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The California

Youth Advocacy Network

In the July 2003 report “Leave No Youth Behind,” the Center for Law and Social Policy noted that the United States does not have a coherent youth policy to prevent at-risk youth from becoming disconnected from society, nor, for that matter, to help youth return to productivity. “Instead,” the report states, “we have a patchwork of fragmented and often poorly funded programs at the federal level that do not have common objectives or accountability measures. Nor do state and local areas typically have comprehensive youth policies.”

Indeed, they do not. Instead, what some like California have are elements of local and topic-specific initiatives that point in the general direction of a policy (namely youth development)—often as a result of privately funded projects that compliment larger public efforts. Unfortunately, these disparate elements significantly lack the collaborative infrastructure support necessary to “funnel” their successes into the heart of the state’s ongoing policy mechanisms. As a result, much of the success of these local projects—and the complete power and potential of active, exciting youth involvement—is lost on the very people in California’s administration and legislature who are supposed to be seeking effective solutions.

The purpose of the California Youth Advocacy Network is to provide the tools for the creation of a STATEWIDE youth-advocacy infrastructure; a network of youth, youth service agencies and the tools needed to sharpen the message of just what is already happening on the local level and how that success can bring about state policies that support and affirm the local work. We believe that this proposed Advocacy Network will dramatically enhance the role of young people in civic and community engagement efforts and bring about program changes that have previously not been delivered. It is our firm belief that by creating such a network, young people across the state will feel that they can have and should have a direct and real voice in their own futures.

The promise of youth development ideals has gained a foothold with the recent publication of Community Programs to Promote Youth Development—a statement by the nation’s premiere scientists that community and youth engagement ideas work (National Academy of Sciences, 2002). It is the promise of this success that has inspired a range of program services for young people in a variety of individual communities and schools. In fact, modifying existing services to incorporate youth development assumptions may be the most widely emerging current trend for local nonprofits and even schools. Newly emerging high-profile projects such as the John Gardner Center of Youth and Their Communities are focusing on the promises of this kind of change as they set about capturing the academic tools, techniques and practices these local projects are using to achieve their youth development goals.

On a statewide basis, progress has been much slower, though not entirely absent. In the recent legislative session, the State Senate reviewed SB215, a bill that would formally incorporate youth development ideas into state systems and create a youth advisory body (with groups like CCY being instrumental in pulling this body together). Similarly, CCY pulled together more than 200 young people to write the original language of what became SCR (Senate Concurrent Resolution) 40, which established the state’s first day of recognition of youth involvement efforts (starting March 28, 2004). However, even these accomplishments have been limited because local successes are not easily and consistently conveyed to policymakers as they struggle to implement new policies, cut budgets and/or restructure the state government in accordance with the tremendous fiscal challenges California faces.

The California Youth Advocacy Network gives California’s lawmakers and policymakers this kind of information by making sure that they know that the ideas, heart, soul and energy of young people themselves are available as they work. CCY, one of the state’s oldest youth-adult partnership agencies, is in the unique position of being able to guide the creation of this infrastructure, both by building on the elements we all ready have in place and making sure that youth voices and youth programs across the state are fully and functionally included into the system.

Strategy Elements

The following strategy elements will create, affirm and sustain the California Youth Advocacy Network.

• 200 LOCAL AGENCIES WORKING TOGETHER AS A STATEWIDE ADVOCACY NETWORK: For the first time, 150 to 200 youth agencies will be in constant and immediate contact to ensure that policymakers have full access to local success stories and youthful ideas.

• YOUTH LEADERS: 10 to 15 youth (selected from existing youth involvement projects across the state and paid an annual stipend) will represent 10 regions of California. These Youth Leaders will funnel “policy in practice” information from the local areas directly to CCY in Sacramento and, conversely, be available when state policymakers need immediate input on important youth issues that impact their regions.

• ADVOCACY TOOLS AND VOICES: Identify, refine and make easily accessible via electronic measures a pool of advocacy tools, writings and words that our interns and youth advocates from across the state can freely call upon to support their existing work and inspire further progress.

• STATE BUDGET IMPACTS: Develop and implement specific plans for enhancing California’s fiscal infrastructure so that decision-making on critical policy issues directly incorporates the techniques of youth-adult partnerships and the specific voices of California’s young people.

Planned Activities and Measurable Objectives

The following are the major activities associated with each of the above strategies.

NETWORK BUILDING AND ENHANCED COMMUNICATION:

Develop a strong and visible network of more than 150 youth advocacy and

youth-adult partnership programs.

