Free handbook to guide your own student research team
The Gardner Center initiated the Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning program (YELL) in 2000 as an afterschool program that trained students as community researchers, advisors, and socially conscious leaders. The program quickly expanded to include 350 middle school and high school youth in two Bay Area communities over the next six years. The program is still in use today across the United States and internationally through the curriculum developed by the Gardner Center.
The challenge
Youth leadership is widely recognized as a positive, desirable youth development outcome — but what does that mean exactly, and how do you foster it?
The solution
During the early years of the YELL program, the Gardner Center team identified three skill sets as the foundation for authentic youth leadership: (1) communication, (2) analytic thinking, and (3) positive involvement in the community.
Students participating in the program developed these skills by learning and deploying research techniques to study an issue of concern to them — and then using their findings to formulate and share policy recommendations and action plans.
Today, the Gardner Center offers a free YELL Handbook — with over 300 pages of structured agendas and planning resources — so that schools and other youth programs can run the program on their own.
Key takeaways
With years of experience studying and supporting youth leadership, the Gardner Center has found that:
Engaging students as researchers helps them develop three critical leadership skills: communication, analytic thinking, and positive involvement in the community.
Schools and youth programs can create and run their own student research programs with guidance from the Gardner Center’s YELL Handbook.
