The Clare Rose Foundation, in partnership with the CYD National Partnership, is proud to host the first BOOST creative youth development workshop strand in Palm Springs, CA on May 1-3, 2019. Pursuing the goal of bringing the impact of CYD work to a broader national audience, the BOOST Conference is an opportunity to engage with over 2,500 out-of-school time providers, administrators, and professionals.
Creative Youth Development: Leading Edge Practices Fueling Youth Engagement CYD is in an unprecedented era of program innovation, cross-sector partnerships, and funding diversification. In this series of workshops, leaders from across the United States will share their pioneering work, including in CYD and social justice; new, youth-report assessment tools; initiatives supporting creative career pathways; and collaborations with sectors including health, education, and juvenile justice.
Regular registration closes March 31 and late registration closes April 15.
Attendees heard from researchers and practitioners, covering research findings as well as practical tips from their experiences implementing new programs at Wisconsin Boys & Girls Clubs. The report builds upon the 2013 “Something to Say” report from the Wallace Foundation, which outlined 10 principles of exemplary youth arts programs.
Stories of youth experiences in Creative Youth Development have tremendous potential to make a real difference in awareness and support of the CYD movement nationwide and locally.
Our national CYD network is collecting video URLs from practitioners that feature students’ voices and boldly and creatively tell their stories. Short videos will be embedded on the Creative Youth Development National Partnership website to help communicate our collective story more strategically to funders, government agencies, policy makers, organizations, artists, funders, researchers, and other stakeholders.
Submit your organization’s video URL and be included in our national story. This video directory is inclusive.
Video Guidelines
2-3 minutes average length
prominent student voice
demonstrate CYD core values of creativity, social justice, youth perspective
When: November 17 in Baltimore, Maryland Who: Young Artists and Creatives ages 13-24.
This full-day Summit, entirely designed and led by young people, provides opportunities for youth leaders, ages 13-24, from a range of artistic disciplines, to connect, create, and celebrate.
The Summit has been planned by a core team of young artists from Baltimore, San Diego, and Detroit, who are working in concert with their peers across the country to shape this incredible experience. The Summit is free to youth, but pre-registration is required. Space is limited. Lunch is provided.
This event is being hosted in concert with the 2018 Conference for Community Arts Education, a national convening which aims to ensure all people have opportunities to maximize their creative potential.
We are pleased to announce the first two video chats in our 3-part online learning series this fall. This series is being development by the CYD National Partnership’s Field Building Action Team and is designed to provide opportunities for multiple stakeholders to connect with one another to learn, collaborate, and collectively advance creative youth development.
These conversational-style webinars are free and open to the public.
Healing Centered Practices through Creative Youth Development
Wednesday, October 17
3 – 4pm EST FREE
Join us to learn about different healing centered practices and how an intentional focus on the principles of this approach: safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment, can support your CYD program outcomes.
Speakers: Shontina Vernon, Founder and Creative Director, Visionary Justice StoryLab, Seattle, WA Jana Lynne Umipig, Creative Productions, New York City
Supporting Youth-led Activism through Creative Youth Development
Thursday, October 25
3 – 4pm EST FREE
CYD programs work across sectors to engage youth in high quality arts-based programs that make a real impact in our community. To that end, youth who participate in CYD become activists. Participants both learn about social justice issues and create art work that aims to inspire and activate social change. Join us to hear from CYD program leaders who are creating opportunities for youth to use their art to make a difference
Speakers: Ebo Barton, Poet and Artist, Seattle, WA The Youth Resiliency Institute Amir, Youth Artist, and Fanon Hill, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Baltimore, MD
The CYD National Partnership is delighted to welcome Ashley Hare as CYD National Coordinator, a role she has been serving in since June. Ashley is coordinating the work of the Partnership’s three, cross-sector Action Teams which are collaborating to achieve strategic goals articulated in the CYD National Action Blueprint in areas of Funding, Visibility and Impact, and Field Building.
