Peer Support Through
Teen Journalism

[This article originally appeared in the Fall 1999 issue of Social Policy magazine.]

By Rachel Blustain and Nora McCarthy

Two years ago, when Fetima Perkins joined the staff of New Youth Connections, a teen-written magazine, she didn't think of herself as a peer counselor. She just wanted to write about painful experiences she had kept inside for a long time.

Her first story, an intensely personal account of her sexual life, took several months to write. The first draft, 10 pages back and front written in purple pen, swung wildly between a tell-all confession of every aspect of her sex life and a harsh condemnation of promiscuous girls. It was titillating, but it lacked the reflection and nuance needed to spur readers to think about their own experiences.

Through discussions with her editor, she began to shape her diary-type draft into a readable story. Fetima explored the choices she had made, the consequences of those choices, and what she had learned. As she struggled to make sense of her own life, she was learning the skills and insight that would enable her to write a story that would help her peers.

The conclusion to Fetima's final draft reflected her growing self-awareness: "I always tell younger girls that I wish I had never had sex in the first place. I know that if someone had told me that, like most teenagers I probably would have gone and tried it anyway. But I think it's important for girls to know that having sex with every guy, or even a select few, isn't cool. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with having responsible sex, but if you don't want to have sex, or you don't enjoy having sex, you shouldn't do it."

The process of questioning and reflection through many drafts helped Fetima see why she was telling her story in the first place-to inform girls about the consequences of having casual sex, to show teenagers what may be going on in the lives and minds of girls they call "sluts," and to help girls work to change their lives if they've fallen into traps.

Initially, Fetima's sense that her story could have an important effect on an audience grew slowly in conversation with a skeptical and supportive audience of one-her editor. Through the writing process, she began to sense the potential power of her writing to reach an audience of her peers. When her story was published, this power became vivid-dozens of teens wrote letters in response to her story. Some said they now understood their friends' promiscuous behavior. Others wrote to share advice with Fetima or applauded her for writing so honestly about a taboo subject.

Seeing the reader reaction changed Fetima's sense of herself and her role as a teen writer. As she continued to write, she began to see herself as an advocate for girls who are misunderstood by their parents and mistreated by their boyfriends. In later stories-about the effect of her sister's drug use on her family, and about her own pregnancy and raising her daughter-Fetima was strongly motivated by the knowledge that sharing painful reflections on her own experience would help peers cope with or avoid experiences like hers.

* * *

Youth Communication publishes two teen-written magazines, New Youth Connections, a general interest magazine, and Foster Care Youth United, a magazine that focuses on the foster care system. Together they have about 200,000 readers. Many stories are written in the first person, and require intense introspection. The philosophy behind both magazines is the same-teens will be most open to learning about life from other teens. Thus, all the writers' stories are examples of peer self-help because they help teens analyze their situations and make tough choices.

But how exactly can stories (as opposed to face-to-face interaction) provide peer-self help? And what kinds of stories are most likely to prompt identification, reflection, and action among teen readers? The first rule, we've discovered, is that stories must go beyond promoting simplistic solutions to complicated problems that teens often hear from adults (and which some of teens are inclined to mimic): "Don't have sex"; "Just say no to drugs"; "Be cool, stay in school." Our teen readers instantly detect the false ring in those slogans. The second rule is that the stories have to avoid venting and blaming others. Seeing oneself only as a victim is ultimately disempowering-for writers and for readers.

Instead, we push our writers to explore the complexity and confusion in their stories; to question their motivations, and to see their concerns in a larger framework. We ask them to look at the choices they've made and to reflect on the consequences. We do that in an editorial process that is based on asking questions. Teens meet with each other, and individually with their adult editors, to talk about their experiences and figure out how to write about them with honesty and insight. Through many drafts the editors continue to ask clarifying questions, challenging the teens to think more deeply, to remember the details that best capture their experience and what they have learned from it. They read articles about the topics they're exploring. We also train them to interview adult experts and other teens so they can hear several points of view.

Most of the stories we publish take the form of a traditional essay: a beginning which lays out the issue, a middle which describes the writer's experience, and an end that summarizes or offers advice to the readers. Not surprisingly, the most important part of our stories is the middle, where the writer explores her struggle. It dwarfs the conclusions. Readers connect to our stories because they focus on making tough decisions, not coming up with easy answers.

One of the great strengths of peer self-help is that it brings together people who can learn and gain confidence by sharing their struggles. Our focus on teens' struggles, on the process of dealing with questions about sex, relationships, school, family, etc., provides many points of access for readers. For example, when a reader sees our writers working through conflicts similar to her own, she realizes that she's not alone. In a recent story, one of our writers described trying to balance her own needs and her family's-she wanted to go away to college, but her mother needed her to help out at home. Reading her story helped hundreds of teens in similar situations understand that it's all right to be confused and angry.

