Young people play, learn, and grow across the many settings and systems that you help lead: afterschool and out-of-school time programs, community centers, libraries, athletic programs and more. Policymakers and practice leaders suggest youth-serving professionals and volunteers play an integral role in supporting youth to thrive. Yet, there is little collective information about this essential workforce.
Search Institute is joining forces with the ‘Power of Us’ initiative to ensure the voice of youth-serving professionals and volunteers is heard by providing the opportunity to contribute to a national effort to explore, define, and elevate their work with youth.
“At Search Institute, we collaborate with partners to conduct and apply research that promotes positive youth development and advances equity. The outcome of our work focuses on supporting youth-serving practitioners as they help young people succeed and thrive,” says Ben Houltberg, Search Institute President & CEO, and Youth Fields Study Expert Advisory Member. “By better understanding this essential workforce’s experiences we can do more collectively to support them in their work.”
Youth-serving professionals and volunteers are invited to participate in the Power of Us Workforce Survey—a first of its kind study that seeks to know and understand more about the experiences of and pathways into the youth fields workforce. The data from the survey can help to inform policy, practice, and further research to better support the workforce. The Power of Us wants to better understand those who are still in these roles as well as those who left, in an effort to explore, define, and elevate this collective workforce and their work with youth. The survey is open to those who work with youth in any capacity outside of the regular school day in the last five years. This includes both paid staff and volunteers.
The Power of Us Workforce Survey is administered by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and it is part of a larger Youth Fields Study, which was commissioned and funded by The Wallace Foundation as part of its mission to support and share effective ideas and practices.
Make your voice heard and take the survey today!