TIME
FOR A CHILDREN'S MOVEMENT
Wingspread Journal, Winter 1997
14 ACTION POINTS FOR GETTING
YOUTH INVOLVED
Youth on Board offers the following 14 guidelines
for getting--and keeping--youth board members.
1. Know why - Before you start, check your
motivation. It's fine to want young people to have
leadership opportunities, but that's not a good enough
reason on its own. You need to see young people as
partners in decision making.
2. Be committed - Make sure your board--and
staff--are committed to taking time to do extra training,
mentoring, and processing.
3. Recruit - Young people aren't lining up
for board positions, so you will need to conduct a
thoughtful and thorough recruitment process. That
means looking beyond the local high school's student
council president to other youth who may not be "A"
students, but may have the experience and motivation
to be big contributors.
4. Use interviews & signed letters of agreement
- To ensure that your new board members understand
the expectations of board participation, and to make
it clear that the board and the board members have
chosen each other, be sure to have an interview process
and a signed letter of agreement.
5. Settle in - Be thorough in orienting the
new board members to the board and to your organization's
structures and policies. Assessing the contributions
of new board members will give you an idea of their
skills and help them feel more involved.
6. Train the board - Your other board members
need just as much training as the new youth members,
especially on intergenerational relationships and
diversity issues. It's important to commit one board
meeting per year to this training, as well as five
to 10 minutes at each board meeting.
7. Institutionalize youth membership - To
make youth board membership an ongoing practice, amend
bylaws and policies to state that young people will
be permanently included on the board. Follow up with
rapid and thoughtful replacement of youth board members
when their service has ended.
8. Be interactive - Add interactive structures
to board meetings--small-group discussions, working
in pairs, brainstorming exercises--to ensure that
everyone has a voice in board processes.
9. Mentor - Youth board members need time
to prepare for the meeting and to evaluate and discuss
it afterwards. Board or staff members should meet
with the young people as part of a formal or informal
mentoring program.
10. Maintain contact - Each month, young
people should have contact with the executive director
and/or board chairs to maintain communication and
to ensure that the young people are included in the
informal conversations and business which take place
between meetings.
11. Let youth lead - Young people should
be given visible leadership positions on the board--isn't
that why you want them on the board in the first place?
12. Help youth network - Networking pays
off for adults, why not for youth too? Set up systems
and situations for young people to build teams with
one another, preferably across disciplines. If there
are other youth board members in your area, bring
them together to discuss their jobs.
13. Help board network - Networking pays
off for youth, why not for adults too? Set up systems
and situations for executive directors and board chairs
to build teams. If there are other organizations with
youth board members in your area, bring the executive
directors together to discuss successes and struggles.
14. Offer support - Be thoughtful about the
special considerations and support that are necessary
when involving young people. They may need rides to
meetings, or meetings may need to be scheduled to
accommodate school hours.
These guidelines are reprinted from Youth Governance:
14 Points to Involving Young People Successfully on
Boards of Directors. Published by Youth on Board,
it contains practical tools for involving youth, from
suggestions on how to find youth board members to
detailed mentoring guides.
Copies are available for $12 each (includes shipping
and handling) from: Youth on Board, 58 Day Street,
Third Floor, Somerville, Mass. 02144.
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