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Guide

Recruiting students for student-powered improvement

Purpose
To provide teams with specific strategies, tools, and examples to consider when recruiting students
Audience
Teams designing recruitment strategies
Suggested Use
Use this guide as a continual reference as you design and implement recruitment strategies
Time Needed
30 minutes to review the content, more time to discuss and implement the ideas with your team
“I think that the struggle is that we have these ways to hear students’ voices, but it is often only a select group of voices adults listen to. How do we get the whole wide spectrum of student voices?”
Student
Introduction

Recruiting students for improvement efforts is exciting and energizing. Thoughtful recruitment requires careful planning, discussion, and a great deal of time. It also requires flexibility when initial strategies need adjustment. Avoid the tendency to underestimate what it takes to equitably recruit students and sustain their involvement. 

There are eight recruitment considerations distilled from partners doing different kinds of student-powered improvement work around the country.

  1. Carefully consider the who
  2. Involve youth in designing the outreach and recruitment
  3. Make participation irresistible and expectations clear yet flexible
  4. Provide compensation
  5. Diversify your outreach and information streams
  6. Anchor in relationships and trust 
  7. If there is an application process, make it youth-friendly and strengths-based
  8. Provide families with information 

Specific details and examples for each of these are found in the guide, available as a download, below.

Eight considerations for recruiting students for student-powered improvement

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