Youth Development Peer Network

by: Jason Wyman

On February 12th and 13th, I presented at Foundation Inc.'s Beyond School Hours Conference. The presentation was on Collaborative Professionalization Models: Learnings from the After School for All Technical Assistance Collaborative and the Youth Development Peer Network. These two models are quite unique and different. One, AFATAC, seeks to build collaboration among technical assistance and professional development providers to improve the quality of programming in the out-of-school arena. The second, YDPN, seeks to professionalize youth workers from the ground up.

These two models, at their core, are not only about professionalization - they are about new and emergent models in collaboration, distributive leadership and power, and accountability. AFATAC was founded in 2006 by the California School-Age Consortium, the Community Network for Youth Development, SFUSD's ExCEL After School Programs, and Sports4Kids in response to a funding opportunity provided by the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families. The funding opportunity provided a one-time grant to provide a training series for Site Coordinator/Program Directors in out-of-school programs.

Instead of competing for these funds, CalSAC, CNYD, and SFUSD's ExCEL ASP, and Sports4Kids decided to partner and combine resources to better meet the needs of the target audience. During the Spring of 2007, the pilot training program was launched and a new three-year funding opportunity was announced that would allow AFATAC to expand to include a mentoring initiative. As a part of the planning process for the mentoring initiative, AFATAC held a series of community meetings and focus groups to gather the best thinking possible for what should and should not be included in this initiative. Through this process, the YDPN was engaged and eventually brought on as a collaborative partner. AFATAC is now in its second year of the mentoring initiative and its third cohort of learning circle participants.

The YDPN is a youth worker-centered organization launched in February 2003. Initially it started out as a group of youth workers dedicated to improving their practice and hosting peer-led events. After about three years of event production, the YDPN experienced heavy transition in its governing body, the Steering Committee. The forced the Steering Committee to refocus its energies and sought to determine what was the there there.

Fortunately, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund gave a grant to the YDPN to undergo a Feasibility Study to determine an answer to that question. Moira DeNike was hired on as a consultant and trained the Steering Committee on how to run focus groups. Steering Committee members engaged youth workers throughout the Bay Area asking them what their needs were. Using the results of the focus group, Moira led a workshop for youth workers on survey design and creation using the YDPN as its case study. In Spring 2007, the YDPN launched its first Youth Worker Survey. What the YDPN found was that a need existed of a model of professionalization from the ground up.

With the feasibility study in hand, the YDPN hosted two Brown Bags with youth workers to help deepen their understanding of the data. Will Paris, a Steering Committee member, realized that there were Four Points of Connection that youth workers needed to sustain themselves long-term in the field. Those Four Points are Intrapersonal (values clarification, rejuvenation and self-care, and personal advocacy), People (messages to the general public about the social value of youth worker), Professional (advocating for peer-education as the model for professional development), and Financial (livable wages, housing, healthcare, and financial literacy).At the second Brown Bag, the YDPN presented these Four Points to youth workers. Youth workers immediately understood the concept and got behind its success.

Alongside the Four Points, the YDPN developed values rooted in the core values of its Steering Committee members, an organizational model based on its history, and a pedagogical process rooted in how the work had been accomplished to date. In the fall of 2008, I started working with Sangita Kumar to help refine the Four Points, values, organizational model, and pedagogical process. Sangita asked me to create a visual analogy of the YDPN at large. This process led to integrating everything into the YDPN Ecology. This ecology now guides all aspects of the YDPN's development.

These two organizations are two different types of collaborative professionalization efforts. AFATAC is centered on technical assistance and professional development organizations working collaboratively to improve youth-serving organizations programmatic improvement. YDPN is centered on youth worker-centered workforce development efforts. Both types of collaboration are needed in order to strategically build and sustain the youth development field. 

For more information, please check out the following resources: 

Collaborative Professionalization Models PowerPoint Presentation

AFATAC Application

AFATAC Frequently Asked Questions