YouthSpeak Resources

Frequently Asked Questions

Thinking about booking YouthSpeak? Here are some Frequently Asked Questions
to help you with your decision:

YouthSpeak Performance Charity is provides youth-led, interactive presentations for grades 2-12, post-secondary, parents and other caring adults on topics on youth mental health; bullying prevention; online overdrive; anti-racism; substance use and other related topics. Since our inception 18 years ago, we have reached over 350,000 students spanning over 500 schools and community groups throughout Ontario. We are also an approved speaker program for a number School Boards throughout the GTA.

  • Most presentations are anywhere from 45-60 minutes depending on the time available, we work with the school’s schedule to set up times. The primary grade presentations are closer to 35 minutes.
  • When a school wants to book several presentations for various grades, they are typically booked back-to-back on the same day and divided by division, but that can be adapted as needed depending on the school size, budget, need etc.
  • Number of students is based on the max that the platform used can accommodate and as long as teachers are available to monitor the Chat and their own students, we leave that up to the school. We would need to know a week ahead if the students are all virtual, all in-person or a mix of the two in order for our team to set up the presentation interactives accordingly.
  • Most presentations follow this format (other than the Building-A-SelfCare-Toolkit for Primary which is focused on the toolkit):
  • Interactive Introduction/Warm Up
  • Speaker One
  • Interactive(s)
  • Speaker Two
  • Interactive(s)
  • Q&A
  • Resources

We do provide both in-person and virtual presentations for schools and community groups in the GTA. For geographical areas outside of the GTA, it depends on the extent of the travel and the nature of the booking, connect with us directly to discuss options

Virtual Set Up – is done via a platform of your choosing based on your School Boards policies/practises i.e. Google Meets, MS Teams or if you prefer we set up the meeting, it would be via our Zoom account.

Suggested Safety Measures – are also included in the confirmation email to ensure students are connected to support when/if needed.

As per our Media Guidelines which are included in the confirmation email, as a standard practice we do not allow any video/audio-taping or note-taking by schools or media personnel of the youth speakers while sharing their stories. Special requests may be made to the YouthSpeak support staff person who will make arrangements with the youth speakers for permission.

All programs include resource material as applicable: teacher guide, tip sheets, activity sheets, resource list. Some of the resource material will be included in the confirmation email along with other details to ensure a smooth set-up, and further resource material following the booking.

Yes, we do try to work with limited budgets and on occasion, we have access to funds to support schools in priority neighbourhoods. Its best to inquire and discuss your budget at that time.

Feel free to reach out to Una Wright at una@youthspeak.ca or 905-967-0604. We strive to respond within 24 hours to address any questions or needs you may have!

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