Teen Services: Building Relationships, Programs, and Engagement

After you attend this course, you’ll be able to:

• Identify and work through age-based biases.
  


• Understand adolescent brain development.
  


• Advocate for teens in your library.
  


• Manage teen behavior challenges in a trauma-informed way.
  


• Try new methods and techniques to engage youth in library programs.
  


• Create and maintain a youth advisory board.
  


• Help youth identify mis- and disinformation.

Who should take this course

This course is for public youth/teen services librarians, school librarians (grades 8-12), and other stakeholders in youth/teen library programs and management.

This will be a self-paced, asynchronous online course.

Expected time commitment

This course includes 5 modules, each designed to take approximately 4 hours to complete. You can move through the content at your own pace and on your own schedule. You'll earn 20 hours of PD credit and a Library Journal certificate of completion.

On-demand access

You’ll have access to all course materials for 6 months from course start date or enrollment date, if enrolling after course starts.

Certificate of completion

Complete the course and earn 20 professional development credit hours. We provide a certificate that is emailed to you. 

Support

For support with online courses, please contact course-support@libraryjournal.com.

This course consists of 7 on-demand modules:

Module 1: Managing Teen Behavioral Challenges: Understanding and Advocating for Teens

Speaker: Christi Showman Farrar, Library Consultant, Massachusetts Library System (MLS)

What should youth services librarians know about adolescent brain development to improve teen advocacy and to help proactively prevent behavior challenges? How do you advocate for youth inside and outside of your library? And how can you establish clear boundaries and expectations to help set everyone up for success? This session will discuss tangible ways to better understand, advocate for, and mitigate challenges with youth.

Module 2: Managing Teen Behavioral Challenges: Restorative Practices

Speaker: Stephen Jackson, (he/him)Founder, Global CommUnity Associates, library lover, and restorative practitioner/trainer

How can you respond to teen behavior challenges in a trauma-informed way? And how can you use restorative justice practices to encourage accountability and relationship building when harm is caused? This session will discuss ways to handle behavior issues with youth, both during and after an incident. We will also discuss proactive strategies such as how to be an effective mentor and how to build meaningful relationships with young people.

Module 3: Perceptions of Youth: Recognizing and Removing Biases

Speaker: Dr. Laurel Krapivkin, Ph.D. (she, her) Adjunct Professor of Writing & Literature

What perceptions do we have of adolescence, and how do those perceptions impact how we treat young people? This session will discuss how to recognize and work through age-based biases to improve your services with and for youth.

Module 4: Engaging Teens in Library Programs: A Roundtable

Speakers:

Isaiah West, (he, him) Teen Services Specialist, Prince George's County Memorial Library System (MD)

Donna Gray, Bronx Library Coordinator for the NYC School Library System

How do you get young people involved in library programs and services? What are the best outreach strategies to make sure they know about what the library offers? This session will discuss practical outreach and engagement strategies to reach teens where they are and encourage them to participate in the library.

Module 5: Including Youth Voices: Partnering with Students for Youth Programs

Speaker: Jane Gov, Senior Librarian, System-Wide Youth Services at Pasadena Public Library and Branch Manager at Jefferson Branch Library

The best way to know what young people want and need is to ask them directly. Many librarians are struggling to engage youth in programs, but this session will help you solve this problem by teaching you how to create meaningful youth partnerships. You will learn tangible ways to involve youth directly in the conception and development of youth programs, from focus groups to youth advisory boards and more. Join this session and hear from experts about innovative ways that they’ve involved youth to co-create successful, sustainable programs.

Module 6: Teaching Information Literacy: Helping Students Identify Mis- and Disinformation

Speaker: Mrs. Lisa Manganello (she, her) School Librarian, South Brunswick High School

How can you help students identify mis- and disinformation in a time when AI and deep fakes are becoming more and more convincing? What is the library's role in vetting material and helping young people understand factual information? This session will help you understand how to vet information for yourself and give you tools to help students and youth with information literacy.

Module 7: Innovative Youth Programs: A Roundtable

Speakers:

Olisha James, (she, her) Manager, Teen Ambassador Programs, The New York Public Library

Jillian Rudes, School Librarian New York City Department of Education, Executive Director Manga in Libraries

Tess Wilson, Deputy Director of Library Freedom Project

Do you want new ideas for programs to develop in your library? Hear from a panel of librarians about programs they've run that have successful engaged teens.

Discounted rates are available for a limited time only. Secure your tickets now to lock in the best price.

Group Rates

We offer discounts for groups of 3 or more.

For larger groups of 15 or more, we offer the option to apply group rates across multiple courses to receive significant discounts. For more information, select “Bulk Course Credits Packages” in the form below.

Request Discounted Group Pricing

For support with group purchases, please contact groupsales@libraryjournal.com.