Core Principles for Engaging
Young People in Community Change
Karen Pittman and Shanetta Martin, The Forum for Youth Investment
Anderson Williams, Oasis/Community IMPACT
July 2007
July 2007
The Forum for Youth Investment is a nonproit, nonpartisan organization
dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people
are Ready by 21™: ready for college, work and life. This goal requires
that young people have the supports, opportunities and services needed to
prosper and contribute where they live, learn, work, play and make a dif-
ference. The Forum provides youth and adult leaders with the information,
technical assistance, training, network support and partnership opportunities
needed to increase the quality and quantity of youth investment and youth
involvement.
core operating division of impact strategies, inc.
Cover photograph by Labor Youth
http://www.lickr.com/photos/labouryouth/457676395/
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in
Community Change
Karen Pittman and Shanetta Martin, The Forum for Youth Investment
Anderson Williams, Oasis/Community IMPACT
Suggested Citation:
Pittman, K., Martin, S., Williams, A. (2007, July). Core Principles for Engaging Young
People in Community Change. Washington, D.C.: The Forum for Youth Investment,
Impact Strategies, Inc.
©2007 by Impact Strategies, Inc. All rights reserved. Parts of this report may be quoted
or used as long as the authors and the Forum for Youth Investment are recognized. No
part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes
without prior permission from the Forum for Youth Investment.
Please contact the Forum for Youth Investment and Impact Strategies, Inc. at
The Cady-Lee House, 7064 Eastern Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20012-2031, T:
202.207.3333, F: 202.207.3329, youth@forumfyi.org for information about reprinting
this publication and information about other publications.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank adult and
youth staff from Oasis Community Impact
Nashville, Tennessee and Austin Voices for
Education in Austin, Texas who contributed to
the development of these principles and who
regularly inspire our work related to youth
engagement. Youth and staff from Young Voice
and Youth in Action in Providence, Rhode
Island also provided feedback on the principles
during a retreat in 2006.
Thanks also to Nicole Yohalem at the Forum
for Youth Investment and John Hilley,
founder of Community Impact Nashville, for
their contributions to the development of the
principles and the wriitng of earlier drafts of
the paper.
Thanks to Nalini Ravindranath at the Forum for
Youth Investment for editing and design.
Table of Contents
The “Double Arrow “ ..................................................................... 6
Introduction .................................................................................. 7
Youth Engagement 101 .................................................................. 8
Eight Principles of Youth Engagement ...................................... 11
Principle 1: Intentional Philosophy............................................. 12
Principle 2: Identify Issues.......................................................... 14
Principle 3: Create a “Home Base” .............................................. 16
Principle 4: Youth and Adult Teams ........................................... 8
Principle 5: Youth and Adult Capacity ........................................ 20
Principle 6: Balanced Goals......................................................... 22
Principle 7: Sustained Access/Inluence ..................................... 24
Principle 8: Continuity of Youth Leaders ................................... 26
About the Oasis Center and Community Impact........................... 27
References...................................................................................... 28
Youth Engagement in Community Change:
The Double Arrow
FACT
The American dream is based on the assumption that all young people can
succeed if they work hard and have the support of their families and
communities.
FACT
American neighborhoods vary enormously in the quality and quantity of services,
opportunities and supports available to help families support their youth.
FACT
This variation from neighborhood to neighborhood is not random. Families that
have the fewest individual resources live in neighborhoods with the fewest
collective resources. Low-income young people, immigrant youth and young
people of color are disproportionately affected.
FACT
The effect of this “opportunities gap” is cumulative. Neighborhoods with weak
schools also often have weak civic and social organizations, weak businesses and
weak economies. As a result, young people often lack adequate opportunities
and supports where they live, learn, work and play. Sometimes they literally lack
places to live, learn, work and play.
FACT
Better individual programs and services in these neighborhoods are necessary
but not enough. Young people do not grow up in programs, they grow up in
communities. Programs can help a few young people beat the odds, but more is
needed to help youth and community members change the odds for the majority
of young people in their community.
FACT
Young people want to be engaged as change-makers in their lives, their families
and their communities. They are disproportionately involved in and affected by
the problems that beset communities – drugs, violence, poor education, lack of
jobs – and they must be part of the solution.
FACT
Change happens fastest when youth
and community development are
seen as two sides of the same coin
and young people are afforded the
tools, training and trust to apply
their creativity and energy to affect
meaningful change in their own
lives and in the future of their
neighborhoods and communities.
The “Double Arrow”
Youth
Contributing to
Communities
Young people and adults
working together to create the
necessary conditions for the
successful development of
themselves, their peers, their
families and their communities.
Communities
Contributing
to Youth
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Introduction
In any community, many different organizations and institutions – schools
and colleges, youth programs, community centers, United Ways, foundations, human services agencies, businesses – work to increase the services
and supports available for young
people, helping some beat the odds
set by poverty, racism or geographic
isolation. There are surprisingly few
organizations or programs, however,
whose purpose is to be a catalyst for
improving the quality and quantity of
youth opportunities by engaging young
people in meaningful ways in the work
itself.
