Credit: Mariia Vitkovska
This time last year, the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey (JFNNJ), Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, Jewish Education Project, and The Russell Berrie Foundation embarked on a journey to launch a Center for Teen Engagement designed to support innovation and collaboration among teen programming professionals and expand pathways for teens to engage in Jewish life in Northern New Jersey. Based on priorities surfaced by the Northern New Jersey Jewish Community Study (led by JFNNJ with Foundation support) and discussions with teen-facing providers — and teens and parents themselves — the Center for Teen Engagement has begun weaving a vibrant network of professionals who are dedicated to meeting teens where they are and delivering meaningful, rewarding programs.
We checked in with the new director of the Center for Teen Engagement, Sara Miriam Liben, to explore the Center’s vision and progress and learn what she’s discovering as this effort gains momentum.
What prompted the vision for a new Center for Teen Engagement?
Through its outreach and research, Federation was hearing that people wanted more engagement opportunities for their teens, and that teens also were eager to get more involved. Programs existed, but community members often didn’t know how to access them. So, in thinking about the new Center, there was the desire to centralize information about the programs and opportunities already out there and to help professionals working in that space coordinate better and think bigger about how to work with teens and meet their unique needs.
We want teens to feel a sense of belonging and that this is their home, where they get a lot of their core values and build their Jewish identity and sense of self. The goal is that they get a strong foundation for ongoing Jewish engagement in their home communities before they launch for college and beyond.
Who are the leading partners and what are their respective roles?
There’s the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, which serves as a convener of many of the providers and programs that already exist. They have a comprehensive view of what’s going on in the community, the capacity to bring groups together, and experience with how to move Jewish engagement efforts forward — including those for teens.
Gaby Weiner of the Kaplen JCC, Deborah Wolf of the Academy of Jewish Learning, and Cantor Laura Breznick of Temple Beth El share ideas at a recent Teen Roundtable led by the Center for Teen Engagement.
The Kaplen JCC on the Palisades is a key hub that already has a lot of teens engaging in sports, arts, Jewish teen leadership, and other programs. Their team has the expertise to take existing ideas and scale them to become larger initiatives.
The Jewish Education Project brings leadership in professional development and really knows what I call the “teenscape” nationwide. They understand what programs communities across the country are offering and what’s worked best so that we don’t need to re-invent the wheel.
The Russell Berrie Foundation is the fourth, and critically valuable, partner in this initiative. (Program Officer) Kaarin Varon, who I work closely with at the Foundation, is a great sounding board for strategic process and a real partner in ensuring communal engagement and impact. Ultimately, the Center is designed as a true collaborative model for the work we want to see grow throughout our region. Each lead organization brings their own strengths to the mix. It’s not simple to work in partnership but the end results are so much better…it leads to more trust and greater community-building. We’re committed to modeling collaboration for the teen-facing professionals doing this work every day.
“It’s not simple to work in partnership but the end results are so much better…it leads to more trust and greater community-building. We’re committed to modeling collaboration for the teen-facing professionals doing this work every day.”
What did you learn from planning conversations with various stakeholders?
I did a listening tour after being hired — I was seven months pregnant at the time so it was very exciting! I learned very quickly that needs are vastly different for different types of organizations. What a synagogue needs is very different from what an emerging youth group needs and from what a group with secure funding in place needs. We’re all at different starting places in terms of resources and engagement.
Second, the various organizations weren’t speaking with one another. Their teams never had a network in place to share experiences, bounce ideas off each other, brainstorm around challenges and opportunities, and so on.
Credit: Connect Images
One example I came across was three different synagogues trying to address the challenge of engaging teens after their bar or bat mitzvahs. All three were talking to me about ideas for getting 8th and 9th graders to join field trips to explore this amazing area we live in, being just across the river from New York and places like Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum. Each of them struggled for various reasons, whether it was getting enough kids to sign up or having enough staff resources to make it happen. I became the only person who knew of all their experiences and realized that they could help solve each others’ problems if they joined forces. What if, instead of each synagogue making a huge effort to get seven teens to sign up, they combined efforts and ran a series of trips for 25 teens from various communities who could meet each other? And maximized promotional efforts and staff resources?
In addition, the idea of a convening that brought professionals together across geography and denominations was exciting to everyone. But it was hard for any one organization to bring to life because every group has different priorities. I’m excited that the Center can serve as a convening space to help us all come together to explore bigger ideas and bigger programming…things like antisemitism workshops, immersive experiences, or teen mental health first aid training. There are so many great ideas but no single organization has the capacity to do it on their own.
“I have a lot of hopeful curiosity toward what we might learn that could position Bergen County as a region that’s really meeting teens where they’re at by supporting their Jewish identity and building community. ”
What excites you most going forward?
In December, we’re launching a process to award $2,500 microgrants to surface creative ideas from groups throughout Northern New Jersey. We’re eager to hear from teens, parents, and professionals in and outside of the teen space…what exciting ideas can we help support. We really want to infuse the community with this notion of innovation and collaboration.
I’m really excited about the microgrants because there is so much creativity in the community that we haven’t yet had the systems and capacity in place to tap into. I look forward to meeting with the people who apply and getting to know their projects, all with an eye toward scalability. Anyone who receives a microgrant will get coaching from me, which is this great two-way street because I’ll be able to really see what’s going on across communities and I can provide strategic guidance that hopefully adds value to their efforts. We’ll also be offering larger innovation grants that give teen-facing professionals the room to dream a little bigger and try different things.
I have a lot of hopeful curiosity toward what we might learn that could position Bergen County as a region that’s really meeting teens where they’re at by supporting their Jewish identity and building community. If I could measure it, I would love to be able to prove that an infusion of collaboration and innovation in this sphere can make a measurable impact on the amount of Jewish joy that teens experience and on the decisions they make in subsequent chapters of their lives.
If the Center is a huge success, how will Jewish life look and feel for teens in Northern New Jersey and the organizations that serve them?
I would envision that life as a Jewish teen in Bergen County includes high-quality, programmatically attractive, and Jewishly rich opportunities that are accessible at everyone’s fingertips. We’ll see teens signing up to go on volunteer trips, registering for Israeli cooking classes, or painting Jewish-themed murals in town centers, because it simply becomes baked into the culture of Northern New Jersey. I dream that recruitment becomes something of the past because participation in Jewish life is simply part of what teens do, and that our educators and providers feel supported by the community at large — institutions, families, and funders — to do their best work and keep on dreaming bigger.
Any final thoughts?
If anyone wants to get involved, please reach out. Apply for a community microgrant. Ask me to meet up for coffee…I love to find new spots to connect with people. The Center is highly collaborative with the community and I’m really excited for teens, parents, and professionals to be part of this.