About YLVC

What is the Youth Leadership for Vital Communities Initiative?

Youth Leadership for Vital Communities (YLVC) began in 2001 as an initiative to pilot a new program model for youth leadership development. It was shaped around youth working in partnership with adults to build inclusive, vital communities. YLVC evolved into a model that engaged youth in leadership development that led to increasing the voice of young people in community dialogue and decision-making.

Some members of the Partner's Team take a break for a photo after a day of planning. The YLVC Partners Team members represented each community and partner organization. They were responsible for shaping the YLVC model.

YLVC brought youth together in partnership with adults to form a local team. They participated in training as well as learned leadership skills in the process of doing work in the community. Their efforts addressed real issues and concerns identified by youth and the community. YLVC emphasized leading in ways that are inclusive and valuing the diversity of all members of the community. Team members' actions, through service-learning projects and in roles that advised decision-makers, increased the voice of youth in community dialogue and decision-making.

The YLVC Initiative was created in a partnership among three organizations with expertise in youth development - the Center for 4-H Youth Development at the University of Minnesota, the National Youth Leadership Council, and the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. The YLVC Initiative was supported initially by a lead grant from the Blandin Foundation.

What was the Mission of YLVC?

The mission of YLVC was to increase the voice of youth in community dialogue and decision-making.
This could be demonstrated in one of three ways:

Youth inform and advise decision-makers;
Youth initiate actions to address a community concern or issue and through their effort raise awareness of that issue in the broader community; and
Youth engage in current community initiatives and efforts that lack youth voice.

Goals

YLVC achieved its mission through the following program goals:

To build youth leadership through meaningful engagement in real community issues;
To foster youth-adult partnerships that demonstrate shared power, energy, and a common vision; and
To develop inclusive leaders who understand and value diversity and establish relationships that produce mutual respect across age, gender, and ethnicity.

Stacking a woodpile is one way to build relationships and provide service.

Who says team building can't be fun!

YLVC youth work with a graphic
designer to create the YLVC logo.

Outcomes - Evaluation

Midterm and final evaluations showed that YLVC successfully met anticipated goals. Evaluators also discovered five elements that made YLVC stand out from other "leadership" programs. Click here for the evaluation reports:

Midterm Report

Final Report

What benchmarks indicated the goals were accomplished?

Youth participants improved their leadership abilities and used those abilities to lead in public ways.
Youth participants demonstrated leadership in ways that were inclusive, seeking out the involvement and voices of other young people.
Youth had more opportunities to participate in dialogue and decision-making related to community issues.
Adults demonstrated that youth are valued and included in community dialogue and decision-making.

What made YLVC different from other youth leadership programs?

YLVC combined best-practices and expertise from the fields of positive youth development, leadership development and community development. YLVC took care to incorporate each of the following:

youth/adult partnerships where young people and adult leaders work as equals;

training designed on experiential education and service learning methods;

participant involvement in designing local actions and engaging with decision-makers.

a toolkit of exercises and resources, rather than a prescribed curriculum.

YLVC placed an emphasis on:

- increasing youth voice
- valuing diversity and acting inclusively
- partnering together with adults

Who participated in YLVC?

Four communities (three rural and one urban) participated in the first phase of YLVC. Four more communities were added in the second phase. In each community, a team of 15 youth in grades 9 - 11 and 3 to 4 lead adults formed a YLVC team. Team participants were recruited to represent the gender and ethnic diversity of the community. Additionally, 6 to 7 adults were sought as network adults who would support the team and team activities. In each community a part-time YLVC Community Coordinator was hired at start-up to work with the team. As the team leadership developed, increasingly more coordination tasks were the responsibility of team members.

YLVC Communities:

the Frogtown neighborhood in St. Paul, MN

Grand Rapids, MN

Mower County, MN

the Payne/Phalen neighborhood in St. Paul, MN

Waseca, MN (2002-2004)

Willmar, MN

Winona, MN, and

Worthington, MN

What did YLVC teams do?

Teams participated in joint training sessions and in local team meetings and projects. In the community, each team made their own decisions and created a mission and goals. Teams worked through a process to assess their community. They chose a community issue or concern to address. Then they designed a road map of action. They examined where and how they could increase youth voice. Team participants carried out actions that led them to reach their mission and goals.

Youth Leadership for Vital Communities
c/o Center for 4-H Youth Development
270B McNamara Alumni Center
200 Oak Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone (612) 624.2116
(800) 444.4238 ext.764 toll free

This page last updated 7/6/05