Registration Challenges

[Jess G.]

We're beginning to use DIY.org for Saturday Crafternoons, a weekly drop-in youth program at Assemble in Pittsburgh. As a community-based organization, we try and make our youth programs as accessible as possible, and some neighborhood kids participate in our programs without a parent or family member present. (We encourage parents and family members to come if they can, though!) Unfortunately, this presents some unique challenges for our participants who want to sign up for DIY.org but are under 13 and therefore need a parent's email address to create and verify their accounts. The kids who know their parents' e-mail addresses are able to create accounts without problems, but verification is another issue. And then there are the kids who don't know their parents' email addresses or don't think their parents have e-mail addresses...

I've been trying to come up with some solutions to these problems, and I'd like to share the ideas I have so far. If you've dealt with this, I would also appreciate input from folks who have dealt with similar challenges before!

For kids who attend the program without a parent but know a parent's e-mail address:

I plan to continue registering these kids with the email addresses they give me. I'm going to create a simple DIY.org info sheet to send home with them so that parents know why they received a DIY.org verification e-mail, what DIY.org is, how it's being used at Assemble, etc.

Megan, I think it could be useful for DIY.org to have a template for this, and I'd be happy to either share mine with you or work with you to develop something that can easily be adapted for other organizations.

For kids who attend the program without a parent and don't know a parent's email address (or think their parent doesn't have one):

I plan to register these kids with my Assemble e-mail account and then give them the DIY.org info sheets, as well as DIY.org permission forms for a parents or guardians to sign. The permission forms will confirm that I can verify the kids' accounts and continue managing the accounts. If the parents or guardians have any questions or concerns, they can obviously contact me or choose not to sign.

Does this sound OK? Suggestions? Concerns? I'm open to input!

[Michele W.]

Our goal is to encourage kids to make and we use diy.org as a structure. We do not require our makers to join diy.org to participate. We talk a lot about diy.org during the events and have handed out diy.org stickers, brochures, and information. We will help anyone sign up with diy.org, but only with their parent present. 

The Club has set up a diy.org portfolio. We take pictures during events of the kids projects, not their faces, and post them on the club's project page on diy.org. The kids enjoy seeing their projects there even if their parent is not ready for them to have a diy profile of their own. 

[Megan Leppla]

Jess,

Thanks for outlining this for other Clubs. This is a great way of handling group sign-ups on DIY. Although Clubs Leaders can and should post photos from Club adventures to their Club Leader account on DIY, we strongly encourage all Club members have their own account on DIY. 

We do have flyers that outline an explanation of what DIY is all about (for this very purpose) available under the DIY Clubs guide resources here: DIY.org/guides/clubs