For more than two decades, the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) has promoted the youth development approach to working with young people. Numerous other Federal agencies, foundations, and national organizations now support the youth development approach through their new initiatives, training and technical assistance activities, and funding.

Youth development, in fact, is accepted as a sound idea by many across the country today. Most policymakers and practitioners support the notion of providing all young people access to services and opportunities. Few citizens would question the youth development axiom that all young people need the time and attention of a caring adult. Even the idea of involving youth in decision-making and community leadership roles is catching on. So why is youth development not flourishing everywhere? It does not appear to be a tough notion to sell. But it may be a difficult approach to implement.

The youth development concept often is described as amorphous or cloudlike. The vision is pretty, but hard to grasp. There is no place to call for the handbook that says, "Just complete the following 10 easy steps to implement youth development in your community."

And so people struggle: youth service professionals, policymakers, and funding sources. They know what they want to accomplish; they just wish someone would tell them how.

Unfortunately, there are no easy methods for converting the youth development concept from words to action. The conversion process is hard work and requires conquering a set of personal challenges that many professionals and policymakers find difficult. These include forging real collaborations, sharing the credit, committing resources to a long-term goal, and being willing to take a personal net loss to achieve a net gain for youth.

These are tough new demands, especially for social service professionals who lived as "the helping saints" through the sixties and seventies, only to find themselves regarded as "incredibly out of touch with communities" or "incompetent" in the eighties and nineties. The reality is that many social scientists and policymakers underestimated the complexity of problems facing individuals, families, and communities during the seventies. In fairness, most social service providers leapt to offer quick solutions to problems because that is what most communities demanded. Few jurisdictions were able or willing to dedicate the long-term resources necessary to intervene with families troubled by such complex issues as violence, substance abuse, poverty, or racism.

And that is the crux of the dilemma surrounding translating youth development into practice. Youth development is a model that requires a substantial commitment of time and resources that is beyond the capacity of many communities for a variety of reasons:

* Processes for developing social policies that typically are predicated on political expediency and campaign rhetoric, particularly around crime and justice issues
* Competition for scarce resources that separates local youth agencies and other social service agencies that should be working together
* The low value the public assigns to the youth service profession and the corresponding low salaries, along with the need to hire and retain educated, well-trained, and experienced staff
* The publics desire for "quick fixes," compounded by the media's short attention span and need for sensational headlines, forcing practitioners and policymakers to quickly respond to community problems by adopting "the program du jour"

The result? An assortment of categorical program models that shift with the prevailing political or public sentiment about social problems. These programs come and go, and sometimes come again, dependent more on the availability of funding than on common sense or genuine need.

Most recently, the hype about evaluation and accountability has begotten a new bevy of problems in social programming. Numerous evaluations have been launched that do not truly assess program effectiveness nor help agencies improve their operations. These evaluations examine process and outcome, but often fail to link the two. They apply logic to strategies for solving problems experienced by people whose lives defy reason. They attempt to measure the effects of short-term services on young people who were severely abused or neglected as children, abandoned in early adolescence, and forced to survive on the streets.

In the past, we simply have been unrealistic in expecting youth agencies to create positive outcomes after providing a few months of services to young people with such myriad problems. Advocates have long argued that success comes in small doses for children whose lives have been torn apart by parental abuse or neglect, sexual exploitation at the hands of a trusted caregiver, or the experience of alcoholism or domestic violence in their family home.

And what is success? A job, money in the bank, and movement off social welfare systems? Or is it the less tangible increases in feelings of self-worth, belonging, or purpose? Those hard-to-measure successes more often lead to the chance to sustain a life of accomplishment and happiness.

These and other questions will need to be answered before the youth development model will work in many communities. The questions will not be easy, and the answers may cause some professionals to fear for their jobs or their funding. Some citizens may experience discomfort as the community focus is shifted from "getting tough on crime" to a more balanced approach of prevention, early intervention, and accountability.

Yet the youth development goal is important, if not easy to achieve: making life better for young people in every community across the country. Youth development is about building a network, genuinely linked and functioning, between schools, faith institutions, the business community, and community organizations for the purposes of protecting, educating, and caring for young people.

Moreover, youth development requires an atmosphere of real collaboration on behalf of youth, an uncompromising focus on what youth need and deserve, and the strong commitment of key leaders to doing whatever it takes to support young people. In many communities, implementing a youth development approach requires fundamental change.

