1. Teen Asset Mapping An Asset Based Development approach
to the Denver Public Library’s
Teen Services expansion
MICHELLE JESKE
NIKKI VAN THIEL
KRISTIN ROPER

2. Introduction Asset Based Community Development model
Focus on assets rather than deficiencies
Michelle

3. Michelle

4. Michelle

5. Methodology Outline our plan & process
Discuss information sought & information gained
Describe methods of organizing information
Share lessons learned about our process
Kristin
--Scope grew significantly during project timeline: originally just identifying and describing assets but eventually focused more on harnessing assets
--Bulk of project was conducting interviews and organizing that information so this section will focus primarily on those two components
--But we also learned quite a bit more than we originally anticipated learning, so we will highlight that, as well as discussing lessons learned about our process…so that you can hopefully avoid our mistakes if you choose a project like this!

6. Overall plan
Interview Denver organizations serving teens = identify & describe assets
Interview DPL staff regarding current services for teens = identify & describe
Interview teens currently utilizing DPL services = identify & describe
Organize information to identify broad themes = harness the assets
Make recommendations based on themes = harness the assets
Kristin
--Breaking our goal out into main parts, we centered our project on these five components.
--They are listed equally here, but again the interviews and organizing information took up the bulk of our time and energy.
--Our project started as one that would identify and describe assets for teens in Denver. That includes organizations that serve teens, how the Denver Public Library already serves teens, and talking with teens themselves about assets in their communities.
--But as I mentioned before, the scope of our project grew significantly from its inception, and eventually included identifying themes within our information that would inform our recommendations, which would in turn result in harnessing the assets for teens to achieve a greater collective impact.

7. Interviews Identified a list of assets
Narrowed list to reasonable number
Developed interview questions
Added DPL staff to assist with interviews
Contacted organizations
Set up interviews
Conducted interviews
Took thorough notes
Discussed interviews with committee
Replaced non-responsive organizations with others
Kristin
--We began by creating a list of all the assets for teens in Denver, based on our own knowledge and internet searches. Understandably, this was a huge list, so we then narrowed it down to a number we thought we could reasonably interview—in this case, 45.
--Our process for narrowing the list was a bit arbitrary, but still in sync with how previous projects of this type had worked: we tried to include at least one organization serving each “type” of teen or each teen “issue,” and made sure to include notable players such as the City & County of Denver, the Juvenile Justice System, and Boys & Girls club.
--We developed a standard set of interview questions, focusing on what the organization does, what their future plans are, what obstacles they see for Denver teens, how they measure success, and what the library could do to support their goals.
--Then we began the somewhat tedious process of contacting the organizations to set up interviews. We prioritized in-person interviews, secondly phone interviews, and lastly interviews via . We had divided the organizations up among ourselves and other DPL staff assisting with interviews, so we had a reasonable number each and were therefore able to give ample opportunity for organizations to respond to our inquiries.
--It was tricky to actually schedule these interviews, but we found it very much worth our while to persevere through this step of the process, so we’ll discuss it a bit more when we turn to lessons learned.
--Once the interviews were scheduled, we took thorough notes and shared our notes with the rest of the committee; we also discussed many aspects of the interviews as a group. And, we met twice during this interview process to assess how interviews were going, and to replace unresponsive organizations on our list with other, similarly focused organizations.
--Of the 45 organizations on the final list, 27 were interviewed in person, 9 via phone, 4 via , and 5 not at all.

8. Staff survey
Developed list of questions to ask DPL staff via online survey
Combination of fixed-answer questions and open-ended questions
Opened survey to all staff, response optional
Used survey software to organize results
Posted results immediately to internal website
Kristin
--While we were going out to interview organizations, we also interviewed our own Denver Public Library staff via a survey we developed.
--The intent of the survey was the capture what services for teens we are already providing, what services staff would like to provide, and what barriers staff perceive to effectively providing teen services.
--We did open the survey up to all front-line staff, with the idea that we could then capture information from staff who traditionally work with teens as well as staff who do not traditionally work with teens, such as our shelvers.
--Of 435 front-line staff, 144 participated in the survey.
--The response rate was notably uneven due to optional participation, but was useful nonetheless, particularly in terms of informing our recommendations to DPL and in terms of gauging where staff perceive we are with teen services.
--We did use a survey software program to send and analyze the survey, and we posted the results immediately to our internal staff website.