The principles described in this paper
can help build the capacity of organizations and communities to ensure
that all youth, particularly those least
likely to succeed without help, believe
that they have the responsibility and
resources needed to make their communities better places for themselves,
their families and their peers.
The principles, in many ways, document common sense. They are important but simple principles for moving
an idea (youth engagement) to impact
(youth-supported change). They are
things that traditional organizations
that work with youth (e.g., schools,
youth clubs, community centers) and
change-focused organizations that
want to engage youth (e.g., community
planning councils, mayor’s ofices,
foundations) can easily use to build a
solid framework for getting started.
These principles can be applied to
any structure – from a neighborhoodbased youth action team of six to eight
youth that meets regularly to a statewide youth council that meets four
times a year – or any strategy – from
inviting youth to join governing boards
to engaging youth in service projects or
political advocacy.
The principles emerged from the comingling of lessons from research and
practice that occured when the Forum
for Youth Investment merged with
Community IMPACT! USA and undertook responsibility for documenting
and deepening CI!s Youth Mobilizer
approach. The Forum brought its
ield research with organizations that
have youth engagement in community
change as a primary focus. (see Irby
et al, 2001, Tolman et al, 2002) into
strategy discussions with experienced
Community IMPACT! afiliates. The
result: traditional youth service/youth
leadership efforts were transformed
into powerful forces for community
change.
7
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Youth Engagement 101
Young people are disproportionately
involved in and affected by the
problems that beset communities
and states. Recent research studies
suggest that young people are not
doing well because communities are
not doing well by them. Researchers
Gambone, Connel and Klem found
that only 4 in 10 young people in
their early 20’s are “doing well”: in
college or working, emotionally and
physically healthy, and engaged in
political or community life (Gambone,
et. al, 2002). A study commissioned
by America’s Promise Alliance,
suggests that only 3 in 10 young
people 12 to 17 get the supports that
they need to lourish: caring adults,
safe places, a healthy start, effective
education, and opportunities to help
others (America’s Promise, 2006).
These data are certainly cause for
concern. But they are also cause for
engagement. Young people are not
only at the center of many problems,
they are the source of many solutions.
And studies show that young people
want to be engaged as change makers.
The true engagement of young
people in change processes, however,
requires a fundamental shift in how
decisions are made.
Youth engagement as a
strategy for community
change
Improving the quality and
coordination of youth services and
supports is critical to improving
youth outcomes. Communities
need to respond with a greater
sense of urgency and commitment.
Generating improvements often
requires changes in policies and
8
resource allocations. These
happen faster when there is strong
community demand. Without direct
youth and family input, however,
improvement efforts can miss the
mark.
These are four basic change strategies
the Forum places at the core of its
Ready by 21 Approach to long-term
change (see graphic below). Three
things are worth noting about these
strategies.
First, these four strategies are
interrelated, not independent.
Second, youth and family engagement
is the most frequently overlooked
strategy. Third, youth and family
engagement are critical to long-term
change. Making change without
involving those who have the deepest
understanding of what is needed
and have the strongest motivation
for change is tantamount to making
travel plans without a destination.
In order to create opportunities for
change, adult change makers focused
on shaping policy, improving services
and building demand need to do more
than engage young people in focus
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
groups or invite a select few to offer
advice. They need to ind effective
ways to involve large numbers of
youth in their core work.
Similarly, those who focus on youth
leadership should ask the question
“leadership for what?” They should
make sure that young people are
engaged not just for the experience
but for the results. They should
also develop strategies for involving
maximum numbers of youth.
Youth Engagement as a
Strategy for Organizational
Change
There are a range of organizations
— from diversion and runaway
programs to after-school programs
to employment training programs
— that deine their roles not as youth
engagement but as youth services or
perhaps youth development. These
organizations can also beneit from
discussions about effective strategies
for helping staff and adults think
The Youth Engagement Continuum
Intervention ĺ Development ĺ Collective Empowerment ĺ Systemic Change
YOUTH
SERVICES
APPROACH
Defines young
people as clients
Provides services
to address
individual
problems and
pathologies of
young people
Programming
defined around
treatment and
prevention
YOUTH
DEVELOPMENT
Provides services and
support, access to
caring adults and safe
spaces
Provides opportunities
for the growth and
development of young
people
Meets young people
where they are
Builds young people’s
individual
competencies
Provides age
appropriate support
Emphasizes positive
self identity
Supports youth-adult
partnerships
9
YOUTH LEADERSHIP
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Includes components of
youth development
approach plus:
Includes components of
youth development &
youth leadership plus:
Builds in authentic
youth leadership
opportunities within
programming and
organization
Engages young people
in political education
and awareness
Helps young people
deepen historical and
cultural understanding
of their experiences
and community issues
Builds skills and
capacities of young
people to be decision
makers and problem
solvers
Youth participate in
community projects
Builds skills and
capacity for power
analysis and action
around issues young
people identify
Begins to help young
people build collective
identity of young
people as social change
agents
YOUTH ORGANIZING
Includes
components
of youth
development, youth
leadership and civic
engagement plus:
Builds a membership
base
Involves youth as part
of core staff and
governing body
Engages in direct action
and mobilizing
Engages in alliances
and coalitions
Engages young people
in advocacy and
negotiation
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
about redeining roles that allow young
people to simultaneously be service
recipients to being change organizers.
