Q&A
Discussion of Intro 794: Youth representation on youth board
2:00:20
·
3 min
Council Member Stevens and DYCD officials discuss Intro 794, which proposes increased youth representation on the youth board. The conversation focuses on the importance of youth voice in decision-making and DYCD's current efforts in youth engagement.
- DYCD currently has 3 merit appointees under 25 on the youth board
- Council Member emphasizes the importance of young people being part of the decision-making process
- DYCD highlights various ways they engage youth, including youth councils and town halls
- Discussion on balancing youth representation with other stakeholders on the board
- Council Member argues for setting criteria for board members to ensure relevant experience with youth issues
Althea V. Stevens
2:00:20
I guess her next question was around intro 794 because I know you talked about in your testimony that The youth board.
2:00:35
1, I'll start with even, like, the youth board currently has 3 merit appointees who are under the age of twenty five.
2:00:43
We know that that's not the norm.
2:00:45
And it should be because people who are closest to the problem should be the one making the solutions, and we often have, which is my pet peeve conversations about young people, and what we believe is best, and they're not part of the conversation.
2:00:58
And so, yeah, we have people under the age of twenty five, but that's not the norm.
2:01:02
And so for me, we do need to get to a place where young people are also part of the decision making process and advising us when we need to see.
2:01:10
And so That's that's one of the main reasons why it's like this is important to me.
2:01:16
And so I was just a little bit thrown back on, like, why wouldn't that be something that a youth agency would support?
Susan Haskell
2:01:24
Youth voice connection with youth groups to provide feedback to our program, a 100%.
2:01:29
DUICD engages, for example, in the runaway and home with Houston Services program area with the youth action board.
2:01:35
We're very connected with young people with lived experience to hear their feedback.
2:01:39
DUICD also also operates youth councils and youth boards.
2:01:43
We facilitated youth town halls to get feedback where young people express their concerns about resources for mental health and and public safety.
2:01:53
We want to do as much youth engagement as possible.
2:01:56
I think our feedback to this bill is around the value of having young people along with adults who can potentially support programming by providing access to to businesses and the opportunity to enhance programming.
2:02:13
So we want to have youth voice.
2:02:15
We wanna strengthen youth voice.
2:02:16
We or we're exceeding our you know, the requirements in terms of youth voice on the youth board.
2:02:21
That's something that's very important to commission powered.
2:02:24
And we have many other ways we wanna engage with young people to help and provide feedback in a form program.
Althea V. Stevens
2:02:30
And even the the statement around the youth board in the panel, where it's like, oh, we don't want.
2:02:37
Like, I get that you want to make sure that you have a variety of experiences, but, like, there are people who work in the private sector that has experience with young people.
2:02:47
Would you hire someone in DIRECTV if they had no experience before.
2:02:50
I mean, why would we not have seen some type of requirement or criterias when we're thinking about putting together boards around, like, how does this connect to the work?
2:02:59
And so I think that even when we're seeing things like, oh, we wanna The private sector, there's lots of people working in a private sector who's worked with young people before.
2:03:07
There's a lot of areas or have some relevant experience.
2:03:10
And so that's where we're trying to get out.
2:03:12
Like, I understand we wanna have diversity, but we also wanna make sure that there is some relevant experience so we can have real robust advisement and not just saying like, oh, that's the main boy, so he put me on my board.
2:03:25
Or, oh, the council's gonna point this person because we can't find nobody.
2:03:27
And so being on the side, it is important that we are putting some criterias and guardrails around who was on these boards.
