Reflections on Youth Development and Youth Journalism—An interview with Executive Director Keith Hefner from the newsletter of the W. Clement and Jessie B. Stone Foundation. (2006)

Supporting Social and Emotional Development in the After School Hours—After school programs are a special place in which to help adolescents work on normal youth development issues like peer and family relationships and more challenging issues like responses to trauma. That special, youth-centered  role of after school programming will be destroyed if it becomes simply an appendage to the school day. (2005)

A Teen's Editor in an Adult World—A former Youth Communication editor, now a book editor at Doubleday/Random House, explains how working in youth media is similar in many ways to working in adult publishing. (2006)

Flipping the Script—Exploring the relationship between form and content in teen writing. (2005)

Writing at Youth Communication—This essay, from the College Board Review, is a brief explanation of how the writing process works at Youth Communication. (2004)

The Peer that Doesn't Pressure—What accounts for the extraordinary influence of our magazines on teens? This brief essay describes why the peer-to-peer communication in our stories is so persuasive. (1983)

Peer Support Through Teen Journalism—For many teens, the most important motivation for writing their stories is to help their peers. This essay describes several examples of the power of peer education in our work. (1999)

The Evolution of Youth Empowerment at a Youth Newspaper—During its first decade, Youth Communication dispensed with some of the formal trappings of youth empowerment (such as teen editorial positions) to focus on empowerment through skill-building. This essay explains the process. (1988)

Print Media by and for Teens—This "white paper," prepared for the Open Society Institute, is a very brief survey of print media for teens.  It mentions traditional school newspapers, the high school underground press, citywide independent papers like New Youth Connections, zines, and commercial products like Teen People.  It also looks at opportunities and challenges facing print media for youth in the early 21st Century. (2004)

Voices for Children—In this interview, which originally appeared in Children's Voice, the magazine of the Child Welfare League of American, Keith Hefner describes why Youth Communication created a magazine for youth in foster care and the impact that it has had. (2003)

Front Page—The Youth Communication newsroom/classroom is a place of diverse voices and practical learning. Here's one description. (1990)

The Movement for Youth Rights: 1945-2000—
During the second half of the 20th Century, children gained many new rights in schools and in the legal system, and activists (including many veterans of the civil rights and anti-war movements) reshaped the notion of youth services. This essay surveys the changes. (1998).

Youth Communication: A Model Program for Fostering Resiliency Through the Art of Writing—At Youth Communication, many teens revisit traumatic experiences through the writing process. This essay shows how that process helps teens reframe their experiences in ways that emphasize their strengths and resourcefulness. (1999)

Changing the Rules—Group homes get a bad rap in foster care, but some teens prefer them to the wretched foster families they have been placed with.  This story explores the pros and cons of group home versus family placements, through the eyes of teens. (2004)

The Scapegoat Generation: America's War on Adolescents—When adults are angered or frightened by social and cultural change, they often project their fears onto teens. When those fears are amplified by the media they result in ugly scapegoating. This essay-review explores the process by which teens are blamed for adult problems. (1996)

Experiential Education—Youth Communication is run like a professional magazine, and teens improve their skills largely through "experiential education." This essay looks at how teens learn simple and complex tasks at Youth Communication by doing them. (1990)

Getting Good Writing Out of Your Students—
Sample teacher training workshops available from Youth Communication (2000)

The 1970's-10 Years Of Turmoil In The
High School Press—This essay describes the post-1960s scene in scholastic journalism that gave birth to the Youth Communication concept of independent teen magazines. (1980)

Youth Communication Tools for Teaching Writing and Journalism—The Youth Communication teacher-editors have developed three tools for teaching writing and journalism:

1) The Editor’s Manual is a 200-page discussion of what we do and why and how we do it. $150. (Click here to see the Table of Contents.)

2) Exercises for Writers is a 200-page compendium of lessons that the editors use to teach teens. Note: This is not a curriculum. Rather, it is a collection of lessons that can be used to create a curriculum to suit the needs of the editor and the teens in the group. $75 (Click here to see the Table of Contents.)

3) The Teen Writer’s Manual is a 100-page guide that we give to each teen writer when they enter the program. It combines and orientation to Youth Communication and a writing and style guide. $50 (Click here to see the Table of Contents.)