Doing Better: CCLP is Developing a Model for Youth and Community Engagement in Legal System Reforms

The Center for Children’s Law and Policy (CCLP) invested significant resources to evaluate its own success as an advocacy and policy reform organization and is applying lessons learned, especially about youth and community engagement, to ongoing reform efforts.

The evaluation measured the process and outcomes of CCLP’s Law Enforcement Leadership for Equity initiative, a year-long partnership with four diverse law enforcement agencies. CCLP and the agencies sought to advance equity and reduce system involvement for youth of color through policy reforms. Although youth and community engagement was a stated core component of the process, agencies made little progress authentically engaging youth or communities of color and subsequently did not achieve their racial equity goals.

CCLP will share the evaluation publicly through two reports, one documenting lessons learned from the technical assistance process and the other completing the picture of progress and results achieved by each law enforcement agency.

Committing to an evaluation included multiple hours on the part of staff, as well as time from leaders and community partners of each law enforcement agency, to participate in meetings and interviews, as well as provide historical and quantitative data. CCLP also received financial support to evaluate its own work from a foundation, something I rarely see and wish more foundations would prioritize.

I’ve been consistently impressed with CCLP’s willingness to receive constructive criticism and dedication to applying what they learn moving forward. Already, CCLP applied lessons and recommendations for more authentic youth and community engagement to ongoing work with the Baltimore City Police Department and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.

Evaluation Services Supported Learning and Evolution

I provided a robust evaluation of the process and outcomes of CCLP’s technical assistance and the policy reforms achieved by each department, along with recommendations for future progress. My evaluation process included developing measures of CCLP’s target outcomes, collecting and analyzing quantitative data from the departments, as well as collecting and applying qualitative data through interviews and surveys with diverse stakeholders.

As it was the weakest area of progress by CCLP and each of the four departments, I provided the bulk of my recommendations on advancing youth and community engagement in future policy reform efforts by law enforcement agencies and their national policy partners, like CCLP. “Laura’s clear and convincing evaluation and well-founded recommendations drew a clear line for us between the crucial importance of authentic youth and community engagement and achieving the measurable results we seek through our work. Real, robust youth and community engagement can lead to greater equity in justice system reforms,” reports Tiana Davis, CCLP’s Policy Director for Equity and Justice.

I am now documenting more advanced youth and community engagement work by CCLP and Baltimore, with an eye toward measuring how authentic engagement supports better racial equity outcomes in the future.

Next Steps for Greater Legal System Reforms

This evaluation correlated strong partnership with those most affected by reforms with measurable success toward equity and fairness in the legal system. Experts and policy makers at all levels of the juvenile and criminal justice fields have long paid lip service to youth and community engagement, especially with people most impacted by the system. However, efforts to authentically partner with people charged or convicted of crimes, incarcerated people, and/or victims of crime have routinely fallen short of rhetoric.

Authentic engagement of affected people takes time, people, money and leadership. Funders, national or local policy organizations and agencies within the legal system will need to apply the lessons of authentic youth and community engagement to begin achieving the actual results long-promised but rarely achieved.

Doing Better: NACC is an Emerging Model for Youth Engagement in a Key Profession

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the National Association of Counsel for Children (NACC) since the very early days of my business. The legal representation of children and youth in child welfare cases is one of the most important spaces for authentic youth-adult partnership, but, as is common across youth-serving systems, has traditionally prioritized adult-led decisions.

Over the last two years, NACC has dedicated significant resources to becoming a national model of youth engagement for lawyers representing children in child welfare cases. NACC’s strides toward centering youth engagement in its organizational culture and structure include:

• Creating a new part-time Youth Coordinator position and rapidly advancing it to a full-time Youth Engagement Management position;

• Hiring a person with lived experience in the child welfare system to fill that role, reporting directly to the Executive Director;

• Launching a youth advisory board, now called the National Advisory Council on Children’s Legal Representation (Advisory Council), that actively engages and pays young people from across the country to educate legal professionals, co-develop advocacy platforms with legal staff, and develop content for training the child welfare legal field;

• Fundraising to support and sustain its youth engagement efforts; and

• Training its Board of Directors in youth engagement and developing a Board Youth Engagement Committee.

