Study finds more teen programs here than anyone knew

There are more than 100 Jewish teen programs in the Bay Area. Who knew?

No one did, and that's the problem.

After months of surveys, polls and research, a group calling itself the Jewish Teen Alliance held its initial "summit" in late March with the goal of creating better — and more financially sustainable — teen programs. One of the group's first suggestions to program heads: Stop hoarding your teens.

David Barkan is the teen alliance consultant who ran the months-long study of Bay Area teen programs. He sees too many of them operating in "silos," apart from other programs, unwilling to share their rosters or work together on projects.

The fact that even insiders didn't know just how many teen programs were out there until the alliance study illustrates the problem of programs cloistering themselves.

"The effect of having these programs exist in silos is, the teens feel it," he said.

"Teens perceive, I think correctly, that programs are protective of them and their information." Yet they "want access to everything, they want to know about everything. Communication and collaboration would be much better."

Anna Neyzberg agrees wholeheartedly. The 17-year-old Foster City resident is an active participant in the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Club 18. And though she loves the program, what she also wants is to see what other teens in other parts of the Bay Area are doing.

"There are youth groups and so many programs that study Judaism, and others with outdoor trips, with a bunch of different Jewish teenagers. There's so much out there that a lot of teens don't have access to," she says.

"I want to be able to do a variety of different programs."

It's not so simple, though, notes David Waksberg, who co-founded the Jewish Teen Alliance last year along with Barbara Wilson. A number of teen program providers would love to collaborate — but who's got time for that?

Program providers "have their heads down focusing on their own stuff and don't feel like they've got time to pick up their heads and look at the big picture." said Waksberg, a father of three teenagers and former executive director of the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal.

"The sentiment isn't so much 'that's my competitor, why should I collaborate with him?' It's more like 'I just don't have the time.'"

The alliance's interest in creating "sustainable" teen programs involves more than just fund-raising, added Wilson. She'd like to see program providers better compensated and more valued within the Jewish community.

And better communication isn't just needed between teen programs. Waksberg divided the teen alliance into seven "stakeholder" groups: program providers, agency executives, rabbis, parents, lay leaders, funders and, of course, teenagers. How often, he asked, did these groups ever get a chance to talk to one another in the past?

Waksberg stresses that his group is not here to say "everything's broken, things really suck and we need to fix them." In the next few months, he hopes to develop concrete plans to improve the area's teen programs.

Not that Bay Area programs are in disarray, he hastens to add. Alliance polls show 92 percent of involved Jewish teens heard about their program through word-of-mouth, a far higher percentage than got the word through the Web, e-mail or regular mail. And teens theoretically wouldn't be spreading the good word about bad programs.

But many are still not being reached by Jewish programming, making them less likely to stay involved with the community.

"A lot of teens say they need help here," he says. "It's important we don't drop the ball. If we do, we may be dropping them."