Q&A
Plans for involving youth in future anti-subway surfing campaigns
1:26:37
·
109 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about plans to involve more youth in the future development of anti-subway surfing campaigns. Officials discuss their strategies and emphasize the importance of youth involvement:
- Borough Student Advisory Councils (BSACs) will be engaged in all boroughs
- Officials recognize the need to start education at the elementary school level
- Future campaigns will include more voices of young people, including those who have stopped subway surfing
- There's an emphasis on involving youth who have witnessed the consequences of subway surfing
- Officials acknowledge the need to reach younger children, as some incidents involve 9-year-olds
- The importance of having youth say 'nothing about them without them is for them' is highlighted
Rita Joseph
1:26:37
What plans does, DYCD and New York City Public Schools have for involving more youth in the future development of the campaigns?
Kevin Dantzler
1:26:45
Well, I'll go first.
1:26:47
One thing that we're trying to do, we have borough student advisory councils, otherwise known as VSACs.
1:26:52
As we mentioned in our opening remarks, we have engaged the Staten Island BSAC because there are unique conditions that exist in the Staten Island Railway.
1:27:00
We're expanding that to all the BSACs across the city.
1:27:02
Every single borough has a BSAC that's made up of a number of representatives from schools in that borough, and so getting their input is also important, we believe.
Rita Joseph
1:27:12
And what age group are we starting with that?
1:27:14
Middle school.
1:27:17
I think we should start, if we're talking about 9 year olds, right, 9 year olds or 4th graders, I think we should start from the bottom.
1:27:25
We should trickle it down to elementary level.
1:27:27
So if 9, a 9 year old is in 4th grade, so that's still elementary level.
Mark Rampersant
1:27:33
Yep.
1:27:33
And a very concerning level as well.
1:27:35
Alright.
1:27:36
Right?
1:27:36
Because under, elementary school age, right, these are these are young people who are more supervision than in our middle schools, I would say, and, you know, they shouldn't have the ability to do that.
1:27:48
So we are we will definitely double down to our to our little guys, and our campaign going forward will include more voices of the young people.
1:27:58
And I mean, not only the young people who we are trying to deter from the behavior, but young people who are actually committing the acts, who have made the decision not to do it anymore because they may have been a witness of their friends going down, or in some cases, they may have almost went down themselves.
1:28:17
But young people who are saying enough is enough, and how can I help someone to help themselves?
1:28:22
So we are we are, tapping into that resource as well.
