Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

When the Detroit Jewish community leaders discovered an alarming number through research that 70% of Jewish teens in Metro Detroit arent engaging in Jewish life the Jewish Community Center and youth professionals took notice and began to promote positive change.

Despite having more than 35 local Jewish youth-serving organizations offering a variety of excellent programs, teen engagement is still low.

We began to ask ourselves, what should we be doing, knowing that we have all these wonderful opportunities and were still missing the mark? says Katie Vieder, JCCs director of tween, teen and family engagement for Jfamily.

According to Rabbi Jen Lader of Temple Israel, In this hyperconnected world, teens are busier than ever before. Theyre packed with sports and drama, tutoring and dance, not to mention escalating academic expectations. We are fighting for their time in a way weve never had to fight before.

A slowdown from the COVID-19 pandemic gave the JCC an opportunity to consider this ongoing problem and what steps it could take to refuel Metro Detroit teen engagement in Jewish life.

There is a big challenge of rebuilding from the pandemic as a lot of our teen networks in town overlap and are supported by each others success and networking, says Rabbi Yarden Blumstein, teen director at Friendship Circle.

To set the change in motion, the folks at Jfamily talked to different communities across the country and to its local youth-serving partners, We did a lot of focus groups with teens and parents both engaged and unengaged, Vieder says.

Since September 2020, the JCC has worked with the communitys youth-serving organizations including youth groups, congregations, camps and day schools to identify best practices to boost teen engagement in Jewish life that can be implemented right here in Metro Detroit.

The efforts paid off. We came to the realization that theres a lot we can do, Vieder says. We just need to shift our perspective on what matters.

Though the JCC had a teen engagement plan, it was one that had been in place for many years.

COVID-19 showed the importance of being able to adapt to a changing world, so the JCC knew the time had come to revamp its model.

The goal: to reduce the staggering 70% number of Jewish teens unengaged in Jewish life.

The first step was to significantly increase awareness for existing programs.

The Metro Detroit community has a wide-array of fantastic teen opportunities with something for everyone. However, many families are not aware of all the program available, and organizations struggle to find the unengaged, says Rachel Ellis, senior regional director of BBYO Michigan Region.

Even though 35-plus local Jewish youth-serving organizations in the area offer more than 90 programs, the JCC discovered that most families only knew of one or two opportunities their teens could engage with. Often, they would try one of the programs and if it wasnt a fit, they stopped looking for alternatives. Families also might not have realized that the programs they were hoping for were already available in different places.

To strengthen community awareness, the JCC is creating a comprehensive website and program guide for teens and families that can serve as a directory of all Jewish teen programs and experiences. The website will go hand-in-hand with JLive, an event platform. Teens and families will be able to visit both with one click, Vieder explains.

One key mission of the awareness strategy is to make finding teen engagement opportunities online seamless and user-friendly. By working collectively with the community, we will have the resources to reach more teens and connect them to meaningful and impactful Jewish experiences, Ellis adds.

To build and launch the website, the JCC is partnering with the marketing team at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit with plans for it to go live in October of this year.

Our youth programs provide an escape a safe place where teens are nurtured and loved, where they can build lasting and meaningful relationships with friends and mentors, and where they can figure out who they are and whats important to them, Rabbi Lader says. Our goal is to reach as many teens as possible in order to allow them this safe space filled with the support and guidance of their community.

The next step for improving teen engagement is to begin the process of gathering data. The JCC, in partnership with Federation, is working on creating a community database complete with facts and figures that show the importance of engagement in Jewish life and where the local community currently stands.

The database will house information that will allow us to see not just if and where teens are engaging, but how deeply theyre engaging, Vieder explains.

The database will be built with the goal of tracking what happens to a Jewish teen who is involved in Jewish life throughout their high school career and what that means for their future.

JCC will share identified trends with youth-serving organizations to help them strengthen their work.

The JCC will also launch the Teen Impact Fellowship this month to train and empower teens to be communal connectors and provide more touchpoints for connection.

Through their friendships and relationships, teens can find their place in the local Jewish community, Vieder says.

The selected fellows, along with Federations shinshinim (Israeli emissaries), will receive extensive training from Michigan State Hillel during the yearlong fellowship.

Though teens are the focus of JCCs new teen engagement model, a special focus is being given to their parents as well. Weve heard from a lot of parents of tweens and teens that they dont have the support or educational resources they had when their children were younger, Vieder explains.

To build the foundation for parental support, particularly for parents of teens, the JCC will launch PhD in Parenting, a course being run in communities across the country. Using proven parent education methodologies, this program will enhance parent-teen relationships, improve parenting skills, teach techniques on how to reduce stress on teenagers, and enable parents to create a healthy, peaceful and respectful home environment.

Two cohorts of PhD in Parenting will be offered starting in October with additional cohorts in the spring. Registration will open on JLive this month.

Helping with Staff

Throughout the multi-faceted approach, the JCC aims to support congregations and youth-serving organizations so that they can strengthen relationships with tweens, teens and their families, and provide meaningful opportunities. The most critical need is staff, and funding is a challenge.

Our organizations need staff who can focus directly on tweens and teens, and who have the capacity for relationship-building, Vieder explains. Many congregations, she says, have limited support when it comes to teen engagement. A three-year grant from the Hermelin-Davidson Center for Congregation Excellence, though, will provide the funding to increase that support and ideally, teen engagement.

A second grant from the Stephen H. Schulman Millennium Fund for Jewish Youth will provide funding for youth-serving organizations, including BBYO, Friendship Circle and Repair the World, to hire youth directors to work specifically with underserved demographics including male-identifying teens, middle schooler and diverse teens, such as those from interfaith families, Jews of color and LGBTQ+ identifying youth.

With more individuals waking up each morning with the dedicated task of engaging our youth, we know it will become more of an expectation for kids to be involved in Jewish life, said Rabbi Daniel Schwartz of Temple Shir Shalom. The question will change from do you go? to where do you go?

Professionals supported through both grants will receive training opportunities and will gather to develop a supportive cohort, collaborate and discuss best practices.

We want to make sure that staff feel like there is camaraderie among youth-serving organizations and that they have peer colleagues they can connect with, Vieder says.

Our community has proven time and time again that they understand how incredibly important our young people are, not only for the future of our Jewish community in Metro Detroit, but also for the future of the Jewish people, Rabbi Lader says.

Were all working together to raise a generation of teens who are proud of their identities, who are firm in their values, and who are committed to their community in a sacred and profound way.

While JCCs new teen engagement model is being rolled out over the next few months, the leadership hopes to continue growing and evolving the strategy in the long-term future.

There has always been a lot of excitement in the planning process that would help us lift up youth engagement in the Detroit Jewish community, Rabbi Schwartz said.

Katie Vieder and the JCC have done a wonderful job of gathering a top-notch group of people who are focused on real change in teen engagement, which has allowed us to dream in ways that we never imagined would come to fruition.

From additional staff to programming for parents, I think Detroit will continue to serve as a model for other communities who are looking to reignite their teen programming.

By focusing on awareness, engagement, and data and information, the JCC aims to solve the challenges todays Jewish teens and parents face with a one-stop shop for finding and creating local connections.

We dont look at this as a one- or two-year initiative, Vieder says. We hope to be able to continuously evaluate progress and success over the course of time. There will always be Jewish teens, but if we dont make them a priority, they may not always engage. Our primary focus is to be the resource for teens and their families and to ensure that we provide every opportunity to connect them to the Jewish community.

Read the rest here:

Metro Detroit Teens Have a New Way to Connect to Jewish Life Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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