Tackling the Challenge of Real Change

Change: to cause to become different, to alter or transform. To change something is to replace it with something new or totally recast it in a new context. In the case of the former, a youth agency might replace one program with another on the basis of available funding. While challenging, that approach seldom has a significant long-term effect.

In social service circles, that type of change already is a way of life. Most social service providers for decades have adapted quickly and effectively to shifting funding streams and new program issuances. They have proved their capacity to roll with the punches caused by new Federal or State legislation, while keeping their eye on the proverbial prize: supporting young people, particularly those in difficult circumstances.

Such incremental change, however, often does far more harm than good. Programs for young people come and go, and agencies struggle to keep key services available. More important, no one is able to focus on the big picture, the long-term outcomes, the chance for fundamental and lasting change.

Today, transformative change must be the course of action in youth and family services. That type of change can be brought about only by partnerships among experts in youth services; education and health professionals; youth and community members, including the business and faith communities; and elected officials. Through those partnerships, youth service agency administrators can begin to promote a discussion about the type of change that must occur in their community, and at the State and national levels, for the youth development approach to work.

Recasting beliefs, policies, or ideas, however, is change that may be threatening or exhilarating depending on one's circumstances. People seldom have neutral or indifferent reactions to proposed change. Change creates excitement among some, fear in others.

Before launching a process for creating new partnerships and building a new system of services, supports, and opportunities for youth, agency administrators, therefore, might consider and then plan for the effects of such change on their own agency and staff. They can help their staff cope with the challenge of change by undertaking the following:

* Exploring with their colleagues, mentors, or board members the effects of change on individuals and organizations.
* Recognizing that individuals react differently to change. Some people prefer to work in environments or on tasks that are routine and require little change; others relish juggling multiple tasks and shifting priorities. Both styles need to be accommodated during changing times.
* Developing strategies for helping staff to deal with negative outcomes and to leverage the positive opportunities associated with change.
* Meeting regularly with staff during periods of change, continually sharing information, and working diligently to keep the lines of communication open.
* Meeting individually with staff to discuss their personal concerns, their willingness and ability to adapt to change, and their desire (or not) for change to occur around them.
* Honestly answering staff questions about the possible negative consequences of change. These might include, "Will I lose my job?" or, "Will the agency close down?"
* Carefully selecting and bringing in an outside trainer who can talk about how change occurs in the culture, how to create change, how to anticipate change, and the fears most people have about change and how to deal with them.
* Facilitating regular staff discussions of how to make the most of change.
* Ensuring that, as much as possible, change is planned and productive.

Steps to Implementing a Youth Development Approach

Creating the kind of change necessary to implement the youth development approach requires especially thoughtful planning. Below is a list of steps youth agency administrators might take to ensure careful deliberation of the youth development construct in their communities.

1. Review the literature on the youth development approach and adolescent development. Check the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) home page on the Internet's World Wide Web (www.ncfy.com) for publications and organizations focusing on youth development.

2. Offer training in youth development to your staff and board. Train your staff and board about the youth development construct, the adolescent life stage, the developmental needs of young people, and how abuse, neglect, and other traumas interrupt or distort the adolescent development process.

3. Involve your board in strategizing about how to implement the youth development approach. Meet with the board to discuss your interest in promoting a youth development approach locally, your plans for doing so, the staff time and agency resources that will be needed, and the potential positive or negative impact on the agency. Obtain their support to move ahead.

4. Brainstorm about ways that the agency can better implement and promote the youth development approach. Hold a staff or staff/board retreat to explore areas in which the agency currently is using the youth development approach (for example, involving youth in leadership positions). Then strategize about the following:
* How can the agency expand its youth development activities into an overall agency vision or mission?
* What will the agency need to implement a youth development approach, including funding and community support?
* What role can each staff or board member play in helping the agency implement the youth development approach?
* What role should the agency play in helping the broader community, city, county, or State implement a youth development approach to supporting young people?

5. Create a plan for enhancing the agency's youth development approach. Assign board and staff member teams to oversee and assess plan components. Schedule a followup retreat in 6 months to assess progress.

6. Involve staff in mapping community resources for young people. Recruit board members, college students, or other volunteers to help in the process. Identify available resources and their services, costs, and accessibility.

