Promoting youth participation in communities through youth master planning

Abstract

A number of communities across the United States are creating visionary documents called youth master plans (YMPs) to promote youth participation and to focus on youth needs. This article presents an analysis of 38 YMPs from communities across the United States. This multiple-methods research included a questionnaire, interviews, and an extensive document analysis. Four key YMP ingredients, which enable youth participation were revealed: valuing youth voice through an asset-based approach; providing specific and meaningful participation opportunities for youth in both everyday life and community governance; the presence of a community champion alongside the collaboration of multiple entities within a community; and specific implementation strategies to ensure participation occurs in meaningful ways. Recommendations for YMP improvement and suggestions for future research are also presented.

Keywords:

• youth master plan
• urban planning
• youth
• children
• participation

Notes

1. The research presented in this article was conducted by the author as partial completion of a PhD and was completed in 2010.

2. It should be noted that for some communities, the YMP document did not include a detailed description of their creation process so there could be communities in addition to the 21 that also involved youth in that process.