Youth Advocacy and Policy
Number of unique resources found: 40
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AED Center for Youth Development and Policy Research
Description: The Center for Youth Development and Policy Research was established in 1990 at the Academy for Educational Development in response to growing concern about youth. Like many organizations, the Center is dedicated to contributing to better futures for all youth in the United States. We share with many the conviction that too many children and youth are at the risk of poor outcomes because opportunities are too few, too fragmented, too problem-focused, and too distant from family and neighborhood.
Alliance for Children and Families
Description: The Alliance for Children and Families is an international membership association representing more than 350 private, nonprofit child- and family-serving organizations. Alliance members serve more than 5 million individuals annually in more than 2,000 communities, providing a vast array of services ranging from residential care to domestic abuse prevention and intervention. The AllianceÂ’s mission is to strengthen membersÂ’ capacity to serve and advocate for children, families, and communities.
Description: AYPF provides policymakers and their senior aides with information and experiences useful in the development of an effective youth education, training and transition-to-employment system for the United States (including formal and informal learning opportunities, internships, national community service, and other experience-based learning methodologies). AYPF does this by bringing leading policymakers, researchers and youth-serving practitioners into dialogue with a bipartisan group of senior Congressional aides, Executive Branch leaders, state offices located in Washington, DC and their counterparts in national associations focused on the education of youth and career development.
Description: Casey Life Skills is for young people age 8 and above, their caregivers, and child welfare professionals and educators who serve youth. Here you will find free and easy to use tools to help young people prepare for adulthood. The life skills assessments provide instant feedback. Customized learning plans provide a clear outline of next steps, and the accompanying teaching resources are available for free or at a minimal cost.
Center for Prevention Research and Development
Description: The Center for Prevention Research and Development is a unit within the University of Illinois dedicated to the application of research to public service. The mission of CPRD is to improve the lives of children and families, especially those in disadvantaged environments, by serving as a resource for local communities, state and national agencies, and foundations. CPRD works in the areas of prevention, human service reform, and school improvement. Our staff provides a wide array of services such as training and consultation, grant writing, program development, and database management.
Child Welfare League of America
Description: This organization is the oldest and largest national nonprofit organization developing and promoting policies and programs to protect America's children and strengthen America's families. This site has information on advocacy, child welfare programs, conferences, and publications. If you are searching for information about child welfare this is a good site to visit.
Description: This is the home page for the Children's Defense Fund. Contains links to resources, policy information and grantmaking. Includes information on issues such as Child Care, Child Health, Child Welfare and Mental Health, Violence Prevention and Youth Development, and Family Income.
Clearinghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth and Family Policies
Description: The Clearinghouse provides cross-national, comparative information about the policies, programs, benefits and services available in the advanced industrialized countries to address child, youth, and family needs. Coverage focuses on 23 advanced industrialized countries. Expansion to other countries and other parts of the world is planned.
Coalition for Juvenile Justice
Description: The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) serves as a premier national resource on delinquency prevention and juvenile justice issues. CJJ is based in Washington, DC, yet reaches every U.S. state and territory. Nationwide, more than 1,500 CJJ volunteers from the public and private sector—professionals, concerned citizens, and advocates for children and families—participate as members of state advisory groups on juvenile justice.
Description: The Edward W. Hazen Foundation is a 75-year old private foundation which seeks to assist young people, particularly minorities and those disadvantaged by poverty, to achieve their full potential as individuals and as active participants in a democratic society. The Foundation's current grantmaking targets grassroots and community-based organizations working on public education and youth development.
Institute for Youth Development
Description: Institute for Youth Development
The Institute for Youth Development (IYD) provides parents, government and community leaders, and youth workers with information and resources so they may successfully promote and communicate a comprehensive risk-avoidance message to youth. IYD conducts original research and compiles outside research on youth attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and behaviors. IYD helps create sound public policy that promotes youth risk avoidance. IYD evaluates current government and private programs addressing these issues.
International Youth Foundation
Description: Currently operating in nearly 50 countries and territories, the International Youth Foundation (IYF) is one of the world's largest public foundations working to improve the conditions and prospects for young people where they live, learn, work, and play. Established in 1990 to bring worldwide resources to young people in need, IYF works with hundreds of companies, foundations, and civil society organizations to strengthen and "scale up" existing programs that are making a positive and lasting difference in young lives. Over the last decade, IYF and its in-country partners have helped more than 26 million young people gain access to the life skills, education, job training and opportunities critical to their success.