Organize quarterly statewide meetings for these and other agencies (utilizing our youth

interns and active youth locally to facilitate the meetings); participating

core groups must attend at least one of the four annual meetings.

Consensually develop5 to 10 youth-written strategic, interactive policy papers that

reflect and support youth-supportive policymaking consistent with the goals of the core group of agencies. (These papers will guide us and be updated annually.)

Target e-mail notification and listserv systems capable of keeping 15,000 to 20,000

youth and youth involved and informed about what is happening on policy concerns.

IDENTIFY YOUTH LEADERS (Interns):

• Create and monitor competitive, youth-directed annual internships that are

  geographically representative of California.

• Base the internships in and have them coordinated by local agencies using the Advocacy

  Network and CCY’s membership and service infrastructure (the agencies will help

  prepare position descriptions and identify Operational Agreements).

• Actively involve each Youth Leader in one or more statewide meeting as well as in ongoing skills-training.

• Ensure that the Youth Leaders are integrated into one or a team of local program services to help them maintain access to and share information about what is occurring

  within their geographic areas.

• Have each Youth Leader generate 50 to 100 Youth Voices articles, stories, artistic works, etc. on one or more targeted subject annually.

• Have each Youth Leader contribute to or generate use of the tools and techniques specified below.

YOUTH VOICES AND ADVOCACY TOOLS:

Hire a youth or young adult to maintain, refine, update and promote our California Youth

Advocacy Calendar (www.CalCalendar.org)

Implement and solicit materials for our “Build Your Own Advocacy Tools” web strategy

resources, where young people can make use of tools and techniques and modify them to their own requirements (Identify and post 25 to 40 tools within 3 months.)

Sustain CCY’s web site and utilize our the web as a key host site for centralized youth

Legislative strategies and statewide advocacy (ongoing)

Print and generate interactive electronic “Action Papers” on a regular basis that target youth stories, artistry and voices using advocacy successfully (or not).

STATE BUDGET IMPACTS:

Educate policy makers about the importance of and techniques for youth-adult

involvement in regular budgetary decision making

Refine and distribute budget policy and strategy statements

Develop one statewide “Youth Voices” project on budget issues targeted

toward specific legislative districts

Create 3 to 5 policy, press and public relations efforts geared toward achieving

these and other mutually agreed upon goals.

Evaluation

We will monitor the process steps for creating the infrastructure and then for documenting how it is utilized. This will include everything from records of who receive the initial outreach materials to how many and which agencies and individuals choose to participate. We will then document the uses of the systems that are put in place. Attendance will be recorded at all Quarterly Meetings. The electronic messages will show who received them and whether they responded to them. Our website documents who “hits” them, and from where they “hit” them (as well as the time of day they did so, the kind of equipment they use, the links they made to get to us, etc.) Obviously, we will also have documentation of all the policy papers, “flash advocacy” alerts, notices to lawmakers, etc. that result from the network we create. And with over 15,000 participants, we will be able to show just how representative the network is of both the nonprofit, service community and of the youth population of California. (We hope to produce materials in English and Spanish, and perhaps even with welcoming messages in other languages.) Each element of the communication network will include changing evaluation questions and techniques with the hope of inspiring quick but ongoing evaluations, not just evaluations once in a while.

The project will also document how we convey the position information to legislators and what the end result is, as well as how well the state departments actually implement the laws once created. Although this project will not actively promote particular legislation, CCY as a whole will utilize a variety of sources to assess legislation and ensure that it continues to reflect the needs, wishes and desires of young people. We will then demonstrate the changes in the legislation that result. However, legislation is only part of the policymaking effort. Once the laws are impacted, CCY will work with department and administrative leaders to make sure that they laws are implemented as intended.

Organization Capacity and Qualifications

CCY has a well-respected reputation in the field. Online we have an historical overview of many of the accomplishments of CCY since its inception in 1978. Among our most notable accomplishments were the initial work on the creative of effective legislation for juvenile status offenders, and the development of a statewide network of shelter services for homeless/runaway youth. We were also instrumental in playing a role in keeping youth voices in such high-profile efforts as the policy initiatives of the California Wellness Foundation on topics such as teen pregnancy and violence prevention. Most recently, we utilized a small California Endowment grant to begin the creation of the California Youth Voices Budget Initiative, which was a direct effort to give young people a role in the budget discussions that will impact their lives. One of the highest profile successes of this work was the generation of a Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR 40) that is being completed at the time this proposal is being prepared. Its purpose is to openly direct that legislators include young people in their decision-making processes. SCR 40 also includes an historic directive identifying March 28th as the state’s first official day of recognizing the accomplishments of young people in policy projects across the state.