The ICfL is excited to offer another round of Teen Connection Kits to help teens reestablish social connections and create learning experiences to help them build practical skills and resiliency. Here is a list of the Teen Connection Kits offered this year:

  • Mindfulness for Teens*
  • Teen Anxiety*
  • Teen Mental Health*
  • Rock Tumbling
  • Sketching

*If you order any of the Teen Mental Health Kits, we encourage you to reach out to local mental health providers or partners in your community for additional information, pamphlets, or resources to add to the kit. Thanks to Lauren Silva and Molly Nota from Ada Community Library for their help in creating these kits.

Funding for the Rock Tumbling and Sketching kits is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under a provision of the Library Services and Technology Act.

The kits are yours to keep for your library. We will send a survey in six months to gather feedback on how you used the kits and how many teens you served. There are two different ways that your library can use the kits:

  • Circulate them. If you choose to circulate a kit to teens in your community, your library is responsible for adding it to your catalog and creating circulation procedures. You can add items to the kits and use different containers if the ones that we send don’t work for your library. The ICfL is unable to replace lost or damaged items.
  • Use them for library programs. The kits can be used during in-house library programs or during outreach events. You may need to purchase supplemental materials for your programs. The ICfL is unable to replace lost or damaged items.

This year, each library location can select up to two kits for free, while supplies last. Check out detailed descriptions for the kits here. The order form for the kits will open on Monday, May 20, at 3:00 p.m. MT / 2:00 p.m. PT. A link to order the kits will be updated on the Teen Connection Kits webpage and sent out on the LibIdaho and Idaho Teen Services listservs at that time. In past years, the kits “sold out” within a few days, so please get your order in ASAP. Also, please plan on ordering only one or two kits. If you order more than two kits, it impacts the inventory and everyone else’s access to the kits.

We will mail out the kits in early to mid-June. If you are in the Boise area, you may choose to pick up your kit directly from the ICfL office and receive it sooner. If you are a school library that will be closed in June, we can hold off on mailing your kit until school starts up again at the end of the summer.