Youthline America’s mission is to guarantee every young person safe and accurate information to make better decisions that satisfy us all.
Rationale
In a world saturated with information provided through unprecedented technology, young people still lack safe, accurate and timely information to help them navigate a complicated world. Young people want to be able to get the information they need to make the connections they want, in real time. They hunger for information to make sense of their world. They have questions about jobs, school, relationships, social services, recreational activities, and the dramatic changes taking place in their minds and bodies.
As young people grow older, they seek solutions to life’s challenges beyond their immediate family, and often outside of caring adults such as teachers, mentors, and clergy. The resources to help young people at those moments may exist, but they may be difficult to find, or be of questionable quality. Young people have less contact than ever before with parents and other caring adults. Schools have fewer guidance counselors, and teachers are often burdened with the day-to-day emergencies while trying to teach oversized classes.
When young people turn to technology, they find that accurate, comprehensive information does not exist in a safe, easily accessible way. Traditional hotlines provide information, but that information may not be portable, may be focused on a particular issue (e.g., suicide, sexually transmitted disease), or may be relying on outdated information. Yet, young people need access to a broad range of information. According to the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, one of the most basic developmental needs for youth is the ability to use resources available to them. While public and private funding create thousands of programs, it is impossible for the general public to gain easy access to nearby, geo-coded information on these programs.
Therefore, Youthline America holds three Core Values that drive the development of the universal youth information and referral network.
Core Values
The three core values that are the cornerstone of Youthline America’s work:
- Nobody owns it, everybody owns it
- Shared responsibility – resources update their own information
- Everyone maintains their identity
What We Want to Accomplish
We want to harness the collective intelligence of young people; adapt emerging technologies and practices to ensure safe, quality connections between youth and resources; and create a workforce of young staff who expand the pipeline of civically-engaged young people ready for work and life.
Currently, no website has the service, mission and functionality of ilivehere.info. Therefore, Youthline America is conservatively projecting that the ilivehere.info site will have:
- 1 million youth will have participated in Mapping by December 2011.
- 57,000 daily unique visitors on the ilivehere.info website by 2011.