Outside Perspectives Podcast

Teen takeovers. Third spaces. Phones. Youth work. Emotional safety. What’s actually going on with young people right now? In this conversation, Nicky and Lauren are joined by Sadie and Nicolette — two solidly Gen Z young adults working directly with youth through Outside Perspectives programs — to unpack the recent rise in “teen takeovers” across the country and ask a deeper question: where are te...

In this conversation, Nicky Wood and Lauren Humphrey explore why creating simple, meaningful spaces for young people to connect now feels so complicated. Starting with personal experiences from teaching, Girl Scouts, youth sports, and outdoor programs, they unpack what actually helps young people build trust, confidence, and healthy peer relationships — and why those experiences often happen outsi...

In this follow-up to “The Disappearance of the Third Space,” we take the conversation further by exploring how third spaces may not have disappeared entirely — but instead evolved into something far more fragmented, structured, and commodified. We break down different types of third spaces, the growing barriers to accessing them, and how many traditional community-based spaces have been replaced b...

In this conversation, Nicky Wood and Lauren Humphrey explore what may have been quietly lost as community life, youth independence, and “third places” have disappeared over the last several decades. They discuss the shift from the freer, community centered childhoods experienced by many Boomers, Gen X, and older Millennials to today’s increasingly fragmented and supervised youth culture. The conve...

In this conversation, Nicky Wood and Lauren Humphrey talk more openly about the reality many youth organizations and community programs are facing right now: exhaustion, instability, and the growing feeling that the systems supporting young people are slowly breaking down. Building off their previous conversation, they explore what it feels like to work inside youth development during a time when...

In this conversation, Nicky Wood and Lauren Humphrey begin unpacking a growing realization: many of the systems that once naturally supported young people and families are quietly eroding. Drawing from 11 years of frontline youth development work through Outside Perspectives, they explore the rising instability facing Youth Service Bureaus, Parks and Recreation departments, nonprofits, schools, an...

In this first episode, Nicky Wood and Lauren Humphrey introduce Outside Perspectives and the conversations that led them to start this podcast. After 11 years of building outdoor and relationship based youth programs across Connecticut, they began asking a bigger question: why has it become so difficult to simply create spaces where young people belong? This episode explores the story of Outside P...