This continuum of youth engagement
is powerfully shown below in a
frequently cited chart developed by
LISTEN, Inc (LISTEN, Inc., 2003).
Studies show that reaching out to
disadvantaged youth with services
to address individual needs and
opportunities to address collective
issues is extremely effective (Forum
for Youth Investment, 2004). Oasis/
Community Impact’s story conirms
this inding.
Community IMPACT! Nashville began
as a youth leadership program in East
Nashville. Recognizing that it was not
fully living up to its name (community
impact) it began to shift from a focus
on leadership activities to a focus on
community action, taking on issues
such as family economics and college
access. In 2005 , CI! Nashville merged
with the Oasis Center. This link
with the city’s largest youth services
provider ensured that all youth
including those most in need were
encouraged to take action to improve
conditions that affect them.
10
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Eight Principles of Youth Engagement
Research shows that youth who are
actively engaged in social change
efforts have three core strengths:
•Capacity: knowledge, leadership
and action skills
•Motivation: understanding
and awareness of issues and root
Three Strengths,
Eight Principles
Opportunity
Sustain Access and Inluence
Youth
Action
Motivation
Convey an
Intentional
Philosophy
Identify Core
Issues
Capacity
Provide
Individual Support
Build Youth &
Adult Capacity
Create Youth/
Adult Teams
causes, systems, and strategies for change,
commitment and a sense of responsibility
•Opportunity: chances to act on passions,
use skills, and generate change through
relevant, sustained action
These strengths do not occur by chance.
Young people build skills, acquire passions,
come to understandings and take on
responsibilities for changing their worlds
as they grow, learn and develop. Practice
suggests that young people are most likely
to develop these strengths when they are
connected to programs and organizations that
have effective youth engagement strategies
explicitly designed to address these core needs.
The eight principles are explicitly organized
around the three core strengths discussed
above, and a fourth category: foundation.
Organizations and institutions seeking to
engage youth need a strong foundation and a
stable operational infrastructure that is suited
to the level (e.g., neighborhood, state) and type
(e.g., policy advocacy, community mobilizing)
of youth engagement desired.
In the pages that follow we provide a brief
description and rationale for each principle
and pull out the key ideas embedded within it.
We also give a concrete example from Oasis/
Community IMPACT’s experiences of how the
principle has been implemented and offer a set
of relection questions designed to help readers analyze their own practice.
Foundation
Create a Strong Home Base
Design an Aggressive Outreach Strategy
July 2007
Core Principtles for Engaing Young People in Community Change
Principle 1: Design an Outreach Strategy
long-term recruitment plan. While an
organization may develop a few great
young leaders, its youth engagement
will be undermined if all of the understanding, passion and expertise rest
Research shows that young people who with a particular group of youth. It is
are asked to participate in community important to be intentional about crechange are more likely to get involved ating a “revolving door” of youth leadthan those who are not. Therefore,
ers. This requires youth and adults to
organizations should be intentional
identify the changing strengths and
about recruiting a diverse group of
weaknesses of the overall team and
young people that represent a range
adequately plan for engaging new team
of perspectives, experiences and
members, building skills and awareskill-levels.
ness, and transferring the ownership
of the work.
Recruitment strategies should
concentrate on places where young
The integration of new young people
people spend a signiicant amount
and their ideas into ongoing commuof time. These include not only
nity action work takes effort. Change
schools, youth-serving organizations
often takes years to accomplish. New
and faith based organizations, but
youth should have the opportunity to
informal settings such as community
infuse their ideas within the overall
centers, malls and recreation areas.
plan of action instead of simply conIn areas where few programs exist,
tinuing the predecessor’s work. This
community-based recruitment events
opportunity will ensure ownership and
and information sessions can be useful engagement of the new members.
especially when a core group of youth
are engaged to do the outreach.
Effective youth engagement
strategies must have strong and
continuous outreach strategies.
Organizations interested in long-term
community change need to have a
Key Ideas
• Create an outreach strategy that connects with existing organizations and
be intentional about asking young people to get involved.
• Plan a strategy that ensures diversity among youth involved in the program.
• Be intentional about creating a “revolving door” of youth leaders to ensure
continuity.
• Balance the need for continuity in terms of issues with the integration of
new young people who bring new ideas.
12
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
In 2005, Oasis/Community IMPACT (OCI) graduated four of its seven
youth mobilizers. The hiring process involves balancing several concerns. Ensuring that youth hired represent a younger population that
could spend a year or more leading a team is important, but so is
ensuring that the overall group represents the range of schools in the
community. Once the hiring process is completed, graduating Youth
Mobilizers are charged with making sure new youth become experts
on the existing issues and strategies and become motivated to own the
work themselves.
