Youth Leadership

When 12 year old Jon Wagner-Holtz first started Kids Konnected he wanted a program that would be based on the premise of kids helping kids. Our Youth Leadership program is the perfect example of our founder’s mission. Youth Leaders are teens ages 14 to 18 who have been involved in support groups and other Kids Konnected activities for one year or more. These teens are chosen by group leaders around the country to become mentors to children and teens going through what they have – a parent with cancer or a parent who has died from cancer.

Each year we have a 3 day mandatory Youth Leadership Training hosted in Southern California. Here, the Youth Leaders learn basic therapeutic skills like “active listening”, how  to take hotline calls, answer cancer related questions, and develop supportive relationships with children in need. The training is also a time for the teens to look into their own experience with their parent’s cancer and how it has shaped them into the person they are today.

Youth Leaders are from all over the country and all have a unique story and a different experience with their parent’s cancer. Our Youth Leaders frequently return calls from children who are unsure and scared about what may happen to their parent with cancer.

The Youth Leaders are matched up with a child who is in a similar situation; a parent in treatment, in the recovery process, or at times the loss of a parent. The Youth Leaders are well equipped to provide peer support to children in most situations.  If the situation is more than they can handle, then the calls are referred to our Clinical Director who is licensed clinical social worker who works specifically in the psycho-social issues of cancer patients and their families.

If you want to speak to Youth Leader call the Kids Konnected office at 1-800-899-2866 or send an email to youthleader@kidskonnected.org.

If you are interested in becoming a Youth Leader please contact Lynnette Wilhardt, Director of Clinical Services at LynnetteWilhardt@aol.com.

Click here to see pictures from our 2006 Youth Leadership Retreat.