9. Teen focus groups Developed list of interview questions
Identified teens: Teen Advisory Boards
Staff facilitators interviewed teens or allowed one of us to interview
Kristin
--The third and final part of identifying and describing the assets for teens, was talking with teens themselves. This was a late addition to our overall plan and therefore was not fully fleshed out. Rather, we identified teens that we could speak with based on the five existing Teen Advisory Boards we have at DPL.
--Though this was a limited number of teens, it was a varied sample in terms of demographics.
--And, since teens were already involved with their TABs, we felt they gave more honest answers than randomly identified teens may have given.
--We used the results of these focus groups to compare and contrast with the results of the staff survey, and to inform the Recommendations section of our report.

10. Tools used Basecamp Google docs Survey Monkey Kristin
--Throughout all of this, we had to stay organized!
--We used Basecamp to share documents and set meeting agendas. Specifically, we used this software to upload reports and resources that were informing our work, as well as the interview notes which we uploaded as we went.
--We used Google docs a LOT: to organize the status of the organizations we were interviewing, to share notes about interview coding which we are about to discuss, to generate charts and graphs, and to write our final report.
--Incidentally—and no one paid me to say this—we highly recommend Google docs. We were able to edit in real time, share comments on our work, and avoid the whole back and forth confusion of which file is the current file and etc.
--And then we used survey monkey for the staff surveys.

11. Organizing information
Kristin
--Understandably, after conducting 40 interviews, issuing a staff survey, and hosting five focus groups, we had a LOT of information.
--Our task then, was to determine how to move from the conversations, through the notes, to organized, digestible formatting for all this information.
--We decided that the best way to organize the information, was coding.
--Say more?

12. Coding
Definition: an interpretive technique that both organizes the data and provides a means to introduce the interpretations of it into certain quantitative methods. (Wikipedia)
Kristin
--What is coding? Simply put, it is one way to interpret qualitative data.
--Usually with qualitative data, interpreters rely on observations and perceptions. We certainly did this throughout the project. But often qualitative data has more of a punch if it can be viewed through a quantitative lens.
--The process of making qualitative data measurable, or quantifiable, is coding.

13. Coding Many, many ways to code: Google: coding research interviews
Qualitative research methods books
YouTube videos
Wikipedia
Kristin
--There are many, many ways to code. You can find loads more information about this online, including YouTube video examples of coding, if you are interested in pursuing all this further.

14. Coding Identifying themes among open-ended answers
Both broad and narrow categories
Broad categories illuminate trends
Narrow categories preserve interview responses
Kristin
--Our goal with coding was two-fold. We perceived ample importance within the individual responses to our interview questions, but at the same time we literally had stacks and stacks of these responses.
--So with coding, we wanted to preserve that individuality while identifying broad themes or categories within the responses.
--The broad, or overarching themes, would shed light on trends, while the narrow categories would show the granularity within the responses.

15. Coding Committee took 2 questions each Read all interview answers
Made notes on themes = broad categories
Reread answers a second time
Identified narrow categories
Kristin
--So how did we go about actually coding?
--We each took two interview questions, and read through all 40 interview answers for one question at a time. As we were doing so, we made notes on the themes, or phrases that kept turning up, or even things like: are they saying “FACEBOOK” or are they saying “SOCIAL MEDIA.”
--These initial notes developed into our broad categories. We are going to work with the example of our question on how organizations reach teens.
--Using the example of how organizations reach teens, the broad categories were something like: outreach to teens, outreach to schools, to parents, untargeted outreach, and so forth.
--Once we’d identified broad categories, we then reread the entire set of answers again, this time looking for nuances. I’ll add a second example really quickly here: with the category “VIOLENCE,” which was a big one when we asked about barriers teens face to accessing services. Violence should absolutely be a broad category or theme in terms of identifying these barriers. However, there were a number of different types of VIOLENCE referenced by our respondents, and we did not want to lose the granularity of the answers they gave.
--In this particular example, then, upon the second reading we listed out each different type of violence mentioned: sexual, gang, relationship, etc.
--Or, let’s go back to the original example of how organizations reach teens: outreach to teens is great theme to identify—now we know that a lot of organizations are going directly to teens to communicate about their services. But how are they doing so?
--On the second reading of this question then, we identified those particular parts of outreach to teens: word of mouth, social media, websites, anonymous numbers for teens to contact, etc.
--Let’s look at bit closer at that example so that you have a visual representation of what we are talking about:

16. Coding example
Question: How do you find teens to participate in your program? Answer from organization: Have a teacher training program, work primarily with schools and youth groups, in juvenile justice systems, Boys & Girls club. Market programs to anywhere youth are. No classes on site. Do one on one education sessions, parents can call to set up. Use traditional pamphlets and fliers, ramping up social media exposure; when contacting teachers, send letters. Best way for youth to contact is ICYC, especially if not program at school. Some youth have initiated sex education for their schools!
Kristin
--Here’s the question again: How do you find teens to participate in your program?
--And an in-depth answer from one of our respondents. Let’s look at that answer in terms of coding.