Relection Questions
1. Does the makeup of our team relect the broader population with whom we
work?
2. Does the team have a breadth of ages and a suficient number of people focusing on a given content area to buffer the loss of young people through graduation or other issues?
3. Is there space for new youth to bring their ideas to the process while maintaining a focus on the overall mission?
4. Is there room for new adult staff to bring their own strengths and vision to the
process while maintaining focus on the overall mission?
13
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Principle 2: Create a “Home Base”
Effective youth engagement
strategies create a “home base”
for young people.
Young people need a home base that
provides steady connections to adults
who can build a team, broker opportunities and facilitate relationships
with other adults, organizations and
businesses.
focus their work. The home base does
not have to be housed within the sponsoring organization. For example, a
community organization may support
a youth action group that has dedicated workspace in a local high school.
Young people involved in neighborhood-based youth engagement efforts
may use the home base daily. Some
youth engagement efforts, such as
state or local youth councils, meet less
But young people also need designated frequently (monthly or quarterly).
work spaces equipped with phones,
These may not have dedicated physical
computers and other ofice equipment space. Distance and transporation
and supplies needed to do their jobs.
issues may make it dificult for youth
They need a serious place to do serious to come frequently as well. In this
work.
case, special efforts need to be taken
to ensure that members have ample
A good home base creates an enviopportunities to connect to each other
ronment in which young people can
and to staff.
develop work relationships, hone
their ideas, manage their tasks and
responsibilities and develop a sense of
accountability.
Ideally, a home base should be physically accessible, located in or near a
neighborhood or community where
young people live and where they will
Key Ideas
• A “home base” provides a system of support that connects youth to
organizational resources and designated reliable adults.
• Youth need designated, accessible work space, access to basic
ofice resources and facilitated opportunities to engage in community
change work.
• Creating a “home base” in the nighborhood is important to ground
youth engagement work at the neighborhood or community level and
to create ownership.
14
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
Young people must play a role in deining their home base. Initially, the
OCI space included a TV, DVD player and a variety of board games,
with a couple of old computers in one room. Over time, the board
games became clutter, the TV and DVD player sat unused and the
young people were complaining that they needed better computers in
order to do their jobs. The organization now has a designated youth
workroom (with doors) that includes eight computers, a central work
table and an easel. This is the young people’s space. Adults are welcome but should know that when they enter, they are visitors in a youth
space. .
Relection Questions
1. Based on the scope of our program or initiative, where is the best place to have
a home base for young people?
2. Who is the point person for young people to connect to on an ongoing basis?
3. Is the workspace appropriate for the type of work being done, responsive to the
needs of the team and tied to appropriate resources?
4. Have young people had a role in deining their own space in terms of how it
looks and its operating culture?
15
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Principle 3: Convey a Philosophy of Change
Effective youth engagement
efforts are driven by an intentional
philosophy about change
that young people and adults
understand and own.
discuss the organization’s philopophy
of change (beliefs about what it takes
to make change happen).
Whatever strategies are used, it is
important to help young people understand how they can create a “ripple
Any social change effort is complex
effect.” Frequently, youth action
and requires a clear roadmap that
groups involve relatively small numincludes short and long-term goals
bers of youth. Organizations need to
as well as intentional strategies for
help these youth expand their impact
achieving those goals.
to their peers, families, neighborhoods, cities and beyond through issue
In terms of goals, young people and
research, public education, community
adults do better when short-term acpartnerships, policy advising and
tions are embedded within a long-term advocacy.
agenda. For example, young people’s
immediate concerns about lack of
In addition to being clear about their
textbooks, bathroom doors or advance philosophy about change, organizaplacement classes can be linked to
tions should be clear about their
long-term goals such improving colphilosophy about youth engagement.
lege access and decreasing the achieve- Young people are disproportionately
ment gap.
involved in and affected by the problems that beset communities, and they
Organizations can employ a range of
want to be engaged as change makchange strategies, from issue research ers. Adults recruiting youth need to
to outreach to organizing. Young
be clear about why they want young
people should be briefed on the oppeople involved.
tions and given opportunities to
Key Ideas
• Be clear about why you are engaging young people in the irst place.
• Have a clear roadmap that includes short and long-term goals and strategies.
• Short-term actions should be embedded within a long-term agenda.
• Be intentional about creating a “ripple effect” to increase impact.
• Articulate clear roles for young people and adults across multiple levels and
strategies.
16
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
The original theory of change behind the work of OCI was to increase
neighborhood support for young people both inancially and in terms of
positive messages, which in turn would increase youth and community
engagement and, therefore, increase college attendance. As the organization deepened its goals, it developed deeper strategies to accomplish those goals, which simultaneously expanded and deepened roles
for young people. The organization now emphasizes organizational
partnerships and develops a Youth Opportunities Network that creates
leadership roles for youth in community organizations committed to
change. These opporutnities to inluence the work of other organizations create a “ripple effect” that helped expand OCI’s impact beyond its
core members.