7. Assess the agency's relationship with the youth-related organizations identified. Meet with agency staff to discuss the positive aspects of, and barriers to, relationships with the other youth-serving agencies identified through the mapping process. Discuss existing referral systems and organizational and staff relationships, and areas in which the agency might enhance its relationships with other organizations.

8. Meet with local youth-serving agencies. Meet individually with the directors of other local youth-serving agencies to discuss the youth development approach and their interest in working collaboratively to promote that approach locally. Provide them with youth development materials to review and share with their staff. (NCFY and other national organizations have free materials on this topic. See the NCFY home page for more information.)

9. Create a mechanism for keeping your staff and board informed. Report to the board and staff about your meetings with other youth and family agency administrators and planned next steps. Develop a system for keeping them informed and for calling upon their support, as needed, throughout the process.

10. Form a coalition of youth service providers to explore how to implement a youth development approach locally. Require participation by agency administrators who have the authority to make decisions and commit their organizations' resources to the coalition's activities. Ask each administrator to make a commitment to meet weekly for 6 months. Offer to serve as the secretariat for the coalition throughout the process or until the group establishes other means for managing coalition activities. The coalition's ability to move forward will depend on a number of factors, including the following:
* The degree to which participating agencies coalesce into a structured group with a common purpose(s)
* The coalition's ability to come to consensus about what needs to be done to develop a comprehensive, cost-effective approach to supporting community youth
* The willingness of coalition member agencies to adapt to the changes necessary under the group-developed youth service framework or agenda
* Coalition members' perceptions about the chances for overcoming identified barriers to implementing the youth development approach
* The extent to which a sufficient number of coalition members commit their time and resources to the process

11. Explore the issues involved in collaboration. Bring in an outside facilitator (preferably one who knows youth services, local political realities, and the youth development approach) to help the coalition members decide if they are committed to the youth development approach. The facilitator then can help the coalition do the following:
* Review the advantages of collaboration
* Establish the "rules of engagement" or procedures for how the coalition will operate (for example, procedures for coming to agreement)
* Create a system for equitably sharing the workload
* Identify barriers that prevented collaboration in the past
* Explore how to keep the group together for a minimum of 6 months

Remember that it is perfectly acceptable for coalition members to use the first (or first several) meeting(s) to analyze (and complain about) failed collaborations, prior unsatisfactory working relationships, or other issues. People often need to work through historical concerns before moving ahead with renewed relationships or new plans. This process, however, must be balanced against the need for the coalition to complete tasks and gain a sense of accomplishment.

12. Use the outside facilitator to help the coalition set a specific goal for the next 6 months. The goal might be, for example, to launch a process for involving youth, community members, and elected officials in creating a comprehensive strategy for supporting and engaging young people. Activities to get the group started toward that goal might include the following:
* Analyzing existing services to determine areas of duplication, gaps in services by type or location, and populations not served (for example, gay and lesbian youth or young people with serious mental health disorders). Be sure to focus on services to youth and their families.
* Identifying neighborhoods or communities that might need special supports because of circumstances such as poverty, the effects of racism, lack of economic opportunities, or the influx of large new immigrant or other special populations.
* Assessing community support for young people (or areas in which such support might need to be generated) and identifying key community leaders who might back the coalition's plans.
* Discussing key community concerns about young people, delinquency, and crime. These might be addressed through a public information piece drafted by the coalition before it moves ahead with its agenda.
* Assessing existing community opportunities for young people, including job training, employment, and involvement in leadership positions in local organizations.
* Developing an initial framework of services and opportunities that young people need to make the transition from adolescence to healthy, productive adulthood. Determine which services and opportunities currently are available and which need to be developed.

13. At 2-month intervals, bring back the outside facilitator to help the coalition assess its progress. Have an honest discussion to evaluate whether the coalition is on track in accomplishing its objectives and to determine whether key decision-making staff still are participating. Then set new goals and explore which activities to undertake next.