17. Answer from organization
Have a teacher training program, work primarily with schools and youth groups, in juvenile justice systems, Boys & Girls club. Market programs to anywhere youth are. No classes on site. Do one on one education sessions, parents can call to set up. Use traditional pamphlets and fliers, ramping up social media exposure; when contacting teachers, send letters. Best way for youth to contact is ICYC, especially if not program at school.
Outreach to schools
Outreach to teens
Outreach to parents
Untargeted outreach
Kristin
--As I am reading through the answer, I’m looking for broad, general terms to describe what they do.
--Here I see that their methods of reaching teens fall into some main categories: reaching out to schools, to parents, to teens themselves, and by reaching out generally. These are the notes I’ve made that would form broad categories.

18. Answer from organization
Have a teacher training program, work primarily with schools and youth groups, in juvenile justice systems, Boys & Girls club. Market programs to anywhere youth are. No classes on site. Do one on one education sessions, parents can call to set up. Use traditional pamphlets and fliers, ramping up social media exposure; when contacting teachers, send letters. Best way for youth to contact is ICYC, especially if not program at school.
Outreach to schools
Outreach to teens
juvenile justice system
Outreach to parents
Untargeted outreach
social media
letters to teachers
anonymous way to contact
Kristin
--Then, let’s read it again, because there was a lot of great information in there. Within each category, I’m noticing some specific examples. For one, they work directly with the juvenile justice system to reach teens. They also actually send letters to schools in order to reach teens. And, they provide an anonymous way for teens to contact them. So I am listing those phrases out as my narrower categories, within the broad categories they fall under.
--But remember, that is just once answer out of forty total answers. So how does this look as a whole?

19. Referrals from schools, families, Department of Human Services, Medicaid and others Word of mouth Teens will recruit others for teen groups and school-based programs Self referral – teens can call up and get intake Urban Peak and The Center refer as well
AVID is a national organization (out of San Diego) sites internationally: US, Australia, Dept of Defense (schools on military bases?), Japan, Germany, Virgin Islands. DPS has a district director, Gary Cooper who is in charge of the program district-wide.
90% age into it from Brownies, younger Girl Scouts
Attract others from outreach programs (don’t do a lot of this)
Outreach to youth providers (community agencies, schools, and parents) as well as word of mouth among the youth.
We have a nomination/recruiting process through teachers and school leadership.
We receive student referrals from traditional schools, as well as from Denver Human Services and Probation
Urban Peak has a “no wrong door” policy. They have an outreach department (which does street outreach Monday through Saturday). Some youth find them at the drop-in center at 21st and Stout (Open Monday-Friday, with breakfast from 8-10 AM – youth can sign up for showers and laundry during that time – and then drop-in time and classes (pregnancy prevention, anger management, etc. in the afternoon). They’ve had up to 110 youth at the center for breakfast (70 this morning!). Word on the street plays a big role in pulling youth in. Some have said they found out about UP through the website. Anyone under 18 can walk into shelter 24-7, which is sometimes the first point of contact. They also receive referrals from Department of Youth Corrections, DHS, Child Welfare, schools, psych hospitals, other homeless providers. Aged into teen program from youth program Outreach programs (partners) recruit girls Learn about it at a Girls, Inc program at their schools Word of mouth Guest speakers at schools, workshops at schools Referrals from partners
Teens find them by getting into trouble
Word of mouth
Outreach at powwows
Outreach to schools and neighborhoods
Neighborhood apartment complexes
Foodbank of the Rockies
Social media - facebook and website
Neighborhood outreach
Word of mouth in community and between families
School outreach
Former Bridge participants
Kristin
--Kind of like this. And no, I don’t expect you to read any of that. This is for illustration purposes only!
--Look at the difference in some of these answers: many are just listed out, but then that one in the middle is a story!
--So again with each one, we start with step one: making notes on major themes, which would then become our broad categories…

