Youth Work Counts Toolkit

The Next Generation Youth Work Coalition is committed to helping local and state intermediaries, organizations that work with youth program providers and their staff, identify ways to use and collect data about one of their community's most undervalued resources: frontline youth workers. These tools, based on a survey conducted by the Coalition in 2006, were created for those interested in bringing data about the frontline youth worker population into their work. While we do not have the resources to assist you directly with your own data collection or analysis, a dedicated staff or volunteer who is familiar with excel should be able to use these tools to successfully complete the process:

Also available are two resources related to the 2006 study, which may be particularly useful as you develop your own report, especially should you wish to compare your local findings with those from around the country:

Two additional resources that could help inform your local advocacy efforts include:

A Concise Case for Investing in Youth Workers

In order to strengthen supports for youth workers, it is critical that new champions join the effort. We must not preach only to the choir! This two-page case statement is designed to make a clear, concise, convincing argument for investing in youth workers, not just youth programs. We hope it is useful as you reach out to new groups of stakeholders to engage in this work, including business, education, higher education and more.

Youth-Worker-Case-Statement-March2010.pdf
Strengthening the Youth Development/After-School Workforce

Despite major advancements in the field, staffing – everything from recruitment, retention, supervision, to performance – remains a major challenge. There is a need to reexamine currently held assumptions about what it will take to build a strong, stable, committed workforce. What incentives? What opportunities? What requirements? For whom? In what combination? This brief report by Nicole Yohalem, Karen Pittman and Sharon Lovick Edwards highlights lessons learned over the past six years by the Forum for Youth Investment, Cornerstones for Kids and the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition, with an eye toward implications for funders. We summarize what is known about youth workers, why investments in this workforce matter, and what funders (private and public) can do to spark and support these investments. The goal is to support discussions about how focused attention on workforce development can be a part of funders’ individual and collective efforts to strengthen and expand after-school and youth development programs and systems.

Find the document here: http://forumfyi.org/content/strengthening-youth-developmentafter-school-...