Youth Media Alliance (YMA) seeks to enrich the lives of Canadian children and teens by helping improve the quality of the content created for them on all screen-based media. The Alliance pursues its mission of encouraging high-quality content by presenting annual awards of excellence to the best productions targeting young English- and French-speaking Canadians. It offers ongoing training tailored to the special needs of youth production professionals through workshops, seminars, and special events such as the Children, Youth & Media and Média-Jeunes conferences. Since 2015, the Youth Media Alliance has developed and now offers four scholarships: the YMA Andra Sheffer, the YMA Thérèse-Pinho, the YMA Steven DeNure and the John Rooney Creator Fund. YMA also conducts original research investigating the impact of screen-based media on young people. Finally, Youth Media Alliance advocates for the needs of Canada’s child and youth media consumers in matters of public policy.

All Youth Media Alliance members agree that the best way to ensure that screen-based content for youth has a positive impact on its target audience is to:

• Provide professionals with ongoing training to help them meet the specific needs of children and teens.
• Encourage high-quality content by rewarding Canada’s best productions.
• Make sure that the largest possible number of Canadian children and teens can regularly access high-quality content.

YMA pays tribute

to the creators of quality screen-based content for children and teens by presenting its annual awards of excellence.

YMA promotes

the production of high-quality, varied content for youth.

YMA organizes

seminars, conferences, internships and training workshops.

YMA encourages

children and families to sit down together to watch high-quality, screen-based Canadian content for youth.

YMA undertakes

research projects that shed light on the issues of producing screen-based content for youth.

YMA intervenes

with the CRTC and other government agencies in issues concerning children’s television in Canada.

YMA provides

consulting services for producers, the media and the public in connection with the media, violence and advertising.

The Youth Media Alliance statement of quality, created by the former Alliance for Children and Television, provided the foundation for the Children’s Television Charter, which governments and broadcasters around the world are now ratifying.

A quality screen-based production offers excellence in form and content, meets its target audience’s needs and expectations, and complies with recognized production standards.

The content of productions should be relevant and entertaining, stimulate the intellect and the imagination, and foster openness to others. It should accurately reflect the world in which young people grow up, while respecting their dignity and promoting learning.

As a Canadian agency, the Alliance strives to promote Canadian content in screen-based productions for youth. Although young Canadians should definitely be exposed to international programs exploring our vast world, they should also have access to quality productions that present the rich diversity of Canada, its provinces, regions, communities and people, as well as its culture, heritage, and institutions.

A quality screen-based production for youth:

• is designed and produced to meet the needs and expectations of the children and teens that it targets, approaching reality from their perspective;
• allows young people to be active participants and even protagonists rather than passive spectators, playing an active and interactive role.
• consciously stimulates the intellect, curiosity and creativity of children and teens, letting them experience emotions that further their development;
• respects young people’s intelligence, critical capacity and ability to think by avoiding oversimplification, stereotypes and propaganda;
• considers their development needs, age group and cultural background, relying on relevant studies to do so.

To provide a window on the world, a screen-based production for youth:

• accurately portrays reality while stimulating the imagination (the real and the imaginary are the two worlds in which young people grow up);
• allows children and teens to explore the world beyond their immediate experience (their family, friends, school, street, city, society, world and universe).

Children and teens are entitled to screen-based productions that:

• have access to the same technical and financial resources as productions intended for mainstream audiences, in accordance with recognized standards;
• are aimed at the least well-represented groups, while serving the interests of various age groups.