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PURPOSE
The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to empower youth and youth mentors with a Youth Participatory Empowerment Model that identified and engaged a community heritage or social justice need.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
How does implementing a Youth Participatory Empowerment Model affect youth and adult perceptions of the ability of youth to influence a community heritage or social justice issue?
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Does implementing YPEM affect the ability of youth and adult mentors to cultivate youth voice, youth engagement, and youth empowerment as it relates to a community heritage or social justice issue? Which aspects of Astin and Heri’s Social Change Theory Model (1996) help to explain observed YPEM outcomes?
CROSS CATEGORICAL OBSERVATIONS
Implications for advancing field
Strong Youth Leadership Strong youth leadership was essential to providing a process from youth voice to engagement to youth empowerment. When youth leadership was lacking, direction was unfocused and common purpose and commitment suffered leading to stagnant growth among youth participants Trust and Safety Trust and safety were paramount to developing SCM theory attributes. Safety in space and relationships were foundational in developing youths’ sense of citizenship, power, and place within a community which in turn empowered them to engage in social justice and community heritage issues. Partnerships Partnerships were essential to drive change in community and heritage settings in terms of emotional supports, motivation to engage, practical partnerships, and civic partnerships. Partnerships provided a flow of resources for youth participants between settings. When partnerships were fractured, progress in change was limited to people and relationships in the immediate organization. Mentorship Varying levels of mentorship, such as adult to peer, peer to peer, and intergenerational, provided youth with the structure, perspective, and sense of safety necessary to empower youth to take risks for confronting social justice and community heritage issues.
The model serves the purpose of providing a scope and sequence that encourages youth empowerment
Modifications from Prototype: Built to YPEM 2.0
Includes Competencies & StrateThe model provides guidance to aid gies that emerged in Fieldwork in developing a culture of trusts Divided into Five Units of EmThe model encourages a youth led powerment development that is group that has an actively engaged more conducive to the fluidity mentor who guides from the side of the model The model encourages solid partnerships to support youth leadership in a way that allows them to activate community change.
Activities grouped under competency rather than age range with age recommendations for activities
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It is the nature of young people to be impatient, that’s what gives them the edge to change things. I’m not expecting a young person at 13 years old to have the patience that I have, that breaks their spirits. I expect them to be demanding, I expect them to be ruthless in their demands, I expect them to push and have high expectations. What I don’t expect them to do is give up when one demand isn’t met. I find it particularly refreshing that they have high expectations. A 40 year old should have learned something that a 13 year old doesn’t know. If we were to tell a 13 year old to be patient, they probably would say what I would have said, ‘patience be damned! I want it now!’ We have to allow young people that edge. We have to allow them to be demanding. We have to allow them to push us. We have to allow them to say ‘No, not tomorrow, but right now!’
”Professor Ruby Sales Youth Activist