CARA’s Youth Research Council (YRC) is currently wrapping up their latest project exploring how social media influences students’ college aspirations and decisions. To bring their findings to life, we partnered with Phe Studios for a three-day training in digital storytelling.

Phe Studios is a creative production company founded by Phellix Rodriguez, a CARA alum who was a Youth Leader in 2013-14. Since his time at CARA, Phellix has blended education, service, and creativity – studying Political Science at Gettysburg College, joining Teach For America, and later counseling students at Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, one of CARA’s long-time partners. Now, as the founder of Phe Studios, he’s created a platform to help non-profits and schools tell their stories.

Over the course of the training, YRC members learned how to plan, script, film, and edit social media content and transform their research into video-formatted how-to’s, reels, memes, and more. They also received guidance on digital strategy, publishing best practices, and how to use social media as a tool for advocacy and education.

It’s important to us that the voices of youth researchers not only contribute to the research but also shape how it’s shared. We’re so grateful to Phe Studios for creating a space where our team felt comfortable trying something new. Most of the YRC members had never created content before, but the training left everyone feeling inspired and excited to create content that brings CARA’s research to a wider audience.

The content created during this training will support CARA’s ongoing policy and advocacy efforts. Special thanks to the Summerfield Foundation for making this work possible. We’ll begin sharing the videos on Instagram in the weeks ahead – stay tuned!