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At their second annual meeting, youth at the Massachusetts Peer Leadership Institute focused on what lies at the heart of so many issues teens face: managing relationships.

Whether it's dealing with authority figures, navigating relationships or figuring out how to harness their power in society at large, teenagers face the task of understanding how to move from childhood into the many roles they will inhabit as adults.

About 180 youth and supporters gathered at Curry Student Center at Northeastern University Saturday morning to explore these life skills in workshops ranging from "Marginalizing and Mattering," to "Healthy Dating Relationships" to "School to Prison."

The Massachusetts Peer Leadership Institute is a project of Health Resources in Action in partnership with the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship, an AmeriCorp program. The idea behind the project is to bring together youth from across the state to learn, build skills, and network as they discuss issues in their communities.

"They showed me what to look out for," David Couture, 16, of Fall River, said of the workshop that focused on how high school students can get caught in a cycle that sends them to juvenile detention centers and keeps them out of school.

Couture, like most of the other teens at the event, is part of a youth leadership group in his community and came to the event to learn how to give voice to issues he cares about. Eventually, he said, he would like to be a professional advocate for teens.

"Coming here teaches us new ideas to get our message across," said Gertrudis Colon, 18, also of Fall River.

Kim Li came with her friends from Worcester, Lina Nguyen and Tien Nguyen, all 17, for leadership ideas as well.

"Maybe it would be inspiring to me to make a movement," she said. Lina Nguyen added, "I thought it would be cool to meet youth around the state and see what everyone else is up to and maybe get some leadership skills."

"What makes this so special is that it is youth-designed and youth-led," said Christine Roque, one of the organizers of the event from HRiA. "The conference highlights the power of young people and the importance of youth leadership."

The preparation for the meeting was led by 10 peer leaders who planned every aspect of the conference, with assistance from HRiA.

"Youth need to hear from people in their own age group," Natasha Vianna, 23, said. Vianna, along with another former teen parent, Alexandra Vanegas, led a workshop called "Youth Advocacy: Unleashing Your Voice" in which they talked about their experiences advocating for teen moms.

"Teens in general have so many rights and ways to communicate to policymakers," Vianna said. What they need, she continued, is to hear from their peers is how to harness this power.