Next City

Four in 10 students report persistent sadness or hopelessness, and a new KABOOM! report says remedies start with simply listening to young people.

In the first of a two-part sponsored series with KABOOM!, we delve into the “State of Our Kids,” a new report on the youth mental health crisis built with a youth editorial board that pushed back on adult assumptions and centered lived experience alongside statistics.

Lysa Ratliff, CEO of KABOOM!, and Amy Meuers, CEO of the National Youth Leadership Council, say most conversations about youth mental health happen without kids in the room. Or, adults tokenize young people. “A lot of times, as adults, we'll invite young people to share their opinion, and then we turn away from them,” says Meuers.

In its approach to the report, KABOOM! drew upon its 30-year history of treating youth as designers and experts during its efforts to close the gap in playspace equity.

“When you're 5 years old, you know how to build a playground more than a 50-year-old, right?” says Ratliff. “When you're 15 years old, you know what's going on with young people who are overscheduled or trying to get into college or dealing with things in their community more than a 35-year-old.”

Ratliff describes a generation growing up with a tablet by age 2, offered more distracting technologies than opportunities to play.

“It became really important to us at KABOOM! to expand the conversation beyond playground design and playspace design,” says Ratliff, explaining what led to the new report. “We started tuning into statistics that made us really worried and concerned about the wellness and mental health of our young.”

Read the full report at kaboom.org/sook.

This October, Next City is launching Not My Narrative, a new podcast and essay series about the stories we tell ourselves that are mistaken for facts and the people proving them wrong.

Public art projects use poems across Philadelphia to help residents process loss, gun violence and grief together.

A group is working to ensure that the closure of Hester Street in New York City doesn't mean the loss of its wisdom as a trusted facilitator of processes that authentically engaged the community in development projects.

Next City is on a brief hiatus for the summer. We'll be back at the end of July. Thank you for listening to Next City. Together we can spread good ideas from one city to the next city.