Ten years of PYD-centered activities and research through YouthPower Learning and YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation led to the development of hundreds of resources, program tools, and multimedia products to educate and equip the youth development community. Each resource was created with a focus on building young people’s skills, assets, and competencies; fostering healthy relationships; strengthening enabling environments; and transforming systems. As an introduction to our library of resources, we narrowed down the Top 10 resources positive youth development champions will want to download and apply in their work. These resources range across a variety of sectors and modes ensuring there is something for everyone from agriculture to mental health and from toolkits to podcasts. Scroll down to find your favorite.
Resources:
Integrating Mental Health and Psychosocial Support into Youth Programming: A Toolkit
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Marginalized and Underrepresented Groups Toolkit
Toolkit for Youth Inclusion in Democracy Human Rights and Governance
Youth and Gender Analysis Toolkit: Tools for Economic Growth Activities
Positive Youth Development Starter Toolkit
Dos and Don’ts of Meaningful and Inclusive Partnership with Youth - CECA Care Leaders Council
Feed the Future Project Design Guide for Youth-Inclusive Agriculture And Food Systems Volume I - Project Design and Volume II - Implementation
Volume I of the guide is intended to support Feed the Future staff (USAID Missions and others) to design youth-inclusive programs based on the USAID project design cycle that promote meaningful youth engagement with the U.S. Feed the Future Initiative and the U.S. Government Global Food Security Strategy, as well as agriculture and food systems more generally.
Volume II of the guide offers implementation guidance for activity-level interventions, intended for USAID staff and implementers who may be managing activities and/or who are seeking information about youth-inclusive approaches to implementation in Feed the Future activities.
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Integrating Mental Health and Psychosocial Support into Youth Programming: A Toolkit
This Toolkit, developed under YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation, is a reference for USAID field and headquarters staff, as well as national and international partners involved in designing, managing, and evaluating MHPSS programming and strategies for youth.
The Toolkit includes resources used in both development and humanitarian contexts. It helps you select the right tool(s) given your implementing context and project time frame, as well as the needs of the target population, which should always drive the selection of MHPSS interventions, services, and activities. This Toolkit provides helpful guidance, tips, and resources on where to start and how to program effectively.
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Marginalized and Underrepresented Groups Toolkit
This toolkit supports the implementation of USAID’s YouthPower toolkit the Youth MHPSS Toolkit by focusing on what is needed to make sure marginalized and underrepresented youth communities are able to access quality MHPSS programs that are responsive to their stated mental health needs and culturally and contextually relevant. The Youth MHPSS Toolkit explores ways USAID programs can support marginalized and underrepresented communities with mental health or psychosocial needs in countries where USAID is present, including conflict-affected areas. USAID can achieve inclusive development by making sure we address mental health needs, especially as we work to advance programming for marginalized and underrepresented communities. The toolkit was developed with the USAID Program Cycle in mind and helps provide recommendations for implementing partners and USAID staff.
Toolkit for Youth Inclusion in Democracy Human Rights and Governance
This online toolkit offers considerations for designing, managing, and evaluating DRG-related programs. This toolkit contains 10 modules on integrating youth effectively into ten DRG sub-sectors:
- Civil Society
- Human Rights
- Rule of Law and Justice
- Legislative Strengthening
- Local Governance and Devolution
- Political Party Development
- Electoral Processes
- Anti-Corruption Accountability
- Reconciliation, Peacebuilding, and Transitional Justice
- Media, Information, and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
Youth and Gender Analysis Toolkit: Tools for Economic Growth Activities
This toolkit provides effective tips and links to tools for youth program implementers and USAID staff to apply when carrying out gender- and/or youth-focused analysis during the start-up phases for:
(a) Youth-specific economic-growth programming targeting female youth or male and female youth, and;
(b) Youth-inclusive economic-growth programming targeting beneficiaries of different ages, including female youth or male and female youth.
(c) The purpose of this toolkit is not to provide guidance on how to carry out an analysis, but to provide examples of best practices and links to tools that IPs can apply to ensure that information about young women’s needs, interests, challenges, and opportunities are adequately captured during the analysis process.
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Youth Center Toolkit
Many effective youth programs center around public safe spaces where youth can share ideas, learn new skills, and have constructive use of their non-school or work time. Having a safe space gives youth an opportunity to connect with others who are facing similar experiences and challenges. As a consequence, safe spaces can promote healing, empowerment, and resilience. These programs provide a set time and place for youth to engage with each other and in activities that range from education to sports to civic engagement. USAID is committed to developing resources that help youth in their Positive Youth Development (PYD) journey. To learn more about PYD, please see, What is Positive Youth Development or “PYD”?
Garnered from global research, this toolkit provides resources and examples of constructive youth safe spaces (YSS), including after-school programs (ASP) and youth centers (YC). These are collectively referred to as YSS/YC/ASPs throughout this toolkit.
Positive Youth Development Starter Toolkit
This Positive Youth Development Starter Toolkit connects you to key resources for assessment and design, measurement, and learning. It also highlights ways that projects oftentimes foster youth engagement and different resources to help ensure your project is mindful of youth alongside other aspects of gender and social inclusion.
Positive Youth Development (PYD) is both a philosophy and a programmatic approach, across all sectors, to support healthy, productive, and engaged youth as they grow into adulthood.
How do I apply a positive youth development approach?
- Access the most popular and useful resources to learn about PYD
- Find tools to assess your context and design a project incorporating PYD
- Engage youth intentionally and support their leadership using different models
- Find tools to examine and improve how your program supports equitable outcomes for all youth
Dos and Don’ts of Meaningful and Inclusive Partnership with Youth - CECA Care Leaders Council
In 2022, Care Leaders Council members met to discuss the following question:
How do we, as care leavers and young leaders, define what is meaningful and inclusive engagement with youth (who lead or are part of) programs aimed at advocating for and supporting care leaver populations?
Care Leaders Council members shared examples of both good and bad partnership practices that they have experienced or observed in their work or country context, in addition to defining what makes for a good partnership between youth and organizations/funders (e.g., USAID, GiZ, international NGOs).
The following guidance was created to inform approaches to partnering with youth and with care leaver populations. The Care Leaders put together their idea of meaningful and inclusive partnership.
Positive Youth Development Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Conceptual Framework and Review of Efficacy
Positive youth development (PYD) has served as a framework for youth programs in high-income countries since the 1990s and has demonstrated broad behavioral health and developmental benefits. PYD programs build skills, assets, and competencies; foster youth agency; build healthy relationships; strengthen the environment; and transform systems to prepare youth for successful adulthood. The goal of this article was to systematically review the impact of PYD programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The PYD Lab Podcast
The PYD Lab is the podcast for implementers and young leaders who want to examine innovative approaches to Positive Youth Development and hear stories of young people leading change in their communities.
The bi-monthly podcast features changemakers working on youth-related projects around the globe. Each episode includes three new PYD resource recommendations:
A Published reading source recommended on a youth development-related topic (book, article, report).
A resource authored by or a project gaining traction led by a Young leader.
A Disruptive, innovative idea or resource that does or will tackle a youth-related challenge.
Bonus Resource: The Forthcoming PYD MERL Practitioner Toolkit
The Forthcoming PYD MERL Practitioner Toolkit will provide updated, comprehensive, guidance on how to embed PYD at all stages of MERL. The toolkit will build on the content of the PYD Measurement Toolkit and incorporate key strategies on prioritizing localization, research ethics, inclusion, and youth-led approaches in MERL processes.