Ashley brings deep experience to this position, as both an arts administrator, community organizer, and CYD practitioner. Code-switching as a young, multiracial, queer, female in institutional artistic and political spaces has given Ashley years of insight to collaboratively create effective, long-term strategies towards ending injustice. Ashley has facilitated programming within shelters for homeless youth, group homes, rehabilitation facilities, juvenile detention centers, public and private schools. She is the co-founder of InSite Consultants AZ, an organization that focuses on institutional change to impact equitable outcomes, and recently served as the arts learning director for the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture. She holds an MFA in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University and a BA in Theatre and Business from Wesleyan College, Georgia. She serves as a board member for the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America.
Ashley has been serving as a member of the CYD National Action Team focused on Expanding Pathways to Funding since October 2017 and served as a facilitator during the 2017 CYD National Stakeholder Meeting in Boston. She is currently collaborating on the development of Americans for the Arts forthcoming CYD Toolkit as a literature review author.
Free and open to public; pre-registration required REGISTER
Learn how you can use the recently released Creative Youth Development (CYD) National Action Blueprint as a resource in your work to advance the role of creativity in youth development. Led by the CYD National Partnership and a cross-sector coalition, this one-hour, interactive forum is designed for CYD practitioners and alumni, funders, researchers, and allied youth sector leaders.
During the forum, we will discuss:
The CYD National Movement and Blueprint goals
How CYD aligns with the priorities of allied youth sectors, including education, juvenile justice, and afterschool
Recommendations for advancing CYD in three strategic priority areas VISIBILITY & IMPACT: Documenting and Communicating Outcomes and Impact FUNDING: Expanding Pathways to Funding FIELD BUILDING: Professional Development, Networking, and Technical Assistance
Creative youth development is a long-standing, intentional practice that integrates creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles. In these programs, young people create original work—including animated films, 3-D printed sculptures, dance and theater productions, musical compositions, curated book collections, and more—and apply their creative skills to solve problems, shape their lives, and imagine and build the world in which they want to live.
Creative Youth Development (CYD) National Blueprint outlines strategies for positive change
Mosaic Singers of Detroit, MI in concert. Photo copyright Jim West.
The Creative Youth Development National Partnership, in concert with more than 650 cross-sector stakeholders nationally, is calling for all young people to have equitable access to opportunities to: realize their creative potential; live richer, fuller lives; and develop the critical learning and life skills they need to become active contributors to their communities.
Creative youth development is a long-standing practice that integrates creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles. In these programs, young people create original work—including animated films, 3-D printed sculptures, dance and theater productions, musical compositions, curated book collections, and more—and apply their creative skills to solve problems, shape their lives, and imagine and build the world in which they want to live.
With support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the CYD National Partnership—which includes the National Guild for Community Arts Education, Americans for the Arts, the Mass Cultural Council, and formerly the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities—gathered input on strategies to expand the reach and impact of CYD through numerous community conversations throughout the country over an 18-month period.
VISIBILITY & IMPACT: Documenting and Communicating Outcomes and Impact
FUNDING: Expanding Pathways to Funding
FIELD BUILDING: Professional Development, Networking, and Technical Assistance
Woven throughout the Blueprint are core values of the CYD coalition: racial equity and social justice, youth voice, and collective action. Read the Executive Summary.
“Creative youth development has the unique potential to deepen and sustain youth engagement by providing opportunities for youth to develop their creative potential, amplify their voices, and build leadership skills,” said Jonathan Herman, Executive Director of the National Guild for Community Arts Education. “For many youth, CYD programs also can be a pathway to other services such as college and career readiness, mental health services, academic support, and more.”