20. Referrals from schools, families, Department of Human Services, Medicaid and others Word of mouth Teens will recruit others for teen groups and school-based programs Self referral – teens can call up and get intake Urban Peak and The Center refer as well
90% age into it from Brownies, younger Girl Scouts
Attract others from outreach programs (don’t do a lot of this)
Outreach to youth providers (community agencies, schools, and parents) as well as word of mouth among the youth.
We have a nomination/recruiting process through teachers and school leadership.
We receive student referrals from traditional schools, as well as from Denver Human Services and Probation
Urban Peak has a “no wrong door” policy. They have an outreach department (which does street outreach Monday through Saturday). Some youth find them at the drop-in center at 21st and Stout (Open Monday-Friday, with breakfast from 8-10 AM – youth can sign up for showers and laundry during that time – and then drop-in time and classes (pregnancy prevention, anger management, etc. in the afternoon). They’ve had up to 110 youth at the center for breakfast (70 this morning!). Word on the street plays a big role in pulling youth in. Some have said they found out about UP through the website. Anyone under 18 can walk into shelter 24-7, which is sometimes the first point of contact. They also receive referrals from Department of Youth Corrections, DHS, Child Welfare, schools, psych hospitals, other homeless providers. Aged into teen program from youth program Outreach programs (partners) recruit girls Learn about it at a Girls, Inc program at their schools Word of mouth Guest speakers at schools, workshops at schools Referrals from partners
Teens find them by getting into trouble
Word of mouth
Outreach at powwows
Outreach to schools and neighborhoods
Neighborhood apartment complexes
Foodbank of the Rockies
Social media - facebook and website
Neighborhood outreach
Word of mouth in community and between families
School outreach
Former Bridge participants
Kristin
--So that reading through the answers starts to look more like this, meaning:
--You can start to see some words popping up over and over: schools, word of mouth, referrals, etc.
--As I’m reading through the 2nd, 3rd, 4th answers then, I’m jotting down these words that I keep seeing—and putting tick marks beside the categories I’ve already identified.
--Eventually, my number of broad categories grows, as does my number of narrow categories within each broad one, to form a list that is representative of all our responses.

21. Outreach to invested adults/organizations - 16
Outreach to parents - 2
-letters - 1
Outreach to invested adults/organizations - 16
-presence at community events - 2
-referrals from adults/organizations - 9
Outreach to teens - 25
-mentoring / one on one - 1
-juvenile justice system - 3
-anonymous way for teens to contact - 1
-word of mouth - 14
-social media - 4
-website - 4
-application from teen – 3
-aged into program - 4
Outreach to schools - 28
-workshops for teachers – 1
-workshops/classes for students - 7
-students enroll through school - 5
-referrals/lists from schools - 10
Untargeted outreach - 3
-print materials - 3
-paid or in-kind advertising - 2
Kristin
--Such that those 40 interview responses eventually look like this.
--The pink text shows the broad categories, with narrower descriptors listed under each one.
--The numbers indicate the number of times an answer fell into one of these categories.
--From this, we can actually create visual representations of our information.

22. Kristin
--Such that, the answer to the question “How do you find teens to participate in your program?” looks like this in our report.

23. Kristin
--and allows us to make specific representations of those narrower categories, which again illuminates really important information.
--Such as, organizations rely heavily on word of mouth and referrals from schools to reach teens in Denver.

24. Referrals from schools, families, Department of Human Services, Medicaid and others Word of mouth Teens will recruit others for teen groups and school-based programs Self referral – teens can call up and get intake Urban Peak and The Center refer as well
AVID is a national organization (out of San Diego) sites internationally: US, Australia, Dept of Defense (schools on military bases?), Japan, Germany, Virgin Islands. DPS has a district director, Gary Cooper who is in charge of the program district-wide.
90% age into it from Brownies, younger Girl Scouts
Attract others from outreach programs (don’t do a lot of this)
Outreach to youth providers (community agencies, schools, and parents) as well as word of mouth among the youth.
We have a nomination/recruiting process through teachers and school leadership.
We receive student referrals from traditional schools, as well as from Denver Human Services and Probation
Urban Peak has a “no wrong door” policy. They have an outreach department (which does street outreach Monday through Saturday). Some youth find them at the drop-in center at 21st and Stout (Open Monday-Friday, with breakfast from 8-10 AM – youth can sign up for showers and laundry during that time – and then drop-in time and classes (pregnancy prevention, anger management, etc. in the afternoon). They’ve had up to 110 youth at the center for breakfast (70 this morning!). Word on the street plays a big role in pulling youth in. Some have said they found out about UP through the website. Anyone under 18 can walk into shelter 24-7, which is sometimes the first point of contact. They also receive referrals from Department of Youth Corrections, DHS, Child Welfare, schools, psych hospitals, other homeless providers. Aged into teen program from youth program Outreach programs (partners) recruit girls Learn about it at a Girls, Inc program at their schools Word of mouth Guest speakers at schools, workshops at schools Referrals from partners
Teens find them by getting into trouble
Word of mouth
Outreach at powwows
Outreach to schools and neighborhoods
Neighborhood apartment complexes
Foodbank of the Rockies
Social media - facebook and website
Neighborhood outreach
Word of mouth in community and between families
School outreach
Former Bridge participants
Kristin
--Once we reached this point in our process, our information was coherent—both for us, and for those that we wanted to share with. It did take considerable time to get from start to finish, which we’ll now discuss in terms of lessons learned….

