Events
Youthcast Media Group® is committed to keeping young journalists active in the communities where they live. This includes a variety of off-site events and collaborations that see YMG students and staff utilizing a host of skills including in interviewing, videography, photography, public speaking - and networking!
Luncheon with Lindsey Leake
YMG founder & CEO Jayne O’Donnell and YMG intern Aabri Spear heard from guest speaker Lindsey Leake, a reporter for Fortune Well at a lunch hosted by the Curley Company in Feb 2025. Curley director Lucia (Gruber) Peth moderated the conversation on misinformation in journalism. Aabri, one of YMG’s most prolific social media creators, had the opportunity to learn about how the continuous evolution of science and data requires early communication, and how healthcare trends for 2025 affects the navigation and presentation of data. She also learned more about the importance of sharing accurate information and data visualizations, something YMG is currently working on! Aabri has some other great new connections, including Curley Company’s Jennifer Curley, KayAnn P. Schoeneman and Jeannine Ginivan, Responsibility.org’s Leslie Kimball and SOMA Strategies’ Monica Sakala.
Bard High School Early College YMG’s Canva social media/intro to reporting Boot Camps
Journalism students at Bard High School Early College DC got paid to participate in Youthcast Media Group’s Canva social media and intro to reporting boot camps. Students used Canva to make social posts about topics including obesity, policing and traffic crashes. They also met and interviewed a wide variety of community-based experts about pedestrian and bike safety, along with distracted driving, and wrote news briefs that are being combined into feature stories that will be published in media outlets.
2024 & Earlier
Alliance for Health Policy's 2024 Post-election Symposium
On November 13, Youthcast Media Group went to the Alliance for Health Policy’s 2024 Post-election Symposium in DC after school! YMG founder Jayne O’Donnell and Bard High School Early College seniors Isaiah Gant and Regina Curley heard from former HHS official Demetrios Kousoukas and Dan Mendelson, former Clinton Administration health official and practiced the art of networking with a host of health experts ranging from Alliance CEO Claire Sheahan to National Pharmaceutical Council CEO John O’Brien.
Bard High School Early College DC's mental health professionals at National School Psychologists Week
Sharing photos of our instructors and students with Bard High School Early College DC’s mental health professionals as National School Psychologists Week comes to a close! Several of the students interviewed school psychologists for the Canva quote posts they created in class and are getting paid for! Each student created a fact post using data and got a quote about the fact from an expert.
Jayne O'Donnell addressed media coverage of mass shootings at National Criminal Justice Association’s DC Forum
YMG founder and CEO Jayne O’Donnell offered the media perspective on a panel about community trauma and healing related to mass shootings at the NCJA Forum on Criminal Justice in August 2024. Former high school participant, now University of Virginia freshman Natalie Portillo, attended with Jayne as she’s an aspiring criminal defense attorney!
YMG student creator at DRIVE SMART Virginia
YMG founder and CEO Jayne O’Donnell and student creator Daisy Garriga attended the 11th Annual DRIVE SMART Virginia Distracted Driving Summit in August 2024. Tammy ‘Gweedo’ McGee and Marc and Jeffrey with Drop Stop sat down with Daisy and Jayne to discuss destructive and distracted driving, and what is being done to keep the roads safe. Daisy even spoke with DRIVE SMART Virginia project manager Marcus Henderson about the importance of teens driving safe. Thanks to donations from GHSA and the D.C. Highway Safety Office, YMG students are able to bring awareness to safe driving and attend conferences like this one!
YMG staff members with high school participants and interns
YMG high school participants, CEO Jayne O'Donnell & staff with Rep. John Larson
ONDCP’s Adam cohen
YMG staff members with high school participants and interns
The Monocle Student Showcase
YMG hosted its second Student Showcase and fundraiser at The Monocle Restaurant on Capitol Hill June 2024. Students showed off their work with YMG to attendees including sponsors and other supporters from healthcare, road safety and media.
Check out our photos to see who our students met - and all the people who got to know US!
Ohio State Traffic Safety Summit
YMG founder/CEO Jayne O’Donnell and college intern Hermes Falcon participated in Ohio’s annual traffic safety conference in May 2024. Jayne was on a panel about Ohio’s handheld cell phone ban, where she talked about effective ways to raise awareness - like with youth social media engagement! - while Hermes was on a teen listening session. He talked about how he and other YMG social media creators work hard to present diverse perspectives on safe driving to increase the chance of our message resonating with more people.
YMG was a big part of the 2024 Kaiser Permanente Health Action Summit!
YMG founder and CEO Jayne O’Donnell moderated a panel at Kaiser Permanente’s April 2024 Health Action Summit in Washington, D.C. that included YMG interns Hermes Falcon, a Bradley University senior, Aabri Spear, a sophomore at Morgan State University, Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, USA TODAY’s managing editor for Politics, White House and Storytelling and Lee Hawkins, an award-winning podcast host, former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the new book, I Am Nobody’s Slave. The panel talked about the importance of having a diversity of voices in the media and how their backgrounds have informed their own work.
988's one-year anniversary at St. Louis
YMG college intern Hermes Falcon joined a 988 panel in September 2023 in St. Louis to celebrate the one-year anniversary of its launch. He discussed the role organizations like YMG serve in spreading information and awareness of the hotline.
YMG at the Sozosei Summits
YMG high school student reporters and college interns covered the 2021 and 2022 Sozosei (Foundation) Summits on the decriminalization of mental illness. Stories that arose from our reporting ran in publications including USA TODAY, the Philadelphia Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Black News & Views. In December 2022, we even taught a TikTok workshop!
Youth Pride Day at Dupont Underground
In collaboration with the Washington Blade, YMG hosted Youth Pride day to celebrate Pride and the release of the Blade's Youth Pride issue! The event showcased YMG's LGBTQ+ youth multimedia work and performance with song and spoken word.”
YMG student Jada Johnson talked about her experience as a young black woman and thoughts on the #BlackLivesMatter protests in a podcast by Tiny Sparks.
YMG's Amora Campbell, then a senior at DC’s Richard Wright Public Charter School, was the lone student journalist speaker at the launch of The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health in October 2020. Hear her powerful take on her community's challenges & the importance of getting help, especially for young people of color, LGBTQ, and those like her who are both.
In September 2020, YMG student Amora Campbell participated in a virtual conference hosted by the Center for Health Journalism at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.
In June 2020, YMG students Skye-Ali Johnson and Jada Johnson participated in a virtual conference hosted by the Freedom Forum where they spoke about the role of high school journalists during the pandemic.
On May 27, 2020, Youthcast Media Group® co-founder Jayne O'Donnell and student Heaven Pete spoke at a webinar hosted by the Well Being Trust that explored how COVID-19's mental health impacts are being covered by the media.