Relection Questions
1. Why are we engaging young people?
2. What are we trying to accomplish, in the long-term and the short-term?
3. What strategies will help us accomplish those goals?
4. What roles can young people and adults play in implementing these strategies?
5. What is our plan for expanding the impact of our work beyond those immediately
involved or affected?
17
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Principle 4: Identify Issues
The irst important component in
moving this kind of process along is
having a framework that explains the
full scope of the speciic problem that
has been identiied and how it relates
not only to other community challengProviding youth with authentic decies but also community assets. Such a
sion-making power on issues they
framework could also connect local
want to focus on is a critical step in
neighborhood realities to city, state
youth engagement and youth/adult
and national policies and create natupartnership efforts. However, it is also ral bridges between the work of the
possible to integrate young people into young people and the agendas of comexisting community change agendas
munity initiatives and organizations.
by working with them to connect
the issues they are passionate about
A second critical element is conducting
– typically those that affect them on a
research because it helps youth and
regular basis and are part of their lived adults deepen their knowledge on the
experiences – to a broader framework issues, understand the root causes and
and agenda.
develop effective responses.
Effective youth engagement
strategies take issue identiication
seriously and deine clear focal
points for action.
An example of this process is connecting immediate issues like broken
school bathrooms to systemic challenges such as crumbling school infrastructure, which can be further linked
to root causes like racism and poverty.
This process is critical for both adults
and young people engaged in community change.
Key Ideas
• Give young people authentic decision-making power.
• Issues should connect to youths’ lived experiences.
• Connect immediate issues to broader systemic challenges.
• Link systemic challenges to root causes.
• Simple frames are important.
8
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
For OCI, a useful framework for thinking about community change has
consisted of the three Es: Economics, Education and Environment.
Young people and adult staff work together to identify critical issues
within that framework. They regularly return to the framework to keep
their individual projects and campaigns grounded in a systemic understanding of root causes and their overall community change agenda.
Their committment to identifying root causes, for example, led OCI to
transform a inancial literacy program developed for youth mobilizers
into a inancial stability movement led by Youth Mobilizers that included
youth-led efforts to offer inancial literacy classes to adults, replace
check-cashing places with credit unions and increase EITC enrollment.
Relection Questions
1. How were our focal issues identiied? Were youth involved in that process? Were
other adults involved? How were they involved?
2. What are the systemic challenges and/or root causes that underlie our focal
issues?
3. Do these issues connect to the lived experiences of the young people that we
are trying to engage?
4. Where do the issues it within a broader framework?
5. Have we researched our issue to better understand how it plays out in this community, how it links to other issues, what its root causes are and what strategies
may be most effective to address it?
19
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Principle 5: Create Youth and Adult Teams
Effective youth engagement
strategies have at their core a
youth and adult team.
In order to realize true youth/adult
partnerships and capitalize on the
strengths that both young people and
adults bring to the community change
process, it is important to develop
teams in which youth and adults work
together. The team model involves a
group of individuals that share a common purpose, goals and strategy for
affecting change.
research, planning, training, recruitment and ofice management. Young
people bring important insights to all
of these functions and should be involved as leaders, not just in the community but across the organization.
Compensating young people, whether
it is through salaries, credits, or other
creative strategies, is an important
way to send the message that they are
not recipients of services but rather
colleagues in the community change
work.
Team members work interdependently, share strengths and weaknesses,
and take on speciic roles and responsibilities toward the goal. Effective
teams have a structure through which
all youth and adults members are held
accountable.
Young people can and should assume
a range of meaningful roles as team
members, including being involved in
Key Ideas
• Youth/adult teams are made up of individuals that share a common purpose,
goals and strategies.
• Teams need to have clear and meaningful roles and responsibilities for all
members that connect to the shared goal.
• All youth and adult team members are held accountable.
• Young people should be engaged as leaders across the organization itself,
not just in the community.
• Compensating young people is key.
20
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
As a result of several important factors, the youth/adult team at OCI
evolved over time in its effectiveness and authenticity. These factors
included team members’:
• Willingness to name their individual strengths and weaknesses;
• Willingness to recognize ways in which they experience both privilege
and oppression;
• Development of a collective sense of purpose and vision for change.
By voicing strengths and weaknesses, OCI recognizes that each youth
and adult has something to bring and something to learn. This diffused
the natural instinct to defer to an adult for answers and empowered
young people to ind answers and develop skills among and for themselves. The naming of privilege and oppression allows for a team that
is diverse in terms of race, economics and age to surface and address
social and cultural tensions that may be underlying our relationships.
Finally, when each member of the team has a clear understanding of the
mission of the team and the organization and has a sense of how the organization works — “how we do things” — it is easier to vet ideas about
activities and projects that individuals may want to do through the lens of
long-term change in neighborhood systems.
Relection Questions
1. Do young people take an active role in the development and realization of strategies for community change?
2. Do young people and adults understand and own the mission of the organization?
3. Do young people and adults understand their speciic roles and responsibilities as
they relate to the broader mission of the organization?