25. Lessons Learned
Nikki

26. Lessons Learned Process is Important Nikki
We couldn’t just divide the entire project into 5 parts and we each take a part. We learned a lot by just taking time to go through all of steps one by one together as a group before moving on to the next step.

27. Lessons Learned Use the Power Player Nikki
It was difficult to reach many of the organizations that we identified. Reasons?
We were the library, why were we doing this?
So busy
Turnover is high
Having the director sign the letter or with her name and title gave us better responses from the organizations we contacted.

28. Lessons Learned Face to Face Interviews are important
Made a connection/built a relationship
Observed first hand what the organizations do
Represented DPL and what we do
Better informed on how we might support the organizations
Nikki
Interviews gave us to much more than just searching online for the information we needed. When we made that face to face connection (which was not always possible), we built a relationship, observed what the organizations do, we were better informed on how we might support them, and we were able to deliver our message to them. We brought a packet of our information.

29. Lessons Learned Coding Nikki Scream gif
Some of us were not familiar with the concept or processing of coding as explained to you. We came up with a controlled vocab so that all answers would fit. A prior knowledge of how to code would have helped or even just spending a few meetings practicing it would have saved a lot of confusion.

30. Lessons Learned Coding and more Coding
Wanted to cover everything said in the interviews
Wanted to consider the interview as a whole
Key is consistency
Nikki
More Coding problems:
In addition to not knowing how to code, we were hindered by our desire to make sure we covered everything said in our interviews. This doesn’t really work. We needed to identify themes without imposing our own understanding on the answers. If we had a better word than was used by the interviewee, we couldn’t use it . This was an expected challenge, but that didn’t make it easier to navigate. The key was consistency. It was also very frustrating to not be able to consider the interview as a whole . We had to focus on what was stated in that particular question and not drift into another question.

31. Lessons Learned Long process! Nikki Long process!
Interviewing and coding took longer than we expected.
And the project grew as we learned more about the organizations and saw we could meet some of their needs.

32. Impact We learned: Challenges of other youth Serving Orgs
DPL is working in a vacuum
Wraparound services are needed
Hard to serve teens without the 3 Cs
We need the Bigwigs
This methodology is amazing!
Michelle
Overall impacts:
we learned a lot about the challenges of other youth-serving organizations in our community
we learned that many of us—including Denver Public Library—are working in a vacuum
we realized that teens need wraparound service to meet their basic needs (food, shelter, etc.) AND their more complex needs (emotional development, resiliency, etc.)
we learned that there are many teen assets in our community but without the 3 Cs—communication, collaboration and coordination—we will not be able to fully serve the “whole” teen
we realized the need for the City’s Office of Children’s Affairs to help lead this collective impact effort
we learned that this methodology could be used to study deeply other population groups & their needs

33. Recommendations for DPL
More programs for tweens, and emerging adults (18-25)
Dedicated and separate funding is necessary
Staff training
Jobs and internships for teens
Marketing to teens
Evaluation
Sharing outcomes
Michelle
Recommendations for DPL include:
developing additional programs/services for tweens and teens and developing new programs/services for emerging adults (18-25 year olds)
dedicating separate funding to tweens, teens and emerging adults—groups with varying needs
training staff in areas such as positive youth development, adolescent psychology/development and teen/young adult services
providing teen internships & jobs, in addition to providing volunteer opportunities
marketing to teens through word-of-mouth, visiting schools, sending letters to teachers & organizations, and, most importantly, through building relationships
evaluating everything we do through quantitative and qualitative measures
sharing outcomes with the Library, with the City and with other stakeholders

34. Recommendations to the City
Co-sponsor a Connector’s Table with DPL
Utilize Denver’s Office of Children’s Affairs
Develop a web-based service locator
Michelle
Recommendations for the City:
Co-sponsor a Connector’s Table with Denver Public Library giving youth-serving organizations a chance to connect and communicate
Utilize Denver’s Office of Children’s Affairs to facilitate ongoing communication and coordination among youth-serving organizations
Develop a web-based service locator of youth-serving organizations
To conclude:

35. Questions?
Kristin
Reminder that our handout, which is the full copy of the Teen Asset Mapping report, is posted on the cal website. Included in the report is a list of references, ranging from how-to’s to other successful implementations of this model in libraries. We hope the references we’ve included will be useful to you if you tackle a project like this.
And now, questions!