Participants in this national movement include youth, practitioners, researchers, funders, policy makers, and other stakeholders in creative youth development and allied sectors. The Partnership also commissioned research by the Forum for Youth Investment that mapped opportunities for alignment, e.g. developing social emotional competence; promoting healthy decision making/behaviors; and reengaging young people in positive learning and work environments, among CYD and allied youth sectors, including afterschool, juvenile justice, mental health, education, and workforce development. Three cross-sector Action Teams were then formed to analyze and distill the research and stakeholder inputs and make final recommendations for the Blueprint.
“Providing today’s youth with the skills they need to lead fulfilling lives across all economic, social, and family circumstances is a large-scale undertaking,” said Erik Peterson, Vice President of Policy, Afterschool Alliance. “To do this urgent work effectively, we must work together to share lessons learned, networks, and resources.”
The Blueprint will evolve as implementation unfolds and will be updated online to reflect progress toward goals.
The Creative Youth Development National Partnership aims to ensure that creative youth development is a broadly-implemented, well-researched, and equitably-funded practice and available to all youth so that they may realize their full potential and thrive.
CYD National Partners include:
The National Guild for Community Arts Education, which ensures all people have opportunities to maximize their creative potential by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and advocating for community arts education. www.nationalguild.org
Americans for the Arts, which serves, advances, and leads the network of organizations and individuals who cultivate, promote, sustain, and support the arts in America. www.americansforthearts.org
Mass Cultural Council, a state agency supporting the arts, humanities, and sciences in order to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts and its communities. Over the past 20 years, Mass Cultural Council has invested more than $10 million in creative youth development, resulting in a vibrant community of programs. www.massculturalcouncil.org
All young people deserve to have equitable opportunities to reach their creative potential, live richer and fuller lives, and develop the critical life skills they need to become active contributors in their communities.
On June 14-15, join your peers from diverse communities across country for Americans for the Art’s Creative Youth Development Preconferenceand explore new paths forward for arts education during out-of-school time.
Creative Youth Development unifies a longstanding community of practice integrating the arts, humanities, and sciences with youth development principles, sparking young people’s creativity and building critical learning and life skills. At this hands-on workshop in Denver, CO, hear from inspiring youth leaders, adult practitioners, and dive deep into case studies on a range of topics from program development and evaluation to financial models of sustainability.
Attention to the role of creativity in positive youth development is growing, as evidenced by new opportunities for networking, emerging research, and a recent resolution by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. However, few opportunities exist for youth to participate meaningfully participate in national and regional forums where adults are designing programs and making policy decisions that affect young people. As the primary national convener for community arts education leaders, the National Guild’s Conference for Community Arts Education has a unique opportunity to amplify and support youth voice and leadership within the sector and deepen connections and learning between young people. In addition to a dedicated track of Creative Youth Development sessions and network meetings, this year’s conference (November 15-18 in San Francisco/Oakland) piloted an Emerging Young Artist Residency, which brought together youth, ages 16-24, and teaching artists from Destiny Arts Center (Oakland, CA), Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, and RAW Art Works (Lynn, MA) to collaboratively create an original performance piece that explored critical social issues connected to conference themes.
These young artists participated as delegates, attending conference sessions and roundtables, and then rehearsed offsite at Destiny in the afternoons. The residency culminated in a powerful performance at the Annual Awards Breakfast on Nov. 18. The impact of this experience for the youth involved—as well as for the attendees—was remarkable.
As Jai’Len Smith, a student of Mosaic Youth Theatre, put it: “This experience was truly unforgettable. I think youth are going to be vital in advancing the arts, their communities, and social change more broadly . . . When they’re put in positions and on platforms where they’re able to voice their concerns as well as their desires and be something like a spokesperson for their communities and their generation as a whole, I believe they will be more impactful than any of us can imagine.”
When: November 17 in Baltimore, Maryland
All young people deserve to have equitable opportunities to reach their creative potential, live richer and fuller lives, and develop the critical life skills they need to become active contributors in their communities.
Attention to the role of creativity in positive youth development is growing, as evidenced by new opportunities for networking, emerging research, and a recent