Description: The Foundation has a strong record of crafting creative and effective grantmaking, training, and public education strategies to create and improve economic opportunities for women in the United States; safeguard women's health and safety; and help girls sustain their self-confidence and vitality.
National Child Welfare Resource Center for Youth Development
Description: A service of the HHS Children’s Bureau, the NCWRCYD increases the capacity and resources of States and Tribes to effectively help youth in care establish permanent connections and achieve successful transitions to adulthood. The Center offers technical assistance and training related to youth development, collaboration, cultural competence, and permanent connections.
Description: The National Network for youth is dedicated to ensuring that young people can be safe and lead healthy and productive lives. The National Network informs public policy, educates the public and strengthens the field of youth work.
National Youth Employment Coalition
Description: The National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) is a nonpartisan national organization dedicated to promoting policies and initiatives that help youth succeed in becoming lifelong learners, productive workers and self-sufficient citizens. NYEC strives to develop and improve the capacity and effectiveness of youth-serving organizations to affect youth development through employment, education and training; improve the staff and leadership capacity of youth serving organizations; and influence and inform the development of public policy through research, information, advocacy and coalition-building.
Description: Save the Children was founded in the United States in 1932 as a nonprofit child-assistance organization to make lasting positive change in the lives of children in need. Today we work in 19 states across the United States as well as in 47 other countries in the developing world to help children and families improve their health, education and economic opportunities. We also mobilize rapid life-support assistance for children and families caught in the tragedies of natural and man-made disasters.
Description: Founded in 1958, Scholarship AmericaSM, then Citizens' Scholarship Foundation of America, has distributed more than $911.5 million dollars to nearly 850,000 students. Scholarship America is the nationÂ’s largest private sector scholarship and educational support organization. Its mission is to expand access to educational opportunities by involving and assisting communities, corporations, foundations, organizations and individuals in the support of students and in the encouragement of educational achievement.
The Association of Junior Leagues International
Description: AJLI is a not-for-profit organization that brings together 296 Junior Leagues in four countries. Our 193,000 dedicated and creative women members come from varying backgrounds and interests and share a commitment to volunteering. Our Association is rooted in the belief that a group of women can be a powerful force for change. The Junior Leagues offer women the opportunity to implement change in their communities and to connect with other women with a concern for present and future generations. AJLI develops and empowers women leaders to increase the impact that Junior Leagues make in their communities.
The Declaration of Inter-Dependence
Description: "The purpose of this document is to share our view of what types of policy changes would ensure that all young people flourish in the United States of America. We would like the young people coming behind us to find a direct route to success instead of the roundabout route that we have taken."
The National Assembly of Health and Human Service Organizations
Description: The National Assembly of Health and Human Service Organizations is an association of the nationÂ’s leading national non-profits in the field of health and human services. Many of the member organizations are national offices of large networks of local health & human service organizations. Others are national research or resource organizations or national programs.
The National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth
Description: The National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) is the Family and Youth Services Bureau's central resource on youth and family policy and practice. The site contains journals, books, non-published materials and educators' materials.
Description: United Way of America is the national organization dedicated to leading the United Way movement in making measurable impact in every community across America. The United Way movement includes approximately 1,400 community-based United Way organizations. Each is independent, separately incorporated, and governed by local volunteers.
Description: Volunteers of America is a national, nonprofit, spiritually based organization providing local human service programs and opportunities for individual and community involvement.
From rural America to inner-city neighborhoods, Volunteers of America provides outreach programs that deal with todayÂ’s most pressing social needs. Volunteers of America helps youths at risk, frail elderly, abused and neglected children, people with disabilities, homeless individuals and many others.
Whatever It Takes: How Twelve Communities Are Reconnecting Out-of-School Youth (8.63MB PDF)
Author: Martin, Nancy; Samuel Halperin
Description: This report explores two questions: (1) what can be done to recover and reconnect our young people to opportunities for building useful lives in work, family, and citizenship? And (2) who is doing what, and where, to reengage out-of-school youth while working to strengthen the communities in which they live?
– General Information –
Description: This toolkit give practical steps on self-advocacy, being an advocate with a youth program, and advocating as a youth leader at the local, state, and national level.
