This is a history I wrote about the Youth Development Peer Network (now Youth Worker: Collective). The YDPN is near and dear to my heart. I am proud to be a servant of youth workers across the Bay Area. Every time I hear a youth workers story as to why they do the work they do, I feel reconnected to my own work. It is always amazing to me how the simple act of listening can be rejuvenating.
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Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was space—vast, expansive, and filled with wonders. Space shifted and moved and by some marvel galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets were created. In one solar system, there was a particular planet, the third from a star called Sun, that was teeming with what we know to be life.
On this planet, Earth, people came to be. What was phenomenal about this is that people interacted with their environments in vastly different ways than any other life before it. People changed the landscape of the Earth with houses, monuments, villages, industry, agriculture, wars, and technology. People interacted with each other in different ways as well. Societies were built, destroyed, and built again. Lines were drawn to differentiate one group of people from another. These lines were called class, caste, ethnicity, religion, language, tribe, clan, gender, and so on.
And as time ticked ever forward, the Earth, once thought gigantic and impossible to connect, became smaller and smaller and more connected. The impact of conflict or war in one country effected the economy of many. Businesses set up shops, stores, and business centers in many countries rather than just one tying people who once had no connections to each other. Industry polluted the environment and the toxins released in one part of the world created massive storms in other parts, melted ice caps of mountains and the artic, and warmed the ocean. Technology birthed the internet and the World Wide Web and suddenly people in Thailand could communicate with people in Canada , people in Pakistan could communicate with people in Egypt
The common theme throughout all of this is connectivity and networks. Or as Jorge Luis Borges said “everything touches everything”. Soon, we learned that the greatest distance between two people is six degrees of separation. And this theme has been explored again and again by the likes of Stanley Milgram and John Guare and Frigyes Karinthy. If we use our networks, we can reach anyone in the world. For it takes only one link in a network to expose you to the entirety of the network.
The Youth Development Peer Network capitalizes on this theory by linking youth workers to each other in an effort to legitimize, professionalize, and celebrate the field of youth development. The power of the YDPN is the Network. Our ability to transfer learning, knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise between each other and to inform others about the important work of youth development is our strength. We exist to connect.
In order to truly understand the impact of the laws of networks that govern the YDPN, we must understand how the YDPN came to be. It all started with the Community Network for Youth Development. In 1992, CNYD was conceived from a study of Stanford University Center
Over the years, CNYD became a leader in the field of youth development providing trainings, resources, and technical assistance to organizations and youth workers and working at a systems level with funders and policymakers to ensure that outcomes and resources more effectively and consistently supported community youth development efforts. CNYD created Youth Development Learning Networks that helped organizational leaders and youth workers become more intentional with their work, build consensus and commitment to effective youth development practices, and provided a real measure of the developmental impact of their work. Through this process, CNYD provided 2000 youth workers from over 600 organizations with a broad array of professional development opportunities.[2]
In 2000, CNYD recognized that youth workers and organizational leaders also needed to be engaged as an active voice within the field to move it forward effectively. CNYD staff asked past Learning Network participants if they wanted to continue to meet to discuss how to make their voice more powerful within the field. And thus, the Youth Development Leadership Council was born.
Initially, the Youth Development Leadership Council was comprised of funders, executive directors and youth workers. CNYD played a crucial convening and facilitation role during these instrumental years. Additionally, CNYD helped secure the resources needed in order to sustain such an effort.
The YDLC met regularly from 2001 to 2003 when it became clear that it wanted to be the voice of the workers and wanted to focus its activities on building skills, fostering intention, networking, and advocating for workers. The YDLC expanded their vision and decided to establish a local network of workers. So it decided to change its name from the YDLC to the Youth Development Peer Network in an effort to better capture the work it was trying to achieve.
The YDPN launched its first event in February of 2003. And it was a huge success. The event brought together over 80 attendees from all across the Bay Area to network, foster intention, and build a regional support system for, with, and by youth workers. At the launch event, current YDPN Steering Committee members recruited more youth workers to become Steering Committee members in an effort to ensure a broad representation from across the Bay Area and constituencies served.
From 2003 to June 2005, CNYD supported the efforts of the YDPN by providing a .25 FTE for project management and meeting facilitation and monies to support events and meeting food. The Steering Committee governed the direction and activities of the Network and talked extensively about becoming a non-profit, the role of workers in the professionalization of the field, and the future of youth development. Steering Committee members worked in all types of settings and held a variety of jobs from health educators to program directors to executive directors. In addition to the Steering Committee there was a Professional Development Committee that oversaw the execution of collaborative skills building workshops, a Networking Committee that produced networking events that connected workers to each other, and an Advocacy Committee that had difficulty in crafting a policy agenda for youth workers because the needs of the field were so great and finding a starting point was overwhelming.
