The Community Network for Youth Development (CNYD) has served the Bay Area for the past twelve years as a youth development intermediary organization. In this role, CNYD offers support, training and capacity building resources to youth-serving organizations and programs. We strive to strengthen programs and services for youth by providing workers and organizations with a practical link to research being done in the field. We also provide a forum for communication between funders and policy-makers and the people and agencies doing the daily work with young people. Finally, we provide an arena for discussion and sharing among the entire youth development community so that policy decisions can be made with a wider perspective and resources can be used efficiently and wisely.

In an effort to increase the impact of our work, CNYD also works as a youth development catalyst in large, youth-serving organizations locally, in communities outside the Bay Area and in large, youth-focused initiatives. By sharing our know-how with organizations like the YMCA of the Bay Area and the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco, we provide a way for these organizations to integrate the youth development approach as an ongoing part of their staff development efforts. By working with intermediary organizations outside the Bay Area, such as the Youth Services Providers Network in Sacramento, we provide resources that allow them to build the capacity of their own communities and strengthen their local youth-serving organizations. At the statewide level, we work with the California After School Partnership (CASP) to develop training resources and provide support and training to the youth workers associated with over 271 sites or Regional Learning Centers throughout California.

All our work both locally and outside the Bay Area reflects the values at the core of CNYD's purpose: to support high-quality, youth-centered organizations and programs firmly based in the developmental needs of young people. The three major areas of CNYD's programs are described below: Community Capacity Building, Partnerships that Transfer CNYD's Know-How, and Educating and Influencing Policy and Funding Decision-makers.

Community Capacity Building
Partnerships that Transfer CNYD's Know-how
Educating and Influencing Policy and Funding Decision-makers

Community Capacity Building

Since CNYD's founding, professional development for youth workers and community-based youth-serving organizations in the Bay Area has been at the heart of our work. We have created a rich array of training and capacity-building resources to support youth workers and organizational leaders. These range from intensive, long-term learning experiences to one-day workshops and speakers' forums.

The Youth Development Learning Network is an intensive, four-month learning process during which youth workers, agency leaders, and private and public funders examine what it takes to create quality youth development experiences. The Learning Network provides participants with:

• a common grounding in youth development practice
  
• an understanding of the youth development framework as a means of evaluating their own practice
  
• forum for exchange and reflection
  
• an opportunity to develop improvement strategies

Each Learning Network consists of ten sessions with two staff members participating from each of 15-20 agencies. Participants deepen their understanding of and commitment to youth development vision, values, and practices. By broadening their skills and sharing knowledge, participants enhance their ability to build safe and caring environments that encourage the healthy development of young people.

Youth Development Learning Network

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WORKSHOPS AND SPEAKER'S FORUMS

CNYD provides a range of training workshops throughout the year for youth workers and youth-serving organizations to strengthen and deepen their skills. CNYD's core skills workshops offer practitioners the opportunity to build specific skills, such as promoting youth participation and leadership, group management, using positive discipline, and creating an environment of mutual respect and increased personal safety in programs serving culturally diverse participants. We also offer coaching support following each of our training workshops to help participants apply the skills and knowledge they have gained to their own programs.

Several times a year, CNYD invites members of the youth development community to come together and hear a cutting-edge presentation by a researcher, exceptional youth worker, young person or community leader as part of the CNYD Speaker's Forum series. Following each presentation, lively dialogue ensues as the community analyzes, challenges and learns about different approaches and perspectives on working with youth.

Workshops
Speaker's Forums

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CONSULTING SERVICES

CNYD's dynamic and experienced staff trainers work with individual youth serving agencies to strengthen their youth development practices on-site. We tailor training processes, coaching and presentations to each organization's specific needs. We focus on areas of concern to each organization and develop improvement strategies, assist in implementing those strategies and assess the impact they are having. Our consulting services have assisted organizations in a wide variety of areas, including implementing the youth development approach in different contexts, promoting youth participation and community involvement, increasing cultural competency, and improving facilitation skills.

Consulting

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Partnerships that Transfer CNYD's Know-how

CNYD has developed unique and effective tools for supporting and strengthening the youth development field. These tools connect a research-based youth development framework to program and organizational improvement which is then linked to program evaluation and accountability. We have begun to extend the reach and impact of our work by partnering with large, youth-serving organizations, other intermediary organizations and with large scale initiatives to transfer our know-how. We have chosen to take a "partner and transfer" approach instead of becoming a distance training institute because we believe that capacity-building resources need to be locally-based and available to provide ongoing assistance within a community.

For more detail information about this aspect of our work, please use the link below.

Partnerships

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Educating and Influencing Policy and Funding Decision-makers

CNYD also works at a broader level to educate and influence policymakers and funders to support youth development work. CNYD plays an important role as an intermediary agency, bringing policy resources to practitioners in the field and bringing the practitioner experience and viewpoint to inform policy making.

By creating educational tools, presentation resources and briefing papers, we assist professionals in the youth development field to have their voices heard by decision-makers and by their colleagues. Our Speaker's Forums and Youth Development Learning Network bring together diverse groups of people, including youth workers, organization leaders, funders and policy-makers, to share their perspectives and develop new approaches. Through our efforts to strengthen advocacy and community-based organizations and by partnering with high-profile youth initiatives, we create opportunities to demonstrate the effectiveness of the youth development approach.

Youth Development Learning Network
Resources
Speaker's Forums

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