Building effective community partnerships for youth development:: Lessons learned from ACT for youth

Assets Coming Together (ACT) for Youth is a community-based, public health youth development (YD) initiative across New York State. Diverse community partnerships and a wide range of community settings have participated in this statewide effort, providing a rich laboratory to study effective partnership development. Based on the experience of the first 6 years of ACT for Youth, this report discusses lessons learned in partnership development in ACT for Youth with attention to the most effective partnerships. The most effective partnerships were differentiated by their ability to accomplish four tasks: (1) clearly define the purpose and vision of the initiative, (2) establish a community development partnership organizational structure and membership, (3) develop collaborative work processes, and (4) create sustained momentum. These elements will receive close attention in future YD efforts in New York State, and should be used to inform YD efforts in other states or communities.