Resources

The following articles, reports and publications can be downloaded free of charge.

The Direct-Care Workforce

Strengthening the Youth Development/After-school Workforce: Lessons Learned and Implications for Funders, from The Forum for Youth Investment, is an excellent current overview of attempts to professionalize the youthworker workforce, from efforts to identify the elements of effective programs and staff, to recruiting quality staff, to creating opportunities, incentives and requirements for certification and credentialing.

This 2009 report from NEN, 'Supporting the Direct-Care Workforce in Children's Behavioral Health Programs in NH' looks hard at workforce issues in 16 organizations working with emotionally and behaviorally challenged youth in New Hampshire. The findings reveal frustrations on both sides: from administrators, who are constantly forced to do more with less; and from workers, who need both practical help and a greater sense that what they have to say about their clients actually matters. Are there fixes, even in these times? There are, the report concludes, but they involve thinking differently about old problems.

Lessons learned from the Beacons Young Adolescent Initiative are summarized by the Forum for Youth Investment in this new fact sheet. The Beacons is a four-year effort led by the Youth Development Institute in New York City and funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies. The goal of the initiative is to improve outcomes for young adolescents (ages 9-14) by increasing their participation, engagement and retention in activities at Beacons centers. The report authors ask and answer such questions as: What does good supervision of youth work professionals look like? How can we strengthen supervision in ways that improve practice and reduce turnover? What is the effect of high-quality supervision on programs' bottom line — youth participation and retention rates, program quality and organizational capacity?

Career Pathways

This 2011 book, 'Advancing Youth Work: Current Trends, Critical Questions,' features 23 authors from around the globe who address issues (and tensions) related to the becoming of youth work as a profession. It is edited by Dana Fusco, an associate professor at City University of New York. PYWA interviewed Fusco for its new report on youth work, 'Youth Work Practice: A Status Report on Professionalization and Expert Opinion about the Future of the Field.' For more information, email Dana Fusco at dfusco@york.cuny.edu.

Findings from a 2006 Next Generation Youth Work Coalition study suggest that links between youth worker training and tangible rewards are weak. Most youth workers say there are not clear opportunities for promotion within their organizations, and the majority say that compensation is the primary factor in their decisions to stay in or leave the field. In response to these findings, the Coalition launched the Clear Policies for Career Pathways project to identify and build upon efforts underway around the country to establish comprehensive workforce development systems for the youth work field. Nine sites across the nation began discussing the issues directly. By pushing beyond discussions of professional development to address compensation, retention and education, the project aimed to take the workforce development conversation in the youth work field to a new level. Read the Lessons Learned report here.

Historically, the city of San Francisco and the greater Bay Area have been viewed as leaders in the youth development field. To begin addressing San Francisco and the field's concerns about recruiting and developing a strong, committed and valued workforce, the Community Network for Youth Development conducted a study of existing efforts to recruit and provide professional development resources for new and veteran youth workers at some of San Francisco's large youth serving organizations, intermediaries, and school and city departments. The results revealed that the foundation for a comprehensive workforce development system for youth workers exists. What the region lacks is a coordinating body that ties all of the components together and focuses on some of the more difficult issues, such as compensation and career ladders. Moving from Knowledge to Action in San Francisco: Creating a Comprehensive Youth Work Professional Workforce System discusses how to create a professional regional workforce system for youth workers that will extend beyond individual agencies or initiatives and act as a magnet for new workers, while retaining those with experience.

Using Volunteers to Support Staff and Extend Agency Services

The Hidden Workforce: How To Use Volunteers to Expand, Extend and Strengthen Your Services is a timely addition to the growing literature on volunteers. Since the early 1990s, experts have been telling the nonprofit world that an advancing wave of retiring baby boomers would soon be landing on its doorstep, eager to give them all sorts of assistance, and for absolutely free. Now, due to demographics, the economy and evolving national policy, volunteers are here. But are child- and youth-serving nonprofits really ready for them? Can they use volunteers in ways that truly improve their program services, cut their overhead, and extend their reach? This toolkit, from NEN, takes a clear-eyed look at what volunteers can really do in child- and youth-serving agencies, and how to get started growing or improving your own volunteer program.