Tools & Resources

Youth Collaboration Toolkit

The Youth Collaboration Toolkit is a comprehensive guide for communities looking to deepen their relationship with young leaders with lived experience of homelessness. Originally adapted for A Way Home Washington, these resources are designed for use by any community or CoC looking to strengthen their youth-led initiatives. It is designed to help communities move toward a model of shared power, offering a roadmap to elevate youth voices from participants to true partners. This resource compiles best practices, field-tested tools, and lessons learned across the country to support the development and sustainability of local Youth Action Boards (YABs) rooted in authentic, equitable collaboration.

The Youth Collaboration Toolkit includes the following components:

• Defining a YAB: An overview of Youth Action Boards and their role in local decision-making.
• Authentic Collaboration: Strategies for shifting power and building meaningful partnerships with youth leaders.
• Recruitment & Engagement: Tactics for recruiting, onboarding, and maintaining active youth participation.
• Equitable Compensation: Best practices for budgeting and navigating the logistics of paying youth for their expertise.
• Structure & Governance: Guidance on leadership models and establishing clear, youth-led decision-making processes.
• Addressing Adultism: Tools to identify and overcome systemic biases that can hinder effective youth-adult partnerships.

How to Use this Toolkit

The Youth Collaboration Toolkit is designed to be a flexible, living resource rather than a traditional manual. Every community is at a different stage in their partnership journey. This guide is built to be navigated based on your current priorities. This applies whether you are launching a new Youth Action Board from scratch or looking to strengthen an existing one.

• Determine what stage of YAB development your community is in.
• Jump to relevant modules. Each section is self-contained. Use the internal links to jump directly to templates or guidance you need most.
• Adapt any materials to fit your local context with the input of your community’s youth leaders.
• Share this toolkit with both youth and adult partners to establish a common language for your planning sessions and workshops.