14. Plan a strategy for implementing a youth development framework. Begin exploring how the coalition agencies (and others that might not have been able to participate in this stage of the process) can work together to implement a framework of services and opportunities for youth. This step may include the following:
* Eliminating duplicative services and agreeing to collaborate (not compete) on future fund-seeking activities.
* Reconfiguring existing services, especially with regard to enhancing their quality and accessibility and increasing the role of young people in their design and implementation.
* Identifying training opportunities for agency managers and staff that might be jointly held and financially supported and that would improve agency operations and staff skills in working with youth.
* Identifying service areas in which coalition members have skills/expertise and areas in which outside experts might be brought in to help. Develop a plan for how the coalition might "trade technical assistance" with youth agencies in other communities, especially those that already have launched a youth development initiative.
* Designing a continuum of care for young people from the beginning of adolescence through adulthood and defining the resources that are necessary to implement each piece of the continuum. Be sure to link that continuum to the service systems for younger children.
15. Create activities designed to meet the coalition's 6-month goal(s). Different members should take responsibility for each activity. Responsibilities should be divided on the basis of agency size and fiscal and staff resources to avoid placing undue burdens on smaller agencies. Be sure to include everyone in the process, however, and ensure that smaller agencies have an equal voice in decision-making.

Establish timelines and a system for regularly reporting progress, both of which will help the coalition ensure that its goals are met.

16. Meet regularly to maintain communication and strengthen relationships among coalition members. Through weekly meetings, coalition members can address the following types of issues head-on: problems staying on schedule; new Federal, State, or local initiatives or legislative activity that may affect the planning process; turf issues; and strategies for jointly competing for new funding.

17. Analyze the coalition's progress at 6 months. At the 6-month mark, bring the original facilitator back to help the coalition analyze its efforts to date. Review progress made, barriers still in place, and the accomplishment (or not) of the 6-month goal(s). Assess the coalition's process for working together, and identify strategies for improving that process.

18. Put the coalition's analysis, ideas, and proposals for the future in writing. Engage the volunteer services of a communications firm or good writer/editor to polish the report.

19. Begin defining next steps in the process. If the coalition members have been able to work well together, these next steps typically will involve generating the input and support of other community leaders for launching a process to build a community vision for young people.

20. Identify key groups in the community whose support is critical to implementing the youth development approach. Develop an outreach plan to educate leaders of these groups about the coalition and to solicit their support. These might include elected officials, the business and faith communities, and law enforcement and key local government agency personnel.

Using information from the coalition's written report, produce concise fact sheets about the coalition for these targeted audiences. The fact sheets should describe how the youth development approach addresses the special concerns or needs of each target group. Elected officials, for example, may be interested in learning more about the long-term cost savings of prevention and early intervention. The business community may be interested in how the youth development approach can help build a strong labor pool.

21. Select coalition members to meet with representatives of the target groups. Early outreach efforts should focus particularly on those identified by the group as both influential and supportive of prevention and early intervention services to young people. (This step may occur sooner if coalition members have strong working relationships with individual representatives of the groups and feel it is important to begin informing them about coalition efforts early in the process.) Provide a brief overview of the coalition's purpose and goals, and then clearly state what you are hoping the targeted group will do, including the following:
* Supporting the coalition's activities publicly and encouraging elected officials to do so.
* Hosting a series of community forums facilitated by the coalition to solicit input on the needs and interests of young people and their families. Young people can participate in planning and hosting the forums.
* Eliciting the support of popular local figures (sports figures, news anchors, and others) and encouraging them to promote the youth development approach by mentioning it during each public engagement.
* Providing resources for coalition planning activities, including direct funding, meeting space, access to equipment, or staff support.
* Appointing (if speaking with local elected officials), or supporting the appointment of, a local commission on youth development to continue the work of the coalition. Membership might include several coalition members, representatives of the faith community, and key government agencies affecting youth and families, including mental health, health, and substance abuse services, and education, juvenile justice, and law enforcement systems.

22. Offer a written summary of the coalition's objectives and activities to those you meet with. Before leaving each outreach meeting, provide the target group with a fact sheet on the coalition that reiterates the group's objectives and specifies the form(s) of support it would like to receive. Provide the name of a key coalition contact and a time when that person will follow up with the target group.

23. Publicly recognize those who support the coalition's goals. Create ways to give credit publicly to outside groups that support the coalition's youth development agenda. If a local business contributes to the printing of public education materials, for example, note that contribution on the materials.

24. Follow up on outreach meetings. Follow up with the target group to discuss their reaction to the coalition's presentation, interest in working with the coalition, and possible next steps.

