning Team includes Kelly Ferguson, Alex Davis, Felicia Saathoff, Kris Bates, Stephen Silha, Carol Ellis, Bridgid Normand, Rebecca Fulton and Maryam Steffen.
Dialogue explores today’s Media Music and Madness
By Stephen Silha
Silence is Golden – and so are today’s ubiquitous messages sent by cell phone, computer, Twitter.com, and social networking sites.
Finding a balance is the challenge.
That was a conclusion reached by about 40 Islanders – half youth, half adults -- who gathered in the Playspace (formerly the YMCA) Tuesday at the Island’s 14th Youth-Adult Dialogue.
Over a lasagna dinner prepared by Felicia Saathoff, Maryam Steffen and Joy Goldstein, participants discussed their definitions of media, their taste in music, and their most trusted sources of information and news.
Kelly Ferguson and Klara Shepherd led off the dialogue by asking people to pick out images from advertising and record albums posted around the room and discuss them with another person in the room. Those exchanges illuminated different perceptions of images and politics, brand names and musical tastes between generations. The buzz of excited conversation was so loud that Marcus Berg had to ring his Asian chime and ask people to speak softly.
Then the under-20’s spoke with each other – addressing questions about values and music, media and community, the value of social networking sites -- while adults listened in silence. Not unlike their elders, the youth had differing musical tastes (“80% of music is about love”); some were carried away with the beat, while others loved the poetry of the lyrics.
Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook got mixed reviews. While many youth – and some adults – said they got great value and were “addicted” to them, others said they were “disconnecting,” they foster “social cowardice,” and they allow people to “keep your securities instead of confronting them.”
Small groups of youth and adults talked about what they heard in the youth dialogue, and came up with intergenerational messages about media and music for this moment in history. Among them:
• Use media in moderation. Apply a filter. Trust yourself to stay connected to yourself, then you’ll know how to connect to others.
• Get out from under the artifice of online communication and “swim to the mainland.”
• Huemans (people of different hues) are the highest form of technology.
• Take time in silence and appreciate that not everything is instant and microwavable.
• Use media and music as tools for introspection, expression and communication, but don’t let yourself get lost in them.
Then the whole group talked about what they’d heard and learned. “I always feel more intelligent after these dialogues,” said one young teen. “I learned stuff.” Another said, “I really appreciate this dialogue. I’m going to look at my computer differently.”
One adult expressed concern that “I don’t hear youth talking about service to the community.” A youth described “putting quotes from Thomas Jefferson on the sidewalks of Vashon” as part of his community service.
Others talked about developing better online etiquette, the importance of voting, and the dream contracts of the Vashon Youth Council which allow kids the opportunity to get support for personal or community–oriented projects.
Development of Island Teens (DOIT), which sponsored the dialogue along with the Vashon Youth Council and the Vashon Island Prevention and Intervention Team (VIPIT), offered grants of up to $500 to youth and adults who hatched projects together at the dialogue. One pair said they were going to explore where parts come from in cell phones and computers –such as the chromium in cell phones from the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- and publicize their impact on the environment.
The next Youth-Adult Dialogue – about either sex or drugs (this one was about rock and roll) will be in early February. Planning will start at an open session November 12 at the Vashon Library.
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Stephen Silha is a freelance writer and communications consultant who has co-facilitated youth-adult dialogues with teens and other adults since January 2004.
Video from the 12th YAD
Evaluations
Sex, drugs & rock n’roll:
Youth-Adult Dialogue relives a timeless era
By
Co-Decaf Editor, Vashon High School Riptide
Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll is the current theme of the Youth Adult Dialogues (YAD). The YADs, started in January 2004 and sponsored by DOIT (development of island teens), VIPIT (vashon island prevention and intervention team), and the Vashon Youth Council has the goal of improving communication between youth and adults on the Island.
The first dialogue of this year’s series is on Rock n’ Roll also referred to as Media, Music and Madness. It took place on Tuesday, October 28, at the old YMCA building. VHS students Klara Shepard and Kelly Ferguson along with Stephen Silha, a primary founder of the Vashon Youth Adult Dialogues, and other Islanders, facilitated the event.
“The Youth Adult Dialogue is a chance for Vashon young people and adults to get together in a creative, safe space to talk about issues of mutual interest,” said Silha.
The layout of each dialogue changes from topic to topic, but each one has the common thread of what’s called the fish bowl.
“Usually the focal part of the dialogues are the fish bowls. This is where youth and adults can actually listen to each other, talk with each other about whatever the topic is,” Silha said.
The four years of dialogues have provided a great impact on the Vashon community. Silha found this to be especially visible in the improvement of parent-child communication.
“We had both kids and parents tell us their communication has totally changes as a result of these dialogues because topics that before were taboo maybe to talk about, because they were discussed at the dialogue, kids could talk about with their parents,” said Silha.
The dialogues have transformed over the years. This years new theme was picked because it lightened the mood of discussion.
“We decided that some of the recent dialogues had gotten to serious and we wanted to get back to basics so we said ‘Well, what are kids interested in and what were adults interested in when they were kids?’ And it came down to Sex, Drugs, and Rock n’Roll,” Silha said.
Media was a large aspect of the Tuesday meeting and towards the end of the dialogue, small groups were asked to meld together an overall message about media. One compiled by VHS students Calen Winn and Chris Van Putten and other Islanders was “some of the interactive media can be a distortion of human contact, connections.” This was explained to be the need for people to have human contact, socializing in person, which can be forgotten if media is too heavily used.
With curiosity and enthusiasm coming out of the dialogues, the ones to come are sure to bring interesting discussions.
