***BEFORE YOU REGISTER FOR THIS WEBINAR PLEASE REVIEW IMPORTANT REGISTRATION INFORMATION BELOW***
The Youth Poet Laureate (YPL) program is not just a poetry program. It is also a teen leadership and youth development program, as well as a community building program, that libraries are uniquely and ideally situated to coordinate. Public libraries serve their whole communities with this program by amplifying young voices and giving opportunity not just for these talented poets to share their truths, but for the entire community to learn from them and what they have to say. It is also absolutely rewarding and so much fun! One of the country's longest running Youth Poet Laureate programs, the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate program, has been coordinated and run by Oakland Public Library (OPL) teen services staff for fifteen years, and OPL staff have advised several other library systems as they started their own programs. In this webinar, you'll learn how to get started with a Youth Poet Laureate program and why you should consider implementing one.
Learning Outcomes
At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Understand the steps that need to be taken to start a library-supported Youth Poet Laureate (YPL) program;
- Learn why public libraries are ideal coordinators of these programs;
- Learn how partnerships with community organizations can enhance YPL programs;
- Discover tools to simplify the process of starting a program;
- Understand how YPL programs support youth leadership and development; and
- Learn from the evolution of the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate program and start off strong with your own program.
Who Should Attend
This webinar is intended for public library staff who work with teens/young adults, and library administrators.
Panelists
Sharon McKellar (she/her) is the supervising librarian for teen services for the Oakland Public Library (OPL) in California. She has worked in public libraries for twenty-five years. In her current role, she oversees all services and programming for teens across OPL's seventeen-location urban library system.
Liz Soskin (she/her) is the youth development librarian at the Oakland Public Library in California. She supports systemwide teen leadership programs, including the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate program, and has coordinated teen internships and the Youth Leadership Council. She also supports teen-serving staff throughout the system with their youth development programs, including teen volunteers and Teen Advisory Boards.
Lateefa Ali (she/her) is a library assistant for the Oakland Public Library in the teen services department. In this role, she supports systemwide teen programing with a focus on teen leadership programs, including the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate (OYPL) program. With extensive experience working in EDI committees with the Oakland Unified School District, she brings knowledge and perspective that helps the OYPL program reach all youth in our community.
Important Registration Information
Log into or create your ALA eLearning account
An ALA eLearning account is required to register. Don’t have an account? Create one for free by going to the “Log in” menu located at the top right corner of your screen. No membership is required to create the account. If you encounter any issues registering for this webinar, then please email ce@ala.org for assistance.
Redeem your signup code to complete your registration
Once you’ve registered for this webinar, a signup code will be added to your ALA eLearning account and emailed to you. Find the signup code on your signup code page, then redeem it on your account’s dashboard to complete your enrollment in this live webinar.
- Need to purchase registration on behalf of a colleague?
- Need to register a group of 3 or more?
- Need to register with a purchase order?
Review the ALA eLearning FAQ if you need more information.
Accommodations
This live webinar will be captioned in English (United States). Zoom desktop client or mobile app is required to access captions.
Attendees using screen readers are advised to turn off speech prior to joining the Zoom event because PLA webinars make extensive use of chat functionality. Attendees who find chat distracting may wish to disable it in the Zoom event, as PLA moderators will verbally highlight important topics raised in chat and chat transcripts will be provided post-webinar.
If you have a physical or communication need that may affect your participation in this webinar, please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752) at least two weeks prior to the webinar. Without prior notification of need, we may not be able to provide appropriate accommodations for the live event.
Archived Recording
If you're unable to attend this live webinar, an archived recording will be available to all registrants typically within 1–3 business of the live event. Access to closed captions will be provided in the webinar recording.
Attendees are prohibited from using any artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language model, automated decision-making tool, or any other software or tools to record this event and from using this event to train, develop, or improve any artificial intelligence system, machine learning model, or similar automated technology.
Tech Requirements
This webinar will be presented using the Zoom platform. Please review Zoom technical requirements and support information, and test your connection.
Once you've joined the webinar, there are two ways to connect your audio: via computer (VoIP) or via telephone. No microphone is required. PLA works with its webinar platform provider to assure the highest quality audio is being delivered to attendees. However, variables over which PLA has no control—such as the speed of your Internet connection or traffic on your local network—can affect the end quality of the webinar audio delivered by your computer. Each webinar’s audio is also available by telephone via a toll number, so we recommend you have access to a long-distance enabled phone as a backup in case you experience audio issues with VoIP. If you do encounter any problems during the webinar, you will receive a link to its archived recording within a week of the live event and can review anything you missed.
Contact
This webinar is presented by the Public Library Association (PLA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).
Questions about this webinar? Please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752).
