13: Putting It Into Action

The Ecosystem of Youth Leadership Development has many parts. Creating a program that lifts up the voices of youth in your community can feel overwhelming. Throughout this book, I have discussed how some programs can unintentionally harm youth through their leadership development efforts. However, this is not all the programs. There are organizations that successfully meet the skills and educational standards outlined by both me and the co-researchers-practitioners in this study. These organizations take an ecosystem approach, relying on relationships, values, staff, youth, and shared resources.

In this chapter, I highlight two organizations I know well. The first is Honeycomb, a Jewish youth philanthropy organization that supports youth initiatives worldwide. I've been involved with Honeycomb since 2016, helping with curriculum development and program implementation in various cities in the United States. The second organization is Tree House Books, a literacy nonprofit in Philadelphia. I first connected with Tree House Books in 2018 when they supported a youth initiative I was leading. Both organizations, while serving different missions and communities, focus on centering teen experiences and voices in youth leadership development, both connecting young people to their communities and providing spaces for them to grow. These two organizations were chosen as examples of effective programs because of their strong support for young people and their ecosystem approach.