– Other Resources –
Aligning Proactive Policies for Youth 
Author: Pittman, Karen (6 more by this author)
Description: Through its Ready by 21 Initiative, the Forum for Youth Investment works with leaders nationwide to create strategies that proactively change the odds for young people - to be ready for college, ready for work and ready for life. Recognizing that positive youth outcomes across the first two decades of life are interconnected, the Initiative promotes coordination across systems, policies and programs - aligning ideas, resources and stakeholders on behalf of youth. This 90-minute video presentation introduces this Initiative.
DOD Celebrates Month of the Military Child
Description: Each April, Americans pause to recognize the nation’s 1.8 million military children during the Month of the Military Child.
Military Family Appreciation Month
Description: Military Family Appreciation Month website from the U.S. Department of Defense
Military Homefront website for service providers
Description: The MilitaryHOMEFRONT website provides information for Service Providers.
Description: This website gives advice to military children and youth about moving, making friends, school and other issues that come with moving frequently.
– Professional Development –
Advancing Positive Youth Development Through Advocacy and Policy
Author: Gaines, Elizabeth; Danielle Evennou
Description: Learn how you can directly impact youth through advocacy and policy efforts that advance positive youth development. Elizabeth Gaines and Danielle Evennou of the Forum for Youth Investment talk about how to promote innovative ideas, strategies and partners to strengthen solutions for young people and those who care about them, and create greater opportunities and outcomes for young people.
The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities
Description: The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities represents a partnership between Stanford University and Bay Area communities to build new practices, knowledge, and capacity for youth development and learning. It acts on the conviction that whole communities--youth organizations, health and human services agencies, park and recreation departments, parents, faith-based institutions, and schools--are vital to better outcomes for youth, and that new knowledge, connections, and resources will foster the change necessary to achieving these goals.
The website contains information and resources relating to youth development.
– Programming Resource –
Description: Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is a bipartisan, nonprofit anti-crime organization led by police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, victims of violence and leaders of police officer associations. Their main goal is to evaluate research to see what truly works to prevent juvenile delinquency and adult criminals. They advocate for this information be used in the development of public policy.
Forum Focus: A Portfolio Approach to Youth Policy
Description: This issue of Forum Focus describes a portfolio approach to youth policy and program development. It advocates a structured, coordinated, and collaborative approach to establishing and evaluating youth policies and programs involving government, communities and the private sector. Results-based accountability with specific youth development outcomes and indicators are identified as a means for tracking whether policies and programs are good portfolio investments, not just a random bunch of policies and programs operated by a multitude of government agencies, community, profit and not-for-profit organizations.
Invitation to the Big Picture: Implementing a Local Collaboration for Youth in Your Community
Description: The National Collaboration for Youth has created this guide designed help organization identify or form an association of local child- and youth-serving agencies.
Description: The Youth Policy Action Center is a Web site that engages young people (and adults) in democracy: changing policies that change young people’s lives.
– Research –
Common Ground: A Roadmap to Investing in What Works for Children in Tough Fiscal Times
Description: Child Trends hosted Common Ground: A Roadmap to Investing in What Works for Children in Tough Fiscal Times, the 6th Annual Kristin Anderson Moore Lecture series. The Lecture focused on setting the scene for the current fiscal debate and what those fiscal times mean for children and families. Levit discussed the context for fiscal reform, the common themes on various deficit reduction proposals, and the challenges in implementing these reforms. Steuerle reviewed the intersection of public policy regarding children, and the effects of the current fiscal times. Patrick McCarthy closed the panel with a discussion on the importance of investing in programs that provide positive outcomes for children during hard fiscal times. At the close of the event, the panel answered questions from the audience.
Forum Focus: A Portfolio Approach to Youth Policy
Description: This issue of Forum Focus describes a portfolio approach to youth policy and program development. It advocates a structured, coordinated, and collaborative approach to establishing and evaluating youth policies and programs involving government, communities and the private sector. Results-based accountability with specific youth development outcomes and indicators are identified as a means for tracking whether policies and programs are good portfolio investments, not just a random bunch of policies and programs operated by a multitude of government agencies, community, profit and not-for-profit organizations.
Improving the odds for adolescents: State policies that support adolescent health and well-being
Description: This report presents information from NCCP’s Improving the Odds for Adolescents project about state policy choices that affect the health and well-being of adolescents.
Integrating developmental assets into your programs
Author: Johnstad, Kristin
Description: Presentation on use of the developmental asset framework as a lens for assessing and increasing program quality, reflecting on critical elements of programming and the continuum of program practice. Examine relationships, program practice, activities, program policies and environment through as asset lens. Use Search Institute tools and share stories, examples and wisdom. CYFAR 2003 workshop.