In addition, NACC will soon undertake a strategic plan “refresh” and will partner with the Advisory Council on a revision of NACC’s mission, vision, and policy priorities.

Achieving Better Results through Youth-Adult Partnership

A key example of how NACC now partners with young leaders in its central programming is the process for revising NACC’s Recommendations on the Representation of Children. Changing a process that was exclusively adult-informed in the past, NACC’s Legal Director and the Advisory Council co-designed the framework and priorities for the Recommendations. NACC contributed to the success of the partnership by engaging a human-centered design facilitator to support the process. Youth leaders report seeing their voice reflected in the project.

Effectively engaging youth in this important guidance for the legal field not only means that lawyers may do their jobs better on daily basis, but also demonstrated to the youth leaders on the Advisory Council and to the adults on staff that this model of youth-adult partnership works. NACC’s Legal Director Allison Green says, “Advisory Council members gave us new insights and prioritized important changes to the Recommendations that would not have happened otherwise and will impact child welfare practice for years to come.”

One Key to Success: A Champion

NACC demonstrates how a champion at the highest level of an organization is key to this type of culture and structure shift. NACC’s bylaws long required it to have a youth advisory board, but that requirement went unfulfilled until Executive Director Kim Dvorchak committed to make it happen. “Educating the legal profession about authentic youth engagement is a key part of our work moving forward, and we must serve as a model of youth engagement to be effective advocates and educators,” says Kim. Kim has also led the organization beyond the letter of the requirement toward embedding youth engagement throughout its core operations, including at its annual conference and through partnership between the Advisory Council and Board of Directors.

My Partnership with NACC

Early on, I supported NACC’s youth engagement goals by conducting a landscape scan of youth-adult partnership models in the child welfare field. Kim and I then applied learning from the scan to develop and implement the Youth Coordinator and the Advisory Council selection process, including position descriptions, an interview process, and selection criteria. Bringing in the inaugural Youth Coordinator and group of Advisory Council members were key steps to achieving NACC’s overall youth engagement goals. The intentional, robust process we used took time but has made a tremendous difference in the Coordinator and Council’s success.

I have also provided one-on-one coaching to the Youth Coordinator, and now Youth Engagement Manager, Cristal Ramirez since she joined the team at NACC. Cristal comments, “Coaching sessions with Laura are always helpful. She asks questions that help me develop new ideas and helps me build the confidence to own the unique, worthy professional I am.”

Together, Cristal and I provided an introductory training on authentic youth engagement to NACC’s Board of Directors. The training established a common language and set of expectations for authentic youth engagement among the Board members, all of whom came into the training with diverse levels of knowledge and practice.

What’s Next for NACC’s Youth Engagement

NACC continues to deepen its commitment to partnering with the Advisory Council on driving its advocacy efforts and education resources for the legal community.

In coming years, I anticipate NACC will work to expand its foundational structure and sustain a robust culture of youth engagement. So far, grants and contracts have funded this work, which may become more challenging as philanthropy is often less excited about funding to sustain than it is funding to create. Thus, shifting organizational revenue to more stable sources may prove key to retaining youth engagement structures built over the last two years.

Further, NACC will need to expand a culture committed to authentic youth engagement from its core of committed staff and Board of Directors to its nationwide membership. Already, NACC surveys have shown increased interest in youth engagement among their membership of child welfare law practitioners; how that interest translates into true power sharing and implementation remains to be seen.

I am excited to see NACC’s leadership on youth-adult partnership for the child legal representation profession continue and deepen in years to come!

Doing Better: More Organizations Introduce Staff to Youth-Adult Partnership

Just as youth need support to engage in youth-adult partnership, adults need to build knowledge and skills for authentic partnership. Over the last year, I facilitated training for multiple organizations seeking to advance youth-adult partnership.

