Authentic Youth Engagement Starts With Recognizing Firsthand Experience as Expertise

Authen­tic youth engage­ment requires more than giv­ing young peo­ple a seat at the table. It means rec­og­niz­ing young peo­ple’s expe­ri­ence as exper­tise and act­ing on their insights and ideas for pol­i­cy and prac­tice change. For 25 years, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^® has deeply invest­ed in part­ner­ing with young peo­ple with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence, help­ing them build skills, rela­tion­ships and influ­ence over deci­sions that affect their lives. A recent Com­mu­ni­ty In-Site pod­cast episode explores what this looks like in practice.

In the episode, host Valerie Frost speaks with Blan­ca Goetz, a Jim Casey Fel­low and youth advo­cate, and Kath­leen Holt-Whyte, a senior youth engage­ment con­sul­tant with Cetera Inc. Both helped devel­op the Ele­vat­ing Youth Engage­ment (EYE) train­ing cur­ricu­lum, a free train­ing series cre­at­ed by the Casey Foun­da­tion and Cetera. The cur­ricu­lum helps adult part­ners with­in pub­lic child wel­fare sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions build strong part­ner­ships with young peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced fos­ter care.

In the episode, they high­light a key shift: treat­ing first-hand expe­ri­ence as its own form of cred­i­bil­i­ty — not just sup­ple­ment to pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise. Exper­tise is often defined by cre­den­tials and tenure. The EYE train­ing cur­ricu­lum empha­sizes that knowl­edge gained from nav­i­gat­ing sys­tems is equal­ly valu­able and can help to iden­ti­fy gaps in prac­tice, pol­i­cy and pro­grams and also improve deci­sion making.

Lis­ten to the episode 

Goetz and Holt-Whyte empha­size that rec­og­niz­ing first­hand expe­ri­ence as exper­tise is only the start­ing point. Orga­ni­za­tions must also cre­ate con­di­tions that enable young peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly through flex­i­bil­i­ty, clear roles and the finan­cial, emo­tion­al and prac­ti­cal sup­port need­ed to show up and con­tribute that expertise.

Clar­i­ty is a crit­i­cal part of that sup­port. Trans­paren­cy is need­ed from adult part­ners, so that young peo­ple can be clear about their role, how their input will be used and how they can influ­ence deci­sions. One tool in the EYE train­ing cur­ricu­lum, the Spec­trum of Youth Par­tic­i­pa­tion, helps orga­ni­za­tions iden­ti­fy how they cur­rent­ly engage young peo­ple, from sur­face-lev­el involve­ment to shared deci­sion mak­ing and youth-led action.

The EYE train­ing cur­ricu­lum also pro­vides guid­ance for sup­port­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion at every stage. It fea­tures a check­list that helps adults pre­pare young peo­ple in advance, sup­port them dur­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and fol­low up after­ward, with steps such as set­ting expec­ta­tions, arrang­ing com­pen­sa­tion and trav­el to and from an event, prac­tic­ing key mes­sages and debrief­ing after the experience.

Co-designed and test­ed by young peo­ple with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence, includ­ing Jim Casey Fel­lows, EYE draws on more than two decades of learn­ing from the Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive and its nation­al net­work. Young peo­ple were involved through­out devel­op­ment, test­ing and revi­sion, not just at the begin­ning or asked to val­i­date a fin­ished prod­uct. The result is a ​“how-to” guide reflect­ing what young peo­ple say they need to effec­tive­ly share their ideas for how to improve out­comes for their peers.

Across the coun­try, sys­tem lead­ers, youth-serv­ing orga­ni­za­tions and young lead­ers are putting the EYE train­ing cur­ricu­lum into prac­tice. For exam­ple, it’s inte­grat­ed into the Foundation’s Youth Lead­er­ship Insti­tute, where young lead­ers asso­ci­at­ed with the Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive build data-informed advo­ca­cy skills, increase their under­stand­ing of how sys­tems change and learn how to share their sto­ries safe­ly and effec­tive­ly. The EYE cur­ricu­lum is also being used by munic­i­pal­i­ties and ini­tia­tives across the coun­try, includ­ing the 16 Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive part­ner sites and with­in the Thriv­ing Fam­i­lies, Safer Chil­dren ini­tia­tive, a nation­al part­ner­ship focused on advanc­ing com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven solu­tions that strength­en fam­i­lies and reduce the need for child wel­fare involvement.

rEAD MORE: Train­ing Strength­ens Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Youth Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Sys­tems Change