4. Do youth and adults share both workload and accountability for their work?
5. Are there structures and times in place for the youth and adults to come together
to celebrate small wins and bring personal or professional issues to the group?
21
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Changet
Principle 6: Build Youth and Adult Capacity
Effective youth engagement
strategies are intentional about
building youth and adult capacity.
Supporting young people to fulill
speciic roles in community change
work in a way that relects their own
goals and is not patronizing prepares
them to negotiate spaces where youth
are not typically present. Building the
capacity of youth and adults to tackle
real issues requires a dual focus on
building skills and awareness.
Skills. Young people need a range of
individual, leadership, team work and
basic skills. Personal skills include a
sense of personal power, self-eficacy,
purpose and future. Leadership skills
include public speaking, writing, problem identiication, goal setting and
project planning. Team skills include
communication, facilitation and the
ability to work with diverse peers and
adults across a variety of settings. Basic administrative skills such as ofice
management, planning and organization are also important.
Adult staff must also possess the
above skills and be able to facilitate
the development of systems thinking
and critical thinking, supporting youth
agendas within the overall mission of
the organization. They must also be
able to communicate and connect with
young people on a variety of levels,
inboth personal and professional.
Awareness. Youth and adult teams
must be aware of how local systems
function and must understand the relationship between speciic problems,
systemic contributions to the problems
and their root causes. They need an
awareness of local history as it relates
to issues the community faces and a
sense of personal and social responsibility for the conditions they see
around them. All of these are developed through an active, collaborative
process of research and relection.
Key Ideas
• Have a dual focus on building skills and awareness.
• Balance formal training activities with “on the job” leadership
development.
• Provide young people and adults with a range of opportunities to build
personal, leadership, teamwork and basic skills.
• Help youth and adult teams develop a shared awareness of the issues,
systems and root causes and how they relate to the community’s local
history.
• Develop awareness through active, collaborative research and relec-
tion on real issues.
22
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
It is important for adults to recognize when young people are “ready”
to get out in the public and take on more visible leadership roles. Like
other types of development, these skills evolve over time and present
themselves unevenly. For example, one Youth Mobilizer at OCI conducted her own research about her school and then requested help
with her speaking skills so that she could communicate her ideas more
clearly and professionally with adults (speciically the school principal).
She then worked with her peers to create a presentation to take out into
the community.
Relection Questions
1. Do young people and adults in our organization understand the systems that are
at work in our community and how they affect our lives?
2. Have we identiied the speciic skills that young people working with our organization toward our mission need to realize their goals?
3. Does adult staff have a clear vision and understanding of the mission of the
organization and how to facilitate youth skill development toward that mission?
23
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Principle 7: Provide Individual Supports
Effective youth engagement
strategies balance the need for
individual supports with the goal
of community change.
group, both personally and in terms of
productivity.
While adults focused on youth engagement may not feel they have the time
or skills to be personal mentors, some
Working with young people toward
attention to individual needs is criticommunity change requires seeing
cal, especially when dealing with youth
youth development in much the same
who have weak supports systems and
way that organizations see adult staff
high stressors. Therefore, organizadevelopment—as a means to an end. If tions should pay attention to young
the organization believes in the power people’s individual development and
of engaging youth as a strategy, then
should help youth build effective copit knows that it cannot change the
ing skills. Immediate personal support
community unless youth feel safe and
can be given to individuals in crisis,
supported and have the skills to handle while using the experience in such a
themselves professionally in a variety
way that all youth in the program can
of settings. Therefore, the accountbetter understand the problem, conability and supports must range from
nect it to the mission of the organizapersonal health and safety to quality of tion and work toward changing the
work and professional development.
conditions that led to it. The underlying issue is the challenge of balancing
Youth need supports to manage daily
what is good for the young person with
life stressors, such as family dynamwhat is good for the community.
ics, relationships and school. These
stressors can lead to youth feeling
overwhelmed, which can impact their
performance. The struggles or absence of a team member affects the
Key Ideas
• Youth must feel safe and supported.
• Organizations should provide personal supports and develop their cop-
ing skills as well as their professional skills.
• It is important to strike a balance between supporting individual devel-
opment and focusing on community change.
24
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
Recently, one young person at OCI was faced with the birth of a nephew to her unwed, unemployed sister who lives at home. With her own
mother disabled and her sister hospitalized, this young person played
the role of parent for her mother, sister and infant nephew while trying
to maintain her school work and her job with OCI, not to mention her life
as a teenager. To make matters worse, a 15-year-old friend was shot
and killed outside her door by a 16-year-old who she also knew.
This situation spawned two days of intense discussion and relection
on the realities of the neighborhood, the roles each of us play within
the neighborhood, and an assessment of whether OCI’s work was truly
responding to the systemic needs of our neighborhood. It offered an
opportunity to relect on race, class, power, opportunity and education
as these issues connect with speciic events like this murder.
Relection Questions
1. Do individual team members understand how their own personal development is
a critical piece of the larger mission of the organization?
