Youth-adult partnerships: Entering new territory in community work and research.

This article was one of the first to conceptualize youth-adult partnership as a core practice for promoting positive youth development.  This article identifies the (a) key principles and values that underlie Y-AP, (b) the skills and competencies that are required of adults to partner with young people, and (c) the fundamental strategies and contexts that promote effective collective action.  Examples are drawn from 15 community initiatives and organizations.

From periphery to center: Pathways for youth civic engagement in the day-to-day life of communities.

In this second article, Linda Camino analyzes the pathways and settings that are most conducive to effective youth-adult partnership.  Her analysis focuses specifically on public policy settings, community coalitions, organizational decision making, youth organizing, and service learning.  The analysis also addresses the conditions that allow adults to remove barriers to youth-adult partnership.

Pitfalls and promising practices of youth-adult partnership: An evaluator’s reflections

In Dr. Camino’s third article, she reflects on her technical assistance to youth organizations over the past decade.  She focuses on the false assumptions and other pitfalls that minimize the effectiveness of youth adult partnerships.  Quite often adults distance themselves under the assumptions that “adults need to get out of the way,” or “youth need to have all of the power.”  While these assumptions may reflect good intentions, they lead to poor youth-adult partnerships.  The article describes a variety of strategies for overcoming the obstecles to high quality partnership.