Two organizations stood out by committing the time and resources to train their full staff. Establishing common language and understanding of youth engagement across the entire staff supports everyone in achieving authentic engagement. Monroe Circuit Court Juvenile Probation Office and FHI 360’s National Institute for Work and Learning (NIWL) trained frontline workers who engage directly with youth and their managers, plus NIWL included communication and accounting staff. 

Diverse Audiences Stand to Benefit from Youth-adult Partnership 

Each of these organizations works with youth in unique ways, but they share the potential to benefit from implementing youth-adult partnership both in day-to-day interactions with youth and in governance.

FHI 360 NIWL is an international partner for several employers and workforce development sites serving youth and young adults. Two of NIWL’s programs also convene young adult leadership councils from these local sites, partnering with youth leaders to shape the programs that affect them. NIWL staff benefit from opportunities to strengthen youth-adult partnership within the leadership councils and to identify new ways to support youth engagement for the sites they serve.

Monroe Circuit Court juvenile probation officers and agency leadership can apply youth-adult partnership in their day-to-day administration of probation and to reimagine the balance of power between probation or court officers and youth on probation and their families. 

Youth-Adult Partnership and Anti-Oppression Training 

My introductory youth-adult partnership training for these organizations focused on my four principles for authentic youth-adult partnership - shared power, shared accountability, shared resources, and shared language. I customized each training based on the goals of the organization, time available with their staff, and pre-existing knowledge and capacity of participants. 

According to pre- and post-training evaluations, my training increased participants’ capacity to identify adultism and authentic youth engagement and gave participants tools to think differently about oppression and power in their work.  Trainees found particular value in tools to help them apply the four principles by interrogating the balance of power between youth and adults and envisioning equitable access to resources youth might need to participate in spaces of shared power.

If you are interested in training for yourself or your organization, find more information on  the Training page.

Youth-Adult Partnership Model: National League of Cities City Summit

Every November, a small team of youth and adult partners delivers remarkable programming for 200 youth from all over the country at the National League of Cities’ (NLC) annual City Summit conference. 

The 200 youth are some of the most civically engaged young people in their communities. They serve on youth councils or mayor’s youth advisory boards, they advocate for local change, and they’re part of national youth-led movements. In short, they are models of active citizens.

Youth councils shared their accomplishments for the year and learned from each other.

A team of about a dozen extraordinary young leaders from this already extraordinary group of youth work year-round to create, plan, and lead the conference content for their peers. They accomplish a full agenda of interactive workshops through a youth-adult partnership with staff at NLC.  

The youth in this partnership create the topics for workshops, develop the activities, select speakers, and lead the workshops. Adult partners make sure youth leaders have everything they need to be successful, including supplies and organizational or historical knowledge. The adult partners also use guiding questions to help youth leaders work through sticky spots.

Graffiti Walls

Youth used graffiti walls to express what they love about their cities and what they would change.

Workshops in this year’s Youth Delegate Program at NLC’s City Summit conference included skills training on advocacy through the arts and issue workshops on teen dating violence, climate change, gun violence, and pay equity. 

Youth also learned how very diverse groups each have a vested interest in everyday municipal issues and how to advocate for their side of the issue to the community.

Convincing someone of something you don’t personally believe is challenging. Youth stepped into randomly-assigned roles on various sides of an everyday local issue.

In my former role as NLC staff, I had the honor of being the adult partner for this awesome team. I always learn so much from the youth at the conference and on the youth leadership team and have been honored to be part of the team for over five years. At this year’s November conference, I supported new NLC staff to step into the partnership. I am excited to see how the youth voice opportunities at NLC continue to grow under their leadership.

Youth-Adult Partnership Models: Sustainability Champion

As I highlight champions of youth-adult partnership across the country , I’m reminded that different models work for different organizations. This post highlights one organization that has managed to sustain youth-adult partnership in organizational governance for an extraordinarily long time.

