Greetings! We are Diane Hsieh (research scientist) and Lex Nappa (research and practice associate) at Search Institute, an applied research non-profit organization focused on Positive Youth Development (PYD). We would like to share some main takeaways from a project that aimed to integrate PYD principles into a digital, LGBTQ+ social network platform in order to enrich youth users’ relational experiences. To elevate youth voice, we engaged the site’s users through a youth leadership team and a youth-facing survey.
Lessons Learned
Balancing respect and confidentiality. One of the very first things that youth asked us was what name they could/should use. We explained that between them and us, we want them to use names and pronouns that they want to use. Yet, we also explained why we need to involve their parents/guardian for consent purposes. We have some youth who were not out to their families, so they decided to use their legal name for the consent form, and use their correct name/pronouns during our meetings. Small details like this highlight the importance of respecting privacy when engaging with marginalized youth.
Hot Tip
Generously validate youth’s lived experiences. In meetings with youth and email communications, we intentionally, consistently, and generously validated their experiences and perspectives (e.g., “Your voice is valued, there is no right or wrong answer. Your experience is valid as it is!”, “”Why do we need you? As a site user you know the best!”).
Lessons Learned
It might take a while for youth to warm up. Meeting youth where they are is particularly important for youth who’ve had relationally damaging experiences with adults due to their LGBTQ+ (or other marginalized) identities. At first, most youth preferred to be off-camera and were slow to warm up. Eventually, they became more open and comfortable in dialogue. Low-risk relationship-building activities really helped: we started meetings with an emotional check-in and a list of get-to-know-you questions for youths to choose from (e.g., what is something that made you smile this week?).
Hot Tip
Honor youth’s creativity in research design. We leveraged the youth leadership team’s voice to inform and refine our research process and protocols (e.g., revise interview questions, interpret emerging themes). To the extent that budget allows, we also made room for additional research engagements that the youths came up with (e.g., we co-designed a survey with the youths because they thought it is important to have something in which all users could participate).
Rad Resources
In building the youth survey, we consulted Best Practices for Asking Questions about Sexual Orientation and Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents.
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