How do you get in touch with your teens, find out their interests, and know what is current among them? Do you guess? Do you ask them? Do you look around and see what other teens are doing? While these are all good starting points, I really suggest starting a Teen advisory group. There are lots of catchy names for a group like this, but the bottom line is that it is created of teens who are active and invested in the library and who can give feedback on needs that they see or programs that they want.
The group of TAB (teen advisory board) at my library is really interested and engaged in the activities that happen here and some examples of some awesome things that happened because of their ideas are: Honey science, GSA, Art Clubs, and various other parties and activities. Even if the group of teens within the library is small, it is still good to put together a group like this and talk to them about ideas.
A simple way to organize the group is to have a snack, have a game, and then have an agenda and set meeting time. The set time helps them remember when it is and helps make sure that there are consistent results for whoever is leading the group, and the agenda helps them get started on topics, stay on task, makes sure everything gets covered, and gives them starting points for what to talk about.
This can be a really fun time for you and the teens to discover interests and have good ideas! For questions regarding starting a teen group, please email me at dstates@yorklibraries.org.
Dawn states: TAB.....cats, smoothies, silliness, ideas. It happens here.
No comments:
Post a Comment