The number of Steering Committee members fluctuated because people left the field (mostly due to needing to find a better paying job with better benefits). Sometimes there were 12 people, sometimes there were 5 people. There was always a small group of dedicated individuals that wanted to see the Network succeed, flourish, and grow. And thanks to the support provided by CNYD, the Network did.
Highlights of YDPN events from 2003 – June 2005 include:
· The First Annual Summer Resource Exchange in April 2003 that brought together 63 youth workers to share ideas and resources for summer programming;
· A Speakers Forum on Youth Grantmaking co-sponsored by CNYD and the Youth Leadership Institute in December 2003;
· A Diversity and Equity Institute co-hosted by California Tomorrow in January 2004;
· June 2004’s Safe Summer Event in response to summer funding cuts and wanting to make sure workers were connected to each other to keep our communities safe;
· The Third Annual Summer Resource Exchange in April 2005 that brought youth workers together to learn summer activities, connect, and learn about the amazing work being done across the nation to professionalize the field (a first into the forum of workforce development for the YDPN), which was a major success;
In November 2004, CNYD was asked to participate in a national Wingspread convening that addressed attracting, developing, and retaining youth workers for the next generation. Jen Fornal, then the facilitator for the YDPN Steering Committees, asked current Steering Committee member Kica Gazmuri if she would like to represent the YDPN at the convening and to provide a frontline perspective and ground the discussions. Upon her return, Kica Gazmuri helped bring the YDPN into the spotlight as a voice of workers within this national effort to professionalize the field.
Then, in June 2005, Rebecca Goldberg and Jason Wyman, two YDPN Steering Committee members, attended a meeting in Washington , D.C.
During all this time, the YDPN still grappled with whether or not it wanted to become its own non-profit. There were benefits to becoming a non-profit such as generating a larger budget for the Network, having independence to really voice the concerns of workers, and establishing ourselves as a leader unto ourselves. And there were drawbacks such as not having any money and losing the support of such a supportive lead agency. We were going through our own transition from dependence to independence.
Then, during the summer of 2005, the YDPN needed to become more independent because CNYD was no longer able to provide a .25 FTE support. Instead, CNYD said they could provide a budget of $6000 for operating expenses for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. And then we would be on our own.
At this time, the Steering Committee was also undergoing a major transition because many of the members were leaving the field of youth development. The YDPN dismantled its subcommittees and decided to have two co-chairs that would help lead the Network through this transition. The co-chairs decided that it would take a year of concentrated effort to really build a sustainable and lasting collaborative. So instead of producing lots of events, the YDPN worked on building infrastructure, developing our own identity, building relationships with funders, and recruiting new Steering Committee members.
Concurrently, the Wingspread Convening led to the formation of the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. Kica joined on the Steering Committee of the Next Gen Coalition and helped keep the YDPN informed about emerging national issues. Additionally, the Next Gen Coalition continued to develop the workforce study and was looking for local organizations that could collect data on workers.
The San Francisco Beacon Initiative was undergoing an excellent study of its workers and the YDPN had connections to youth workers outside of the Beacon Initiative and San Francisco, so the Next Gen Coalition approached the YDPN to interview local youth workers about the issues they were facing to broaden the data collected by the Beacon Initiative—thus, cementing the YDPN’s ability to bring a worker voice into the dialogue.
YDPN’s involvement in the Next Gen Coalition study led directly to conversations with the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund about funding the YDPN to undergo a strategic planning process. The YDPN was beginning to see where its market really was. However, the Program Officer, Darlene Hall, at the Haas Jr. Fund wasn’t convinced that the YDPN really needed a strategic planning process. Instead, Darlene asked “Is there a there there?” She wanted to know if the YDPN, in its current structure, was a feasible organization for the long haul, how it was different than other youth development intermediaries, and how it could become financially sustainable.
Before the YDPN could receive a grant from the Haas Jr. Fund, it needed to address the issues of fiscal responsibility with CNYD. CNYD had been graciously providing seed monies to support the work. But if the YDPN wanted to seek grants independently, it needed to formalize its relationship with CNYD. So during the summer of 2006, the YDPN co-chairs met with CNYD staff and formalized the relationship between CNYD and the YDPN as that of a fiscal agent with a memorandum of understanding that clearly stated the terms of the relationship. No longer would CNYD be providing monies to the YDPN. It was now time for the YDPN to seek its own funding.
