Teens Succeed
Application period for the 2025-26 program year opens January 8, 2025!
The Teens Succeed project helps California libraries create meaningful internships focusing on workforce readiness and social emotional learning for teens in the communities they serve.
Purpose
In the aftermath of the pandemic, teens are facing significant social emotional learning and mental health challenges. In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General released a Youth Mental Health Advisory report that showed significant increases in symptoms of anxiety and depression during the pandemic. The report recommends that youth should be provided with opportunities for social emotional learning in spaces where their voices are elevated and valued. Libraries are well positioned to support teens as they grow through challenges and advance into adulthood.
Projects funded through this opportunity will create teen internship programs and engage those interns in a social emotional learning curriculum. Teens will bring their leadership and voice to the projects they design and facilitate as interns. Project staff members at participating libraries will evaluate teen growth using the Search Institute’s Developmental Assets Framework.
Teens Succeed grants are Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funded. The projects support Goal 4 of the California LSTA Investment Plan 2023–2027: Strengthen equitable resource-sharing and access to information, services, and opportunity with an emphasis on local community strengths and challenges.
Participating Libraries 2024–2025
- South San Francisco Public Library — Internship Opportunities — Where Libraries Support Teen Success
- Lambda Archives of San Diego — LGBTQ+ Teen Citizen Historian Internships
- City of Lincoln — Lincoln Public Library Teen Internship Program
- Mission Viejo Library — Mission Viejo Library Teen Internship Initiative
- County of Los Angeles Public Library — Teens Succeed
- Oceanside Public Library — Teens Work