Megan Navarro
SAN MARCOS — Powered by the Texas Youth Action Network Spark Grant, the teens at the Greater San Marcos Youth Council (GSMYC) have launched a podcast that allows them to have a platform to share their voices, talk about real-life topics and encourage their peers.
GSMYC strives to strengthen families through its services available to Hays County residents, with an objective to reduce child maltreatment, truancy and juvenile delinquency, while also increasing families’ protective factors and resilience to crisis. One of the ways it does this is through the Teen Life Soundtrack Podcast, created in the summer of 2025.
“The youth are the ones who make up the team and they do most of the conversation. I am just a facilitator to kind of keep them on track. When we first got this together, we came up with different topics that they would like to talk about and then, my part of facilitating is kind of adding those questions in there and they'll have a conversation and they might come up with their own questions along the way or even just have that casual conversation,” explained Lizzy Orman, lead family support specialist and facilitator of the podcast.
When Orman got the team together initially, they were all strangers because they don’t go to the same school. She noted that in the first episode, listeners may hear some timidness, but as time has progressed, the teens have laughed and become more comfortable in conversation.
They come up with the different episodes, Orman explained, at their planning meetings and have gone over various topics, including counseling, reaching out for help in general, mental health, building healthy relationships, family dynamics and substance use and recovery.
“It is just life experience and kind of what they have experienced at school, within family or anything they’ve gone through,” she said. “We typically do a check-in and just to see how everybody's doing. They'll give a quick life update on what's been happening and then, we will usually get into the topics and somebody will introduce the topic and then, ask an initial question.”
The why behind the podcast was found as Orman is the GSMYC representative on the youth coalition of Core Four and she saw in a community needs assessment that a lot of students in middle through high school lack a sense of belonging. She hopes that the public, especially adults, can gain a better understanding of the youth by listening to the podcast.
“People want to fit in somewhere. There's a lot of kids who participate in academic, extracurriculars [and] sports. But what about everyone else? With my time here, I have noticed that these kids have a lot to say, especially when they're reaching out for help,” she said. “You see them grow and so, with that growth, it's because of the lived experience, they have a lot to say and I'm like, ‘Hey, that sounds really good. Your peer would probably prefer hearing that from you than from me or their parent or a teacher or any other adult.’ I thought that this would be a great opportunity to give youth a sense of belonging, but also share their voice on their lived experiences.”
There are currently four students who are involved in the podcast and they are looking to keep the team they have right now, but there is a possibility of having guest speakers, Orman shared.
The podcast can be found on Apple at bit.ly/4qDxGTZ and Spotify at bit.ly/4qzWnQT.
