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December 2004 Monthly Monitor
Advocates for Youth's Youth of Color Initiative
Feature: Youth-Adult Partnerships
Many adults still hold negative stereotypes about adolescents. Yet, adolescents and young adults have acute perception and immense capabilities. How, then, can adults tap into youth's energy, passion, and commitment? The key is adults' partnering with youth.
What Is a Youth-Adult Partnership? A youth-adult partnership is one in which adults work in full partnership with young people on issues facing youth and/or on programs and policies affecting youth. Youth-adult partnerships offer much to youth, adults, and organizations that participate in them. The beginning of building effective youth-adult partnerships lies in a commitment to youth's rights and a determination to recognize their rights and to hear their voices.
Why Are Youth-Adult Partnerships Important? Youth-adult partnerships arise from the conviction that young people have a right to participate in developing the programs that will serve them and a right to have a voice in shaping the policies that will affect them. The little research that has been done on the effects that youth-adult partnership may have on youth, adults, and organizations provides some evidence that partnering with youth and respecting their ability to contribute may provide important protective factors for young people such as:
- Social competence, including responsiveness, flexibility, empathy and caring, communication skills, a sense of humor, and other pro-social qualities.
- Problem solving skills, including the ability to think abstractly, reflectively, and flexibly and the ability to arrive at alternative solutions to cognitive and social problems.
- Autonomy, including a sense of identity and an ability to act independently and to exert control over one’s environment.
- Sense of purpose and future, including having healthy expectations, goals, an orientation toward success, motivation to achieve, educational aspirations, hopefulness, hardiness, and a sense of coherence.
- Opportunities to develop and/or strengthen internal locus of control (or the feeling of being able to have an impact on one’s environment and on others).
What Is Not a Genuine Youth Adult Partnership? Youth-adult partnerships are not ways to hide or obscure the fact that programs are designed, implemented, and run only by adults. Tokenism is not partnership. Tokenism can appear in many forms. Tokenism could include such actions as:
- Having young people around with no clear role to play.
- Assigning youth only those tasks which adults do not want to fulfill.
- Having youth make media appearances without any voice in developing the messages, programs, or policies that the youth are expected to talk about.
- Having one youth on a board of directors or council to point to as "youth involvement."
For some of the latest research on youth-adult partnerships, please review the following reports:
Capacity Building & Professional Development
Training Resources
The Seventh European Study Tour Is June 3–20, 2005
Teen birth, teen abortion, and STI rates in the United States are higher than in most other industrialized countries. Thus, Advocates for Youth and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte will sponsor the seventh European study tour, June 3–20, 2005. The organization will select 30 participants to explore and identify strategies, programs, and policies in the Netherlands, France, and Germany that have positively influenced adolescent sexual behavior and outcomes.
For a PDF file of the European study tour application as well as information on who should apply, selection criteria, and the tentative program itinerary, visit http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/news/events/stdytour.htm
Funding Opportunities
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Resources and Services Administration is offering a grant in partnership with The National Minority AIDS Education and Training Center (NMAETC). This grant will be awarded to eligible entities to assume leadership positions in building capacity for HIV care and training among minority health care professionals and health care professionals and organizations serving communities of color. The application deadline is April 5, 2005. For further information or assistance, contact the HRSA Call Center at 877-Go4-HRSA/877-464-4772 or visit http://www.hrsa.gov/grants/preview/hivaids.htm#hrsa05052
Announcements
The American Foundation for AIDS Research's (amfAR) National HIV/AIDS Update Conference (NAUC) will convene April 10-13, 2005 in Oakland, California. The Conference will present the latest information on critical prevention, treatment and care issues, aiming to translate research advances into practical strategies to help end the AIDS pandemic and improve the lives of people living with HIV or AIDS. Registration and abstract submission is available online at http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/nauc/index.html The deadline to submit an abstract is December 10, 2004.
The 2005 National HIV Prevention Conference will be held June 12-15, 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference serves to share effective prevention approaches and research findings, as well as to strengthen collaboration between governmental, community, and academic partners in HIV prevention. Registration and abstract submission is available online at http://www.2005hivprevconf.org The deadline to submit an abstract is January 17, 2005. Abstracts submitted on paper or diskette must be postmarked by January 10, 2005.
Resources
For additional resources on developing youth-adult partnerships, please visit the following Web sites:
You can help Advocates for Youth with a contribution today. To donate, visit http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/about/donatetoday.htm
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