Centering Young People as Experts of Their Own Experience

The presentation highlights practical examples from high schools in Maine and New Jersey, where students transformed standardized conversation guides into tools that reflected their authentic communication styles and priorities. The process involves three key phases: identifying who to hear from and what to learn, converting curiosities into story-based prompts rather than opinion questions, and allowing youth facilitators to adapt materials to their individual styles while maintaining core consent and safety protocols.

"The work is one of reimagining what a free and loving Learning Place might be and children are the best source of beginning this envisioning and liberating project they are after all the great imaginers they will lead the way the troublemakers at the front of the line we must begin by listening to them." - Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot

"Maybe if like the teachers like came and taught you like this is how you get into contact with the with these people the superintendents of the schools like actually teach kids like how to reach out to the place that they need to like to talk to to get changed because the most like problem about like our people is that we don't know how to go about change the right way." - Youth participant on systemic advocacy

• How might traditional educational structures need to shift to genuinely implement youth-led research and decision-making? What institutional barriers might educators encounter when trying to share power with students?
• Based on the examples shared, what conditions seem necessary for youth-led initiatives to be sustainable and effective? How might schools move beyond tokenistic student voice toward genuine co-creation?