DC TRUST Guide 1023 - Children & Youth Investment Trust ...

2. Program develops and provides opportunities for service learning and community
contribution.
a. Young people’s projects connect to the community at large (e.g. forums, councils,
newsletters and magazines, petitions, radio shows, panels, workshops, committees).
b. Young people’s projects are based both on community need and their own interests.
c. Service learning projects include opportunities for implementing diverse skills such as
research, needs assessment, interviewing, taking surveys, youth mapping and evaluation.
d. Staff and participants work together to create service-learning opportunities with the
needed planning, resources, relationships and reflection to be successful.
3. Program ensures that young people receive encouragement and
acknowledgement for the community contributions that they make.
a. Program staff documents the process and product of young people’s contributions to the
community.
b. Program schedules both annual and summer events for the recognition of young people’s
contributions to the community and invites families, teachers and community members.
c. Staff develops a youth recognition strategy that is tied to ongoing development activities.
d. Program communicates young people’s civic accomplishments in venues that are
accessible to the general public (e.g. ceremonies, newsletters, news stories, nominations).
4. As appropriate for their ages, program introduces young people to the structures
and systems that affect their community and how to navigate them.
a. Program provides young people with training around self-advocacy (e.g. voting, talking
to teachers, applying for summer jobs, family discussions, exercising their rights within
their communities and schools, standing up for their civil liberties).
b. Program provides access to information on protocols for self-advocacy.
c. Program provides opportunities for young people to practice self-advocacy.
5. Civic education, leadership development and citizenship activities link to issues
of race, ethnicity, economics and gender.
a. Program examines the need for and history of civil rights movements, both past and present.
b. Program staff does not model cultural assumptions and actively identifies and challenges
stereotypes in gender, ethnicity, race, age, religion, economic status and sexual preference.
c. Program draws connections between different kinds of discrimination and intolerance
past and present, at home and abroad and examines factors that contribute to them.
d. As appropriate, programs explore strategies for bridging the gaps that exist between races,
genders, ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations.
e. Program gives young people the services and supports to be able to address issues of
unfairness and intolerance in an atmosphere of safety.
f. While valuing individual and group identity, program also works to help its young people
identify common ground.
g. Program addresses the power of language in discrimination and unification.
h. Program helps young people examine the factors that contribute to discrimination and
intolerance.
Field Guide to OST Best Practices / Opportunities for Engaging Parents and Contributing to the Community / 33