In the fall of 2006, Jason Wyman, a co-chair of the YDPN, met with Darlene of the Haas Jr. Fund to discuss more in-depth what Haas Jr. would look for in a proposal. Darlene reiterated “You need to establish ‘Is there a there there?’” This led to YDPN’s first independently written grant of $10,000 to support a feasibility study. This was also the beginning of a process that re-connected YDPN to workers, ensured worker buy-in into the direction of the YDPN, and reemphasized the need for workers to come together as peers.
While this transition was happening, the YDPN also started crafting workshops that sought to bring youth workers outside of their jobs for rejuvenation and self-care. The first Day of Rejuvenation and Self-Care took place at the San Francisco Buddhist Center , with the Buddhist Center Oakland and one in Richmond
The YDPN also took time and intention to craft another major event…Incorporating Youth Media into Your Program held in August 2006. This event was created using a completely different process than the YDPN has used before. Instead of a Professional Development Committee just taking the lead and crafting an event, the YDPN asked members at the end of its 3rd Annual Summer Resource Exchange, what topics interested them. Youth workers wanted to explore technology.
Jason then started meeting with leaders in the field of youth development and technology across the Bay Area in the fall of 2005, and asked them what an event of this sort would look like and how it could be most successful. After numerous conversations, the YDPN found a host, the Bayview/Hunter’s Point Center
The 2006-2007 fiscal year saw the YDPN propel forward momentously. In addition to receiving the Haas Jr. Fund grant, the YDPN was encouraged to apply for monies from the San Francisco Foundation. The YDPN wrote a grant to San Francisco ’s Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families to support field building in San Francisco
The YDPN also increased its Steering Committee, only about five in Summer of 2005, to 12 members by June 2007. The YDPN presented a workshop at DCYF’s State of the City’s Children Summit on the state of the workforce locally, state-wide, and nationally. CNYD, the Oakland Community After School Alliance, and the YDPN co-hosted three workforce forums with the Next Gen Coalition and local youth workers—one in Oakland, one in San Francisco, and one for funders, policymakers, and intermediaries.
The Next Gen Coalition sponsored another summit in November 2006. Through Kica’s active involvement in the Coalition’s Steering Committee, the YDPN was able to send two additional members to represent workers—Vicky Valentine, and Marquez Gray. This summit marked two years of YDPN’s deep and committed work to ensuring worker voice in efforts of professionalization.
And the YDPN deepened its networking by training middle school youth as Community Ambassadors that helped plan, outreach, and lead networking events that had two components. One component was a time for youth workers to connect to each other. The second component was hosting successful outreach fairs that connected youth and families to youth development organizations and programs. Both events were well attended by youth and families and modeled what quality youth development is.
The YDPN in all of its growth and transition always knew, and still knows, that success is determined by the connectedness of its Network. The YDPN’s motto is “Power through a Network of Peers”. But what does this mean? The protest march “The people united shall never be divided” is an excellent example of the meaning of our motto. By linking arm and arm and weaving a network of support, learning, and advocacy, the YDPN can take bold steps forward to professionalize our field and change society for the better. We can make a difference.
Peers are essential to carrying this work forward. By looking at each other as peers we break down the hierarchical power dynamic and create a new power dynamic of unity, camaraderie, and equality. We move forward together. And through this power shift we become the change we wish to see in the world.
Youth development, at its core, believes that young people can transition successfully from dependence to independence when provided with supports and opportunities. The Youth Development Peer Network takes it one step further. It believes that youth and youth workers and community members and parents and all humanity can stand side-by-side as equals. It believes that through creating avenues of equality and equity, supports and opportunities, ALL can move beyond dependence and independence to interdependence. Gandhi stated “Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality.” And John Muir wrote “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Or… “Everything touches everything.”
The YDPN’s purposes are to hold people together as peers and to promote the worker agenda through equitable avenues. This task is enormous and its responsibility and accountability to the workers is vital to its growth. The YDPN must ensure that avenues of worker buy-in exist and are representative of all youth workers in the Bay Area. It must continue to be a Network of Peers.
Five years down the road, the YDPN will be more connected and interwoven. Youth workers from beyond the Bay Area will feel invested in its future because the agenda of the YDPN is the agenda of the worker.
Ten years down the road, the YDPN will have made enormous strides in ensuring workers rights in our field and will have advocated for livable wages, respect, benefits, career ladders, and continued learning opportunities–not only for youth development, but for other workers in similar situations.
One hundred years down the road, the YDPN will have affected systems of governance by proving that by standing shoulder to shoulder we are stronger and can be a positive change agent.
One thousand years down the road, the YDPN will no longer exist and the lines that once used to divide now are used to unite.
Ten thousand years down the road, the Earth will be in harmony and the true depth of interdependence will be realized.
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