2. Is the process of individual skill development and support continually framed and
informed by the larger community mission?
25
July 2007
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Principle 8: Sustain Access/ Inluence
Effective youth engagement
strategies create opportunities for
sustained access and inluence.
It is not enough to engage young
people in identifying issues they care
about and implementing speciic
projects related to those issues. Unless
there are intentional efforts to cultivate
an audience, create demand among
inluential adults and connect the work
they are doing to other organizations
and ongoing initiatives, there is a risk
that the work either falls on deaf ears
or fails to “stick” within the community in a meaningful way.
the public at large. This plan should
include strategies for media outreach,
such as writing letters to the newspaper editors, holding press conferences,
producing press releases and developing Web sites to inform the public
about their work.
Similarly, clear channels for youth to
present their indings and recommendations to key decision-making bodies
,such as elected oficials or community
coalitions and the public, are essential
to facilitating and sustaining youth involvement. Utilizing opportunities to
bring young people together in policy
settings to allow them to speak out on
issues important to them also provides
Developing deliberate linkages to other them with hands-on experience with
organizations in the community that
the policy-making process and builds
have a stake in community change
their civic knowledge and skills. It also
can lead to a sense of collective efgives policy makers the opportunity to
icacy around a shared agenda and can see young people where they normally
expand opportunities for meaningdon’t — in the halls of government
ful youth participation. Programs
— which helps them to connect with
should guide young people to develop
young people as their constituency
a communication plan, which will
rather than as invisible, non-voting
ensure that youth voices are heard by
citizens.
Key Ideas
• Cultivate an audience and create demand for young people’s work.
• Create deliberate linkages to other organizations in the community.
• Build a sense of collective eficacy around a shared agenda.
• Expand the range of concrete opportunities for meaningful youth
participation.
• Create clear channels for youth to present their indings and
recommendations.
26
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
Spotlight
In East Nashville, OCI’s Youth Opportunity Network evolved out of a
desire to create sustained opportunities and community-wide demand
for young people’s involvement. By building relationships with a diverse
range of organizations interested in both community change and youth
engagement — including local high schools, churches, a science museum, other youth organizations, a local university, banks and credit
unions — OCI has been able to deploy “Youth Mobilizers” to work with
these organizations toward meaningful change – broadening the scope
of their inluence, increasing demand for their perspectives and cultivating new partnerships within the community. As the OCI approach has
matured, community partnerships have developed in a more organic
and sustained way around common agendas on common issues (e.g.,
college access work that involves schools, school board representatives and other youth serving organizations).
Relection Questions
1. What organizations that we already connect with might be interested in engaging
youth?
2. What new organizational partnerships might we build thanks to our commitment
to youth engagement?
3. What personal relationships might we build on or strengthen in order to expand
opportunities for young people?
27
July 2007
Core Principtles for Engaing Young People in Community Change
About the Oasis Center & Community Impact
For almost 37 years, Oasis has worked
to improve conditions for young
people in Middle Tennessee. Our mission is “to help youth grow, thrive and
create positive change in their lives
and in our community.” Our work is to
assist youth in serious crisis, provide
community-based supports, and create
opportunities for youth leadership and
civic action.
As an organization, our efforts are
balanced so that programs not only
respond to the immediate critical
needs of youth but also work to transform the conditions that create problems in the irst place. We empower
youth to become informed, active and
engaged citizens, who are prepared
to lead change in the world. Working
in this way, we tap the potential of all
of our young people, no matter how
they come to us, and our work endures
throughout future generations.
and Youth Leadership and Action.
Programs are aligned under three core
strategies.
Assisting Youth in Crisis: We offer
Middle Tennessee’s only continuum of
services for youth ages 13-21 that are
in crisis, have run away or are experiencing homelessness
Providing Community-Based
Supports: We provide individual
and family therapy, family mediation,
special issue groups and school-based
prevention services.
Promoting Youth Leadership:
Youth develop leadership potential
and commitment to community
change through several initiatives
that engage them in promoting youth
voice in community decision making.
These initiatives are grouped within
our Youth Leadership and Action team
and include: Oasis Youth Innovation
Board; Nashville Youth Leadership;
Oasis Youth Council; and Oasis/Community IMPACT.
Each year Oasis Center provides lifechanging opportunities to more than
2,500 youth and their families, representing more than 60 different schools
and homes that speak 26 different
For this work, Oasis Center was relanguages. We reach an additional
cently named the “2006 Organization
5,000+ through outreach.
of the Year” by the National Network
for Youth. The work of Oasis/ComIn July of 2005, Oasis Center merged munity IMPACT speciically was recogwith Community IMPACT! Nashville, a nized as one-of-ten inalists for the
neighborhood based, youth-organizing Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonproit
initiative. The merger was a strategic Innovation from over 500 nominations
move to bring the grassroots organiz- nationally; and the youth co-founder
ing approach of Community IMPACT! of the OCI economics team was one-oftogether with the established infranine national recipients of the Hitachi
structure and breadth of youth services Yoshiyama Award for Exemplary
and supports of Oasis Center.