Our focus on process and struggle also allows readers to vicariously experience events, decisions, and the consequences they can lead to. In response to a writer who described his arrest for selling drugs, one reader wrote, "What I think was scary was when the author said, 'One of the cops had his knee on my back and his gun pressed to my head so I didn't dare to so much as breathe the wrong way.' I picture myself in that position and I promise that I would never sell drugs for anything."

Year after year, our reader surveys show that about 40% of our readers are moved to action by something they've read in our magazines. The responses to the question: "Has reading New Youth Connections ever made you do something, and if so, what?" range from the practical-"I stopped buying expensive clothes because it's not really worth it"-to the emotional-"It made me talk to my mother about my absent father"-to the potentially life-altering-"I was planning to lose my virginity but I decided to wait."

By the time our teen writers' stories are publishable-after the fifth or even tenth draft is completed-they offer readers new insights into their situations, insights which will help readers reframe their own experiences in ways which give them new power over those situations. When our writers lay bare the choices they've made it helps readers to see more clearly their own choices.

• • •

The personal story is a powerful vehicle for peer self-help, and a logical starting point for many young writers. Personal experience is what they know best; it's the richest possession they have to share. Peer self-help is grounded in sharing personal experience. However, we have found that reported stories-in which teens write not about themselves but about the experiences of others (their peers)-can also provide powerful peer self-help.

The reported story requires a different set of skills than the personal story. The most challenging one is the art of interviewing-listening carefully and asking the questions that will get to the heart of their peers' concerns.

When Edith Litvan first came to this country from Hungary she felt isolated and unsure of herself, like many immigrant teens. Though she wanted to do reported stories, she was afraid of the interviewing process. She thought that American-born teens would not understand her (literally) or would tease her. But Edith's desire to help her peers enabled her to overcome her fear.

Some of Edith's friends had serious drug problems, and she didn't know what to do. One friend had stopped talking to her. Another was always cutting school. If she said anything, they would tell her she was stupid, or worse, withdraw. By writing about their problems she would learn more about them and, she hoped, about how to help them.

Edith had chosen a difficult topic. She would have to get teens to open up about a subject they usually kept secret. At first, Edith was afraid to conduct interviews because of the sensitive nature of the subject and the negative reactions from friends. She managed to set up her first interviews, and to her surprise, the teens began to talk to her. She slowly lost her fear of them, and they began to tell her stories that otherwise would not have been heard. Edith began to see herself not just a reporter and friend, but also as their advocate. The teens trusted Edith in part because she had the passionate concern of a peer.

Edith's second article, about abuse in teen dating relationships, seemed like an even harder challenge. Her personal connection to the topic was slight: one night she had had a brief abusive encounter with a boy she had dated. After a discussion in the office about teen dating violence, she volunteered to tackle the issue. She did not, however, want to write about herself. Still, reporting her story would help her understand her experience.

Edith did write about her experience while she worked on the dating violence story, but her personal recollections were never published. We have found that a personal connection to the subject matter is important for our teen writers, even when they are doing more traditional reported stories. If they understand how their own feelings and values connect to the subject they are writing about, they approach it with greater sensitivity and sophistication. Thus, we encourage our writers to turn inward and look closely at themselves before they turn out again to help others.

With a completed story under her belt, Edith had gained confidence in her abilities to communicate with her peers, and have them open up to her. And they did. One girl described the violence between her parents, and explained how she replicated that violence in her own relationships. "I was used to that kind of love," she said. Writing about these teens' experiences made Edith realize that she had some power to change her world, and to affect the lives of other teens. This power also gave her a sense of responsibility.

Near the end of one of Edith's two stories on dating violence, she wrote about watching a young man in a video store push his girlfriend, call her bitch and whore, all because they disagreed about a movie. Edith described how she stood in the store, upset at the other customers who ignored the situation, or whispered about it. Some even smiled. Suddenly she remembered the words of a girl she had interviewed for her article, and she yelled them out: "If you are going to help, do so, if not, then go away."

"I was surprised by my own voice," she wrote, "because it was close to a scream."

Through her interviews, Edith learned a lesson about the power of peer support, and, in a moment when she might otherwise have been passive, she took action.

The couple left the video store, the rest of the customers stared. But the story ends: "I was still standing in the same spot when the girl ran back into the store and said, 'You were the first one who tried to help. Thanks.' "

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Rachel Blustain and Nora McCarthy are the editors of New Youth Connections, a teen magazine published by Youth Communication in New York City.