Engaging youth in community change: three key implementation principles

Youth are an often untapped but potent resource for community change. To engage youth in community change coalitions requires more time, resources, and intentionality than many anticipate, making it imperative to base the work on well-established principles. Using outcome and process data from a multi-year initiative in seven communities, we describe beneficial results for youth, adults, and communities. The analysis of the most successful community-scale action finds that three implementation principles are critical: (1) asking the right strategic questions in the right order; (2) creating organizational structures and processes that integrate youth and adults into joint decision making; and (3) marshaling boundary-spanning community leaders with diverse skills and extensive networks. The research highlights how community development ideas can augment the predominant research emphasis on youth engagement methods and individual developmental outcomes, focusing attention on whether communities have the leadership and institutional capacity to nurture and sustain youth voice in public life.