Youth need to play an active part in the critical decisions that affect their lives. Agencies must engage, empower, and act upon youth voice in all aspects of child welfare to drive case planning and system improvement. Select from a menu of resources in this series to help you identify practices and actions that can strengthen the role of youth voice in your agency.
Use This Series Individually or With Groups to:
- Think critically about real-world examples of authentic engagement
- Consider how to engage youth voice in practice, peer support, and system-level change
- Learn to work more effectively with young people
- Augment agencywide training
- Focus meetings on youth engagement
- Connect with communities
- Recruit youth representatives
- Support the development of peer mentoring programs
Authentic Youth Engagement Stories Video Series
Listen to youth describe how their voices were heard while in foster care. Each of the nine audio stories is anchored by a youth’s perspective and is partnered with another perspective—a caseworker, leader, attorney, or peer mentor. Adolescence is a time of massive changes that shape the trajectory of adult lives. The youth explain how engagement at the practice, peer, and system levels gave them the support and empowerment they needed during this critical developmental period.
Menu for Youth Engagement Guide
Discover the benefits of engaging youth voice in practice, peer support, and system-level change. This guide offers a menu of suggestions for how to use learning activities with the audio stories to suit different purposes and audiences. Select resources from the Dessert Menu to move beyond the stories and find more in-depth information and steps for action planning to integrate youth engagement into standard practice from case planning through system-level changes.
The Secret Sauce: A Recipe for Authentic, Honest, and Trusting Relationships With Youth Tip Sheet and Discussion Questions
Think critically about actions and attitudes that support youth engagement as you listen to the stories. The tip sheet identifies effective strategies for authentic youth engagement at the practice, peer, and system-change levels and includes questions to consider while listening to the audio stories. The questions encourage critical thinking about the elements of authentic youth engagement and how strategies can be employed in practice.