Matthew Morton on the Importance of Youth Involvement

Trusting Youth Today Will Make Strong Leaders Tomorrow

Last year, Youth as Resources in Pinellas County offered Matt Morton, age 17, the opportunity to go to the National Network for Youth’s Annual 2001 Symposium in Washington, D.C. He started out as an “at-large representative for under 21 youth in America” and after the first meeting he was named youth vice-chair. To sum up his involvement, Morton said, “The National Council on Youth Policy got me involved in youth policy, but I’ve always been an advocate at heart!” In October 2001, the Forum asked Morton to talk about how he became involved in
youth advocacy and what he thought was needed to promote more coordinated policies.

Forum: How did you get involved in youth advocacy?

MM: Before high school, I was always quiet and into reading. Sometime after I started high school, I became
involved in my school and in my community, and little by
little I began to break out of my shell. Now, I regularly
make speeches in my community, advocate for the Younger Americans Act (YAA), and help out with the 61st Central Teen Center.

The 61st Central Teen Center is the first thing I got
involved with. We started out as a bunch of youth who
wanted a place to go on Friday nights and stay out of
trouble. The Juvenile Welfare Board (JWB) of Pinellas
County saw our potential and gave us $200,000 to start
up the teen center. We interviewed 12 nonprofit organizations to see who would be our partner. We chose the
Boys & Girls Club and since then we have been sharing
their facility. We have four offices and almost 400 members.
We have been so successful at getting teens involved
with community service that we are now looking at a
grant of $640,000 in addition to the original grant.
This is youth empowerment: taking ideas that help our
community and implementing them. I am now co-chair of
the teen center and we are planning to get one started in
every county.

Forum: How do adults support your work?

MM: I live in a youth-friendly county. In Pinellas County, we have the Juvenile Welfare Board and the Boys & Girls Club who provide funding and really trust youth to be a part of the process. Pinellas County has a home tax that
goes to fund the Juvenile Welfare Board, so our whole
community and county have made a statement that they
support youth. The United States needs JWBs everywhere, and that’s just one of the reason I support the YAA, because that’s essentially what it will do.

The more I get involved, the more my community supports
me, like my principal who supports me and allows me to work with the youth at my school through the announcements or wherever I can. When I speak with the teachers at the National Council on Community Justice, they take back the messages I give them to their schools and provide me with examples of what is happening in their schools. When we talk about community youth development in our community, I am able to find out what adults think of community youth development, get more input, more ideas, and that makes me so much more effective at the National Council on Youth Policy. If you want to engage people, trust them.

Forum: What do you do as an advocate?

MM: As far as advocacy is concerned, I do a lot of advocacy locally and then link to national advocacy. Even
though it can be overwhelming at times, everything connects.
If I’m at a national meeting, I can bring the local perspective of my county. At a local level, I can help gear
work for what is happening nationally.

I am constantly speaking with youth groups and school
clubs. I’m constantly getting feedback, making connections,
and making sure the voices are heard. Unfortunately, this is where I have noticed a disconnect. The youth don’t come to me nearly as much as they should or could. I think they feel that they are not connected, to be honest, that’s how I used to think.

Every time I attend a conference, I take a youth from
the 61st Central Teen Center. It’s important that youth
have leadership opportunities and most of my programs have that established — they require youth participating
and youth being leaders in the programs. There are so
many youth that are quiet about their ideas. Whenever I
give a speech, I always look to the ones that are quiet and
go up to them and let them know I care about what they
have to say, telling them that their opinion matters to me
and to everyone else.

Forum: What kind of policies do you hope will be enacted because of your efforts?

MM: My vision for youth policy is seeing more youth
empowerment facilities; somewhere that youth can have a
voice. Ideally, having the YAA, the Runaway and
Homeless Youth Act, and the reauthorization of the
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act would
sum up the kind of programs and help youth need. Youth empowerment has to do with teenagers and youth trying to fix problems in their community and youth participating
in the process — having a voice, making decisions,
and helping carry out and implement those decisions and programs.

Forum: Do you have any concerns about the impact or reach of your work?

MM: I’m worried that rural youth and those who need it
the most will be left out. We established 61 centers in
areas of low-income, because we know that families with
lower incomes have less access to resources that will help
their youth. This perpetuates the problem, because the
youth in those neighborhoods, who need it most and who
could really use their own potential in their communities,
lack the confidence to be empowered and make a change
for the better in their communities.

The government should really start telling young people
that they are capable of being leaders now, as opposed
to getting hit with that responsibility later in life. If our youth prepare themselves now as leaders, we will have
the strongest generation our country has seen. It has to
do with trusting and empowering youth. When it starts
working the other way around, when youth are considered
partners, then they will be more inclined to carry out
their dreams.

Read more...

Youth Policy — A National Perspective: A Forum Interview with Peter Edelman, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center

Crafting a National Youth Policy: A Forum Interview with David Hanna, Ministry of Youth Affairs, New Zealand

The 21st Century Program Expands: A Forum Interview with Adriana de Kanter, Partnership Liaison in the Academic Improvement and Demonstration Programs unit of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Robert Stonehill, Acting Director, Academic Improvement and Demonstration Programs

“Anywhere Leads to Everywhere” When There Is a Common Purpose: A Forum Interview with Con Hogan, Gubernatorial Candidate, Vermont

New Frames for Old Issues: A Forum Interview with Larry Aber, Director, National Center for Children in Poverty

Reframing Youth Issues in Connecticut: A Forum Interview with Janice Gruendel, Co-director of CT Voices

A Young Mother's Experience with Welfare Policies: A Forum Interview with Aola Crawford, 26, Rockland County, New York

The December 2001 FYI Newsletter contains short versions of all of the above interviews, links to the full text of the interviews and more! (This 19-page PDF document will open in a new browser window. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed to download this file.)

The Forum for Youth Investment. (2001, December). "Trusting Youth Today Will Make Strong Leaders Tomorrow." FYI Newsletter, 1(2). Retrieved from www.forumforyouthinvestment.org/fyidec2001.pdf