Advocating for YAs

Some general thoughts and opinions:

The role of the YA librarian is to advocate for YAs. To advocate means to publicly support a policy or cause. This role as a YA advocate is unique to the roles of children and adult advocate in a couple of ways. Unlike children and adult patrons, the behavior expectations, maturity level, and information/program needs of YAs vary greatly. Also, the library and the public at large vary in their perceptions of and feeling toward YAs. It is easy to forget what it was like to be a teenager and, therefore, easy to pass judgement on them.

Part of our role as a YA advocate is to validate the experiences of the YAs to the YAs and in indirect and direct ways to the staff of the library and the adults in the YAs life- this is where we can show our support for teens publicly.

Ways to support teens in the library:

1. Communicate how you want your YA patrons treated to the staff and other patrons of the library. Make this level of respect clear to the YAs.

2. Make sure they have their own space.

3. Cool programs for teens and advertise in local schools.

4. Create relationships with the adults in their lives, etc.

Teens have so many feelings and generally feel so intensely- love, anger, freedom, ecstasy -and all these emotions are new. It is going to be important to stay open to their perspective and remember our own. However, this job is bigger than where they are developmentally at the time and our values. We should be working with a network of people.

Teens' identities can be in such flux that they may have a hard time feeling like the same person from one day to the next. If they can see themselves in literature valued by adults, this will help them see themselves and their own experiences as valuable.

We are serving diverse communities. Even though we might not have had the same experiences as the teens we are serving, it is important to show them that they are not alone and also that their world is a lot bigger than it may seem to them in the moment. If we can show them a book or other media that illustrates to them that they are not alone, we are able to help validate their experiences.

Moreover, YAs have energy and nowhere to use it in many cases. They need to be given a things to do that help them form an identity and a sense of purpose or are just fun. As we talked about in class, boredom with teens is a very big issue. Alleviating that boredom is key to keeping them out of trouble. Keeping teens out of trouble will help make our job easier because highly engaged teens are an easier population to advocate for.