FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Amy Plotch, (201) 703-4302 or
Jennifer McDonnell, (917) 734-0813

SOCIAL CHANGE PROGRAMS ATTRACT HARD-TO-REACH, ALIENATED YOUTH WITH MUCH SUCCESS, FINDS NEW REPORT FROM THE INNOVATION CENTER

Innovative strategies from across the country challenge young people to become agents of change to the benefit of themselves and their communities

Takoma Park, MD (January 28, 2004) – Social change organizations are leading the way in bettering the lives of youth throughout the country according to Lessons in Leadership, a new report released today by the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development.

The report is the result of the Youth Leadership for Development Initiative (YLDI), a three-year initiative funded by the Ford Foundation to study how young people benefit from involvement in civic activism. Twelve community organizations participated in the project. The Innovation Center facilitated the process and provided technical assistance, and Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) conducted the program evaluation.

The lessons learned from the twelve groups offer a new vision for the field of youth development, civic engagement, and community activism. Wendy Wheeler, President of the Innovation Center, says, “Young people who are alienated from the mainstream are not attracted to typical after-school programs and clubs. We’ve found that they are interested in joining groups that work towards social change. They want to be actively engaged in making life better.”

The report, based on SPR’s in-depth and multi-year site reviews, contains three major findings:

• Social change programs reach youth who are often not reachable by conventional youth development programs.
• These organizations matched, and often surpassed, traditional youth-serving organizations in providing youth with support for their development.
• Social change groups have created new and successful models for working with young people. They learn how to make decisions, act as leaders, and work in partnership with adults.

The YLDI programs serve youth between the ages of 5 and 25 with the majority between 16 and 19, the Innovation Center found that older, more “challenged” youth are often more attracted to civic activism groups than to traditional youth groups. Civic activism groups provide: space to focus on identity, including culture, background or sexual identity; a forum to address their day-to-day challenges; and vocational leadership opportunities that allow youth to develop practical skills in decision-making and leadership.

According to Hanh Cao Yu, Ph.D., Vice-President and a Senior Social Scientist for SPR, “youth organizing practices are particularly effective at raising young people’s knowledge and awareness of community issues and providing contexts to act upon that awareness.”

Unlike many traditional youth-serving organizations, social change organizations consistently give youth the supports and opportunities they need for healthy growth and development. They give young people opportunities to build caring relationships with adults—in fact many social change organizations are run by young people in partnership with adults. Through these programs, young people learn to participate in group processes, build consensus and become more engaged in their communities. All of these factors contribute to the healthy development of young people. “When young people get involved in these groups, it’s not only their communities that benefit. Young people grow in ways we never quite appreciated until now,” adds Wheeler.

The YLDI organizations represent a broad spectrum of young people and communities, including African American, Latino and Latina, Native American, Asian Pacific American, low-income white suburban, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning, faith-involved, and Asian immigrant children. YLDI programs can be found in rural, urban, and suburban communities including Portland, ME, Bronx, NY, Washington D.C., and Oakland, CA. Throughout the three-year initiative, the organizations shared successes and helped each other deal with challenges. The Innovation Center facilitated these discussions, provided technical assistance, and distilled the best practices of the groups into useful lessons for youth development organizations.

Among the innovative practices employed by civic activism organizations are:

• Popular education and the identification of personal and civic challenges recognizes that young people are experts in their own lives, and makes connections between youth’s day-to-day experiences and larger social issues such as racism, policing, and school quality.
• Hands-on immersion and exposure to history through intensive “visualization” and “role-play” workshops engage youth in history and give them a deeper understanding of social issues.
• Exploring oppression through “political” and “critical” education enables youth to learn about social movements, political process, and current events. They become empowered to take action against injustice.
• Popular youth culture as a medium for political analysis, expression, and identity. Shared art forms such as rap, hip hop, and poetry become mediums for discussion, critique, and expression and help create a shared sense of identity.
• Direct Community Engagement. Youth took on meaningful leadership roles as they presented at conferences, spoke in front of city councils, and met with community leaders. In addition, they became peer leaders, tutors, and educators.

“New trends in youth development don’t start only at large organizations or the ivory towers of academia. They start at the hundreds of grassroots groups that are attracting young people other youth groups can’t. At the Innovation Center, we’re committed to spurring those trends, so that they make their way into the mainstream,” says Wheeler. The Innovation Center is creating materials for practitioners, funders, and researchers based on the results of the research.

The Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development connects thinkers and leaders of all ages to develop fresh ideas, forge new partnerships, and design strategies that engage young people and their communities. We help innovative programs become strong, sustainable ventures. We use what we learn from community organizations to inform research, funding, and policy. We turn theoretical knowledge into practical know-how that advances the field of youth development and promotes social change.

To arrange an interview with Wendy Wheeler, please contact Amy Plotch at (201) 703-4302 or amy@amyplotch.com.