New Publication Contributes to Youth Development Best Practices
Department: FLDC
Contact: jl638
Assets Coming Together (ACT) for Youth is an innovative youth development initiative that promotes community change to help young people thrive. Sponsored by the NYS Department of Health, ACT’s central strategy is the formation of cross-sector community partnerships representing a broad range of stakeholders, including young people. Charged with creating systemic changes in their organizations and communities, these partnerships seek to build communities where young people feel safe, where they are connected to adults and community institutions, and where they have developmentally supportive opportunities to be active agents in their lives and communities.
The new publication Lessons Learned from ACT for Youth describes how ACT for Youth unfolded over the first five years, identifying common themes and lessons learned across the eleven community partnerships that made up the first round of the ACT initiative. Intended to be of value to communities, funders, and researchers interested in implementing similar efforts, this contributes to the knowledge base regarding best practices in community youth development. The report examines the five outcomes toward which the ACT community development partnerships concentrated their efforts, presenting our findings and recommendations for each objective: Build and maintain the community partnership; Increase services, opportunities, and supports for young people; Increase youth engagement; Create organizational change; Instill community policy change. With the benefit of these lessons learned, ACT II is now entering its second year. Twelve community collaborations make up the second round of the initiative. The ACT communities are supported by the ACT for Youth Center of Excellence, a partnership led by Cornell University’s Family Life Development Center that also includes Cornell University Cooperative Extension of New York City, the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Division of Adolescent Medicine, and the New York State Center for School Safety.
CLICK HERE to view the new publication, Lessons Learned from ACT for Youth