Youth on Board

Organization Description

In an effort to encourage a world where young people are respected as active members of their communities, Youth on Board works to:

• Change attitudes and strengthen relationships among young people, and between young people and adults;
• Support young people to be an active force for change in all aspects of their lives; and
• Ensure that policies, practices, and laws reflect young people's role as full and valued members of their communities.

The Youth on Board organization offers consulting and coaching services to large and small institutions that believe in the power of youth voice and want to help young people move from the margins of their communities into the center. Using a unique approach that emphasizes strong relationships as the basis for meaningful change, the organization provides trainings, designs programs and curricula, develops policy, and publishes resources that help other organizations build youth voice into their operations and infrastructure.

Youth on Board’s work begins with an organizational assessment consultation to help clearly identify goals, resources, and barriers. Based on their assessment, they then tailor an individualized and realistic work plan to get behind young people as they move to the center of the client’s community.

Youth on Board stresses that the key to meaningful change is building mutually respectful relationships, and that once these mutually respectful relationships are built, attitudes will shift, people will discover new ways of working together and become increasingly invested in the process of change. When everyone is committed, Youth on Board asserts that the institution will reach a "tipping point" where youth voice becomes an accepted, supported, and permanent part of its structure.