Service to the Community.
Oasis Center operates 13 programs,
which are distributed among ive
primary areas: Crisis Services, Transitional Living, Prevention, Counseling,
28
You can visit the Oasis Center at:
www.oasiscenter.org.
Forum for Youth Investment
Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
America’s Promise Alliance. Every Child, Every Promise: Investing in Our Young
People, 2006.
The Forum for Youth Investment. “Countering Structural Racism.” Forum Focus,
2(3). Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment, Impact Strategies, Inc.,
2004.
The Forum for Youth Investment. “Youth Action.” Forum Focus, 2(2). Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment, Impact Strategies, Inc., 2004.
Gambone, Michelle, Klem, Adena, Connell, James. Finding Out What Matters for
Youth: Testing Key Links in a Community Action Framework for Youth Development. Youth Development Strategies Inc and the Institute for Research and
Reform in Education, 2002.
Irby, M., Ferber, T., Pittman, K., with J. Tolman, & N. Yohalem. Youth Action:
Youth Contributing to Communities, Communities Supporting Youth. Community
& Youth Development Series, Volume 6, 2001. Takoma Park, MD: The Forum for
Youth Investment, International Youth Foundation..
LISTEN Inc. An Emerging Model for Working with Youth: Community Organizing + Youth Development = Youth Organizing. Occasional Paper Series No. 1,
2003. New York , New York: The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing.
Martin, S., Pittman, K., Ferber, T., McMahon, A. Building Effective Youth Councils: A Practical Guide to Engaging Youth in Policy Making. Washington, DC: The
Forum for Youth Investment, Impact Strategies, Inc, 2007.
Tolman, J., Pittman, K., with B. Cervone, K. Cushman, L. Rowley, S. Kinkade, J.
Phillips, & S. Duque. Youth Acts: Community Impacts: Stories of Youth Engagement with Realy Results. Community & Youth Development Series, Volume 7,
2001. Takoma Park, MD: The Forum for Youth Investment, International Youth
Foundation..
29
July 2007
RELATED RESOURCES
From the Forum and Oasis Community Impact
Building Effective Youth Councils: A Practical Guide to Engaging Youth
in
Policy Making
This guide is designed to help state and localities to create or strengthen their own
youth councils. It is a synthesis of theory and practice. This guide provides a general
framework for thinking about youth councils, explaining the principles of youth action
and the importance of youth engagement. It also incorporates advice and lessons from
people “in the field” who have started or currently staff youth councils across the
country.
College Access: From the Inside Out
A resource from Oasis Community IMPACT! of Nashville. The Forum's partners in
Nashville and Austin have both demonstrated the amazing roles that youth
mobilizers — young people trained and supported to use the Youth IMPACT!
approach — can play in moving the high school reform/college access messages
in their schools, communities and local governments. This innovative report and
recommendations on college access is written from the perspective of students going through the
challenges of getting adequate support for their pursuit of higher
education. www.forumfyi.org/Files/CollegeAccessReport.pdf
Youth • Action • Community • Development: The Community &
Youth Development Series Guide
The Guide documents are described in this guide. We cannot emphasize enough that this guide does
not represent all of the best thinking in community youth development. We encourage you to go
directly to the organizations represented by the U.S. members of the ILG (see list in the guide) and to
browse the Web sites and resources of some of the project contributors and Forum members (see list
in the guide). For a glimpse of the work and thinking of many of these organizations (as well as
others), you may find Youth Action: Annotated Bibliography and Key Resources a useful place to
start. www.forumfyi.org/Files/YDCC_Guide.pdf
Youth Action: Youth Contributing to Communities, Communities
Supporting Youth
Youth Action provides the fullest treatment of the question, "What is youth
action and how can it be supported?" This volume explores the converging
trends in youth development, civic engagement and community
development, identifies common themes and important differences
between the strands of youth action, introduces the concept of creating
action pathways for youth, and offers recommendations for planning and
policy. www.forumfyi.org/Files/YouthAction.pdf
Youth Acts, Community Impacts: Stories of Youth
Engagement with Real Results
Youth Acts, Community Impacts forces the question of whether or not we have
powerful examples of community impacts that are the result of youth acts. In
response to this challenge, Youth Acts, Community Impacts offers eight case
studies — and a number of short profiles — documenting efforts in the United
States and around the world, all connecting the dots between youth action and
meaningful community change. The publication begins with reflections on why it is
often so hard, especially in the United States, for young people to find the space
needed to make a difference in their communities. And it offers detailed and
abbreviated case studies of successful efforts — in the United States and abroad
— in order to understand better how and why some youth acts do yield positive
community impacts. www.forumfyi.org/Files/YouthActsCommunityImpacts.pdf
RELATED RESOU
From the Forum
Building Effective Youth
Policy Making
This guide is designed to
youth councils. It is a sy
framework for thinking a
and the importance of yout
The Forum for Youth Investment
7064 Eastern Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20011
P. 202.207.3333 F. 202.207.3329
youth@forumfyi.org
www.forumfyi.org