Promising Practices

Youth Find Treasure in Mapping

Civic engagement strategy draws praise but awaits evaluations.

Back in 1992, Richard Murphy guided 2,100 youth in plotting some 7,000 resources in their New York City neighborhoods – everything from restaurants to youth programs – in an effort to help connect them with the adults around them. Today, he thinks the products produced by such work can help serve as the backbone of a national youth information line that he’s working to create.

“As much as we have an information glut in the world now, young people don’t have, sometimes, a real visceral feel for what exists for them, and that things for them exist beyond the school and the mall,” Murphy says.