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The Challenge of Change provides not only lessons for not-for-profit leadership, but a core philosophy for everyone involved.

To order this book, please call Angela Pelliccia at 212-949-4922 or email her at angelap@childrensaidsociety.org.

When something occurs once, it’s a phenomenon; twice, it’s a pattern; three times, a definite trend. Well, three times in as many weeks, I have participated in meetings at which someone has asked “Whatever happened to youth development? You really don’t hear much about it any more.” One of the questioners observed that youth development “used to be sexy” (really?) and another noted wistfully that funders “used to throw money at it” (how did I miss that?).

A hot topic in the world of after-school and youth development programs is their role in promoting young people’s academic success. Often missing from this discussion is any sense that there are multiple approaches to integrating academic content into out-of-school time (OST) programs. These approaches – there are at least three – can all be valid if they’re applied appropriately and delivered effectively.

The field of youth development faces major challenges in creating and sustaining our work force. Long treated as a component of our work that was “nice but not necessary,” professional development – the process of attracting, training and supporting youth workers – has undergone important changes over the past 15 years.

But those changes have been insufficient.

While the recent presidential election generated much heated discussion about the institution of marriage, the youth work field has quietly harnessed energy around the issue of institutional marriage: new kinds of committed, long-term partnerships that are changing education and youth development practice across the country.

Here’s a fact that may not have yet crossed the radar screen of most youth workers: America is involved in a major wave of new school construction – by most accounts, the largest in recent memory. This building boom creates a strategic opportunity for youth organizations to craft what researcher Milbrey McLaughlin calls “new institutional arrangements.”