DETROIT — In a society that often feels fractured and divided, communication and understanding can be a powerful way to overcome such challenges.

For four decades, the Giant Step Conference has taught and fostered those skills, bringing together thousands of ninth and tenth graders from urban, suburban, public, private, charter, parochial, magnet and home schools.

The annual conference is hosted by the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development at Wayne State University. This year, more than 250 teens from 27 schools will be divided into groups, separated from their classmates and companions, to discuss a variety of topics with young people from other communities and walks of life.

The Giant Step Teen Conference will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, in the Wayne State University Student Center, 5221 Gullen Mall in Detroit.

"The Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute has been proud to host this annual conference for 40 years in partnership with the Co-Ette Club of Detroit and our dedicated community-based steering committee,” said Alissa Huth-Bocks, Ph.D., director of the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute. “The conference continues to promote and advocate for inclusivity, acceptance and productive conversation among diverse youth from across Southeast Michigan. It is profoundly moving to hear what these youth learned and will take with them when they describe their experiences at the end of the conference." 

Chaperones attend with each school but move to a separate continuing education workshop during the conference. This year’s topic is “Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth in Schools.” This allows students to speak freely, given only prompts by the facilitators when necessary.

Students can guide the discussion in whatever directions they wish. Common topics at last year’s conference included the overuse of social media, bullying, racial issues and immigration. Facilitators expect politics to come up frequently with the election just days after the conference.

“Students come from different schools, different religions, different backgrounds, and they come in as strangers, but walk out with new friends,” said Richard Thomas, a former conference co-chair. “Someone who grew up on a farm can see how someone from the city sees things and someone from the city can see what it was like growing up on a farm.”

Richard Thomas and his wife, former conference chair Sonya Thomas, Ph.D., help organize the event and are two of its longest-serving volunteers. Sonya Thomas believes that Giant Step’s structure catches kids at the most effective age for promoting outreach and better communication.

“I’ve learned that when you get to be an adult, you are already set in your ways,” said Thomas. “Younger students do not have enough awareness of the issues and the world around them, and older students are already getting set in their views. In the ninth or tenth grade, there is still room on their canvas to see and embrace new things. I think the fact that it has been going on for 40 years is a credit to how effective and important it is.”

Evaluations from the 2023 Giant Step Teen Conference show that 96% of students reported that talking with teens from different backgrounds was interesting and educational, 89% said they were able to talk about issues important to them, and 97% said the conference was a positive experience and they would recommend their school continue to participate. At least 83% of students said they would stay in touch with the new friends they met at the conference.

Dianne Robinson, steering committee advisor for Giant Step, credited Mary Agnes Miller Davis, the founder of Giant Step, for seeing the challenges society was facing and developing a plan to address it.

“Giant Step puts youths in a level of discomfort, because they are separated from their usual peers,” Robinson said. “That forces them to sit with a diverse group of people who they then take part in discussions with, and this makes it possible to meet and talk and understand others.”

The Co-Ette Club of Detroit is the lead organization that supports the Giant Step Teen Conference. Karen Gay, assistant executive administrator for the Co-Ette Club and a conference steering committee member, said they share many goals with the conference, and both were started by Mary Agnes Miller Davis.

"Mary Agnes Miller Davis founded the Co-Ette Club in 1941 as well,” said Gay. “The Co-Ettes have a lot of respect for what Mary Agnes started. She set us on a path to support programs like the conference and we have taken this responsibility very seriously. Our tenth-grade girls who are part of our organization attend the conference, and our older students help volunteer by serving lunch, helping get the conference started and organized, cleaning up, and so forth. Skills like leadership, volunteerism and thinking about the community are ideas we have in common, so we think it's great that we get to support the conference year after year."

“I believe that it’s important that we are more alike than we are different,” said Robinson. “When we come together and talk, we find out more about those commonalities than the things that differentiate us. We can then build understanding and relationships, and that makes us better people and makes the world, as a whole, better.”

For details, visit mpsi.wayne.edu/outreach/teen-conference.

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About Wayne State University

Wayne State University is one of the nation’s pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu.

Wayne State University’s research efforts are dedicated to a prosperity agenda that betters the lives of our students, supports our faculty in pushing the boundaries of knowledge and innovation further, and strengthens the bonds that interconnect Wayne State and our community. To learn more about Wayne State University’s prosperity agenda, visit president.wayne.edu/prosperity-agenda.

About the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development

The Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development promotes and improves the well-being of children and families across the lifespan through research, education and outreach. The institute is part of Wayne State University’s Division of Research & Innovation. To learn more about the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development, visit mpsi.wayne.edu.