25. Implement the coalition's planned activities. Continue to work as a coalition with the frequent support of the outside facilitator who can help the group remain focused and continue to explore which activities to undertake next. These might include the following:
* Assessing the primary agenda(s) of the community and then conducting focus groups to determine the issues and concerns on that agenda that might be alleviated by the youth development approach. If a community relies on travel and tourism for its economic base, for example, coalition members could show how the youth development approach might reduce delinquency. If services to seniors are lacking, the coalition might show how the community could engage young people in providing services to elders while learning a trade or gaining work experience.
* Coordinating with other groups whose agendas are overlapping or whose work offers opportunities for young people to become involved. Coalition members, for example, might collaborate with the providers of drug treatment services to urge elected officials to provide adequate funding for drug treatment for adolescents. Or they might coordinate with the local environmental groups to involve young people in environmental practices, such as recycling.
* Using the information collected under steps 6 and 12, begin planning how the coalition can fill gaps in services. This may entail identifying which coalition member might best provide the services and developing a plan for jointly seeking funding for such services.
* Setting minimum standards for all community services for young people and creating a process to help facilitate other agencies meeting those standards.
* Jointly seeking funding to sustain coalition activities.
* Discussing the current level of community support and what remains to be done to generate enough support to begin to move the community toward a youth development approach.
* Implementing a public education campaign with positive messages about young people and the role of the community in supporting youth. The campaign might include coalition members engaging in public speaking activities, developing public education materials (including brochures, posters, billboards, or radio or television public service announcements), and encouraging other community groups to distribute those materials.
* Working with local university department heads to incorporate youth development concepts into curriculums used to train researchers, social workers, counselors, and other youth-service-related professionals.
* Offering training for all area youth workers on adolescent development and the youth development approach.
* Hosting a series of forums in local neighborhoods to learn more about the needs of young people and their families. The information collected through the forums can be compiled into a report to generate further support from policymakers.
* Further defining what youth development will mean in your community. This may include engaging a researcher to work collaboratively with coalition members to identify measurable outcomes for youth development activities.
* Continuing to educate community members and policymakers at all levels of government about the benefits of the youth development approach.

26. Agree to stay engaged for the long haul. Changing the way a community views or treats young people is not a short-term goal. Let people know up front that the coalition will be around until necessary changes are made, and then continue to explore how to keep the coalition alive and functioning.

For more information on youth development, please write or call the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth, P.O. Box 13505, Silver Spring, Maryland 20911-3505; (301) 608-8098. Or visit the NCFY home page on the Internet's World Wide Web: www.ncfy.com

Leading Toward Collaboration

Think about all the personal issues that prevent real collaboration and decide how you will work to ensure that your personal difficulties with collaboration do not impede the process. This might include committing to the following:

* Making an effort to work with people with whom you previously have had less-than-positive experiences.
* Helping other coalition members work together, especially if they have previously experienced difficulty doing so.
* Being willing to surrender power and to empower others to lead during different stages of coalition building.
* Doing your share of the less glamorous work associated with the coalition's activities.
* Bringing issues or concerns to the entire group, and helping to prevent the coalition from splintering into factions.
* Acknowledging that while there may be differences in the quality of services provided by coalition member agencies, all agency staff are involved because they care about young people.
* Focusing on what is best for young people rather than your career, your agency, or your personal feelings.
* Educating everyone you know about the needs, and potential contributions, of adolescents, and encouraging them to voice their concerns about policies that do not promote healthy adolescent development for all young people.
* Doing what you can. You may not be able to launch a youth development commission next month. But you can write an editorial to the local newspaper promoting the youth development approach.
* Always remembering that the challenges you are facing are not more difficult than the lives of many young people on whose behalf you are working.

The Exchange is produced by Johnson, Bassin & Shaw, Inc., under a contract to manage the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY). NCFY is the Family and Youth Services Bureau's (FYSB's) central resource on youth and family issues. For more information, please call or write:

National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth
P.O. Box 13505
Silver Spring, MD 20911-3505
(301) 608-8098
Fax: (301) 608-8721
www.ncfy.com

Make the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth Work for You.

The following are just a few of the ways the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) can assist you:

* Conducing tailored research to meet the needs of your program or community
* Linking you with others who face similar challenges or who have creative ideas about improving youth practice and policy
* Sending you a list of potential sources of funding for youth services in your State

Call today to request a search of the NCFY database for more information on adolescent development and the youth development approach.

National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth
P.O. Box 13505
Silver Spring, MD 20911-3505
(301) 608-8098
Fax: (301) 608-8721
www.ncfy.com

News from FYSB and the Youth Services Field
December 1998