America’s Promise Alliance 

America’s Promise Alliance (https://www.americaspromise.org/) has sustained youth members on its Board of Directors and Board of Trustees for over a decade. America’s Promise reserves at least two seats on its Board of Directors for youth members and currently has three. Youth Board members have full voting and acting rights.

America’s Promise also has youth members on its Board of Trustees, a robust steering committee of leaders from among America’s Promise’s 450+ partner organizations. While not required, the organization does this to mirror its Board of Directors and incorporate youth voice into the fabric of their strategic programmatic work.

America’s Promise does not pay stipends or wages to its youth or adult Board members, but it does cover travel costs for the youth members.

Key to success #1: Cemented in Governance Documents

America’s Promise bylaws require youth seats on the Board of Directors.

Section 3.4 Youth Representation. Young people shall help shape and contribute to Alliance strategies and activities. No less than two (2) youth representatives aged 16-24 shall be nominated and elected to the Board for a term of two (2) years.

Key to success #2: Compromise

Initially, America’s Promise hoped to engage youth under the age of 18 on its Boards. However, the multiple trips around the country required each year and other challenges limited its success.

America’s Promise found that young adults over 18 were better able to meaningfully engage with the existing level of staff support. At the time, America’s Promise wasn’t able to dedicate the additional staff time they felt younger Board members would need and so decided to focus on 18-year-old youth and above until they could fill that additional need. As a result, America’s Promise has been able to meaningfully and consistently engage young adult leaders on its Boards for over a decade.

Key to success #3: A National Recruitment Network of Youth-Service Organizations

As a national-level organization with a vast network of youth-serving organizations, America’s Promise recruits youth Board members through a national call to these organizations. Developing and maintaining a pipeline of rising youth leaders can be a challenge, especially for organizations that do not directly serve youth. Connecting with partners provides meaningful support for ongoing recruitment and can give youth a home-based link through which to access help, training, and guidance as needed.

To learn more about how your organization can sustainably engage youth and adults as partners in decision-making, reach out using the Contact Me page.

Youth-Adult Partnership Models: Authenticity Champion

Champions of youth-adult partnership across the country inspire me and can serve as models for other organizations hoping to engage youth in shared power and decision-making. This post highlights one organization that has managed to build truly authentic youth-adult partnership in organizational governance and decision-making.

National Network for Youth (NN4Y) is a national advocacy organization with the goal of preventing and ending youth homelessness. NN4Y achieves a unique authentic level of youth-adult partnership in two ways. First, the very diverse youth engaged in NN4Y’s leadership have all experienced homelessness. Second, youth “drive decisions at all levels of the organization and have consistently for the past five years”, according to Executive Director Darla Bardine.  

Even stand out youth-led organizations and governments tend to struggle engaging traditionally disenfranchised youth. However, NN4Y not only engages but also builds the leadership capacity of youth who are among some of the most disenfranchised - having experienced homelessness and often youth of color. 

Second, adults at all levels of the organization remain rigorously dedicated to authentic youth voice in their decision-making. From the policies advanced by the organization to education and skill-building for member organizations, youth have shared power in everything NN4Y does.

Key to success #1: Dedicated Staff Support

NN4Y employs a full-time staff person responsible solely for supporting youth leaders and their partnership with the organization. The Director of Youth Partnerships manages youth engagement in NN4Y’s decision-making and provides individual support to youth leaders, meeting them where they are and helping them develop the tools to succeed as advocates and in life.

Key to success #2: Guiding Principles

Among NN4Y’s eight guiding principles is Youth/Adult Partnerships. The guiding principles apply to NN4Y itself and serve as aspirational principles for all of its over 300 member organizations. 

Key to success #3: Dedication at All Levels of the Organization

Every member of NN4Y’s staff and Board of Directors is fundamentally dedicated to the youth leadership of the organization. In addition, NN4Y prioritizes its youth-adult partnership to its funders and makes the case for the importance of sufficient support.

Interested in building authentic youth-adult partnership to achieve stronger decisions for your organization? Reach out to me through the Contact Me page.