Youth-Adult Partnerships: A Training Manual

Created by four United States (US)-based national youth-focused organisations, this manual provides activities and resources that guide trainers and practitioners of all ages through the process of engaging youth and adults equally and authentically to create community change. The resource explores the foundations of effective youth-adult partnerships and includes nuts and bolts skill development activities.

Section One: Training Essentials offers information and activities designed to assist participants with assessing their experience, knowledge, and values surrounding youth-adult partnerships. It was created to support groups, teams, and organisations that are relatively new to youth-adult partnerships. Drawn from real-world examples, the materials in this section are also designed to facilitate reflection on and assessment of the effectiveness of established partnerships. This section includes opening, assessment, and closing activities to guide trainers in developing comfortable and creative learning environments.

Section Two: Foundations for Youth-Adult Partnerships was designed primarily to provide training exercises for youth-adult partnerships in the beginning phase of development, but also includes training exercises and information for established youth-adult partnerships. This section includes training activities created to deepen the understanding of youth-adult partnerships, encourage relationship building, and enhance appreciation of differences. In addition, it offers exercises to help identify the assets of partnership efforts, develop a common vision, and recognise barriers to effective partnerships.

Section Three: Advancing Youth-Adult Partnerships focuses on issues and components of youth-adult partnerships that have been in existence for a period of time, such as those on committees or boards or those working as a team within an organisation or in the community. Several activities explore building an understanding of the principles of shared leadership. The exercises focus on how people are more alike than different and offer a method for resolving issues that might arise. Several of the exercises require "homework," such as going out to do interviews, as a prerequisite.

Section Four: Philanthropy: A New Arena for Youth-Adult Partnerships is meant for those who want to make a difference in their organisations, groups, or communities. This section is designed to help youth and adults understand the role of philanthropy in society and in their own lives and help them use the strength of youth-adult partnerships to engage in fundraising and personal giving.

Section Five: Research: Youth-Adult Partnerships Work is designed to prepare advocates to respond to questions such as, "How do you know that youth-adult partnerships are effective?" or "Why should we use youth-adult partnerships to do our work?" Knowing and having access to research reports, data, and other resources can help advocates make the pitch, address skeptics, and reinforce partnerships. This section is designed to help youth and adults gain access to research on youth-adult partnerships and develop strategies for youth-adult partnerships.

Section Six: Resources contains several different types of resource materials. The first is a sample training agenda illustrating how a group of youth-adult partnership activities can be put together to create a half- or full-day training. Two informational pieces - an article on youth development and youth-adult partnerships and a chart that provides a framework for different approaches being used in the youthwork field - can be used as background information for trainers or as handouts during training sessions. A list of print, video, and internet references and resources is at the end of this section.

The training exercises can be used solo or grouped with other exercises, and all are designed to engage youth and adults as equal participants in leading and evaluating the exercises. The publishers - Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development, National 4-H Council, National Network for Youth, and Youth Leadership Institute - encourage trainers to be creative and flexible in crafting their training sessions.