When Fab Youth Philly’s Play Captains gather inside the basement of a Kensington church on weekday mornings, they always start the same way — with their guiding principles.
Around 20 Play Captains, each sitting at tables with their smaller teams, read the guiding principles aloud.
“Play safe, play hard, give your best effort in everything you do!”
“Mistakes are OK! Take accountability for and learn from your mistake.”
This “morning ritual,” as Fab Youth Philly’s Executive Director Rebecca Fabiano calls it, then goes with the teams as they hit the streets, with the goal of making Philly’s Playstreets, playgrounds and neighborhoods more playful.
Making Philly a place to play
Philadelphia’s Playstreets program has been around for over 50 years. The program identifies and closes city streets each summer to provide children a safe place to play and receive free meals and snacks.
Fabiano saw an opportunity to improve the program and create opportunity for young people. With over 30 years of youth workforce development experience, Fabiano knew summer was an “ideal time” for youth employment opportunities.
“I thought, what if we could actually make these Playstreets a little more playful by creating a summer job program, which I did in 2017, called the Play Captain Initiative,” she said.
Play Captains build on the momentum and improve the experience of Philly’s Playstreets. These teens, from ages 15 to 19, are sent out with an adult leader to lead activities and supervise play at Playstreets, neighborhoods and parks.
“Essentially, we train teenagers with concepts like playful learning, facilitation, leadership, all kinds of workforce development skills, communication, collaboration and confidence, so that they can go out and make parks, playgrounds and Playstreets more playful,” Fabiano explained.
Play Captains are well-versed in many games and activities.
“So for our teens, they are building and they’re creating and facilitating activities like some basic playground games – like ‘red light, green light’ and ‘what time is it, Mr. Fox?’ And they are facilitating what we might know as adults as icebreakers,” Fabiano said.
‘I like what we stand for’
Mariam Gandega, a high school student in Frankford, has worked with other organizations that support children in the area. She feels the Play Captains program provides unique value for local youth.
“I like what we stand for, and like how we support everybody,” she said. “I like that we support small neighborhoods like Kensington, because a lot of kids don’t have anything to do over the summer. So this is their way of having fun.”
On a recent summer day, Gandega’s Play Captain team had set up on Schiller Street in Kensington to start its day. The program sends teams of about five members — pushing carts full of themed supplies, games and activities — to three or four locations each day, for a five-week period during the summer.
“Each week has a different theme, so the teens are modifying their games and activities each week by theme,” Fabiano said.
For science week, Play Captains brought activities that included a slime-making kit and science experiments like “elephant toothpaste.”
Leilani Lozano also attends high school in Kensington. As she helped two neighborhood children create colored slime, she said one of her favorite parts of participating in the Play Captain program is interacting with the kids.
“They’re our next generation,” she said. “So, it’s cool to just be out here and be a kid.”
Community impact
Kensington’s Rand Street is a recurring Playstreet in the community. Sophia Pierce is one of this summer’s “Street Supervisors.” She and a colleague are responsible for cleaning their street each morning, ensuring it is blocked off and supervising the play space for children during the day.
Pierce is a longtime Kensington resident. She feels programs like Playstreets, and the boost provided by Play Captains, are especially important for local children.
“It’s very important for the kids to come outside to interact with other things, because all they think about are games on the phones and the tablets,” she said. “They can be outside like we used to and do more things outside than sitting in the house, just looking at TV and playing games.”
One of Fabiano’s favorite parts of the Play Captain program is how many of the children who interact with the captains become leaders themselves.
“That is just a scaffolding effect where we see young people see themselves in the teens, and the teens see themselves in the adults,” she said.
Layla Centeno grew up playing with Play Captains on Playstreets. The teen explained that she returned to be a Play Captain herself after seeing the positive impact the program had on her.
“They were always very interactive with everybody, and they always would teach us educational stuff and play games with us at the same time, and they would teach us about feelings, numbers and games that we didn’t know about,” she said.
Centeno emphasized these programs help both the young children at Playstreets locations to feel comfortable and get creative, while Play Captains get to facilitate fun activities, learn how to interact with kids, and know they are doing something helpful for the community.
Play Captains are also paid well above minimum wage. Fabiano said having this kind of income can give teens the confidence and resources to move forward.
“I feel really strongly about making sure that young people are learning at an early age what work is, and also what it costs — so, to be economically self-sufficient,” she said. “We also want to make sure that young people in a neighborhood that have limited opportunities have a reasonable income to be able to do the things they want to do.”
Beyond impacts for teens who participate in the program, Fabiano said the Play Captains had been shown to have a positive impact on child participants.
The group partnered with Temple University’s Infant and Child Laboratory to measure the effectiveness of Play Captains as part of the Playstreets initiative. Several positive trends became clear.
“First of all, the children on the Playstreets continued to use spatial language – like up, down, stop, go forward – which is a key indicator of literacy development,” she said.
Also, the data showed fewer disagreements and fights when Play Captains were present. Additionally, children tended to have more positive moods when Play Captains were around.
Beyond the Playstreets
Beyond the five weeks and pre-employment training, participating students also receive tangible workforce development resources, including advice, workshops and speeches.
“On Fridays, our teens participate in professional development,” she said. “So, they get another 10 or 20 hours on top of their 30 hours of pre-employment training, that help prepare them for their next job.”
Some workshops are led by Fab Youth Philly alumni who have started successful careers and come back to share advice and knowledge. Other times, community partners, including colleges, come in to give presentations.
Fabiano said the ultimate goal is to provide students with professional skills to prepare them for the workforce and future careers.
“So they walk away with things like a resume, a LinkedIn profile, what the difference is between CC and BCC when they’re sending an email,” she said.
Centeno explained in addition to financial literacy, the group training also helped to teach life and employment skills.
“They taught us a lot about bank accounts and how to manage our own bank account,” she said. “They taught us about how to manage our feelings, if we’re getting overwhelmed, and how to just take a break and take a step back. They also taught us a little bit about communication and patience and stuff like that.”
Fabiano said while Play Captains can typically stay with the program for two years, the goal is for the participants to take the skills they have learned to leverage future job opportunities.
Fabiano said applications for Play Captains typically go out in April. Teens can keep up to date about deadlines and further information on Fab Youth Philly’s social media accounts.
Word of mouth in the community has allowed for referrals through families and schools – particularly West Philly and Kensington, where the group primarily focuses, Fabiano said.
“We’ve developed really strong relationships with guidance counselors throughout the Kensington area and in West Philly,” she said.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Department selects locations for Playstreets events, but Fabiano said Fab Youth Philly will frequently advertise to neighbors, with things like door tags on houses, if they will be present on a nearby street.
