partnership: Older and younger people working together around a table

Opinion: Here’s How to Make Youth-adult Partnership Work

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How different would today look if people most affected by decisions held equal power in making those decisions? 

If public health decision-makers included Black, Indigenous and Latinx patients who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and suffer the effects of racially biased health care? If police accountability review boards, prosecutor’s offices and elected city leaders had actual power over law enforcement activities and included the Black, Indigenous and transgender people most affected by overpolicing, police violence and the prison industrial complex? If economic policy was set in partnership with hourly, tipped, domestic and essential workers who drive so much of the economy? 
If students, especially Black and Indigenous students and students with differing ranges of intellectual and physical abilities, partnered in education policy and planning? The vision arising from these questions pushes past those in power today “reaching out” to engage the community. Rather, the vision upends traditional decision-making structures and positions everyone who will be impacted by a decision as equal partners in power, accountability and value.

Young blonde woman wearing yellow hat against orange wall background

Partnership Work By RFK National Resource Center Ramps Up in Seattle and Minneapolis

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The Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice convened critically important virtual conferences with juvenile justice leaders and practitioners in late June to start in King County (Seattle) and advance in Hennepin County (Minneapolis) our collaborative partnerships to address youth justice transformation on behalf of the youth and communities in those jurisdictions. Among other positive outcomes, these partnerships will provide excellent opportunities to measurably affect the over-representation of minority children and youth through real policy, practice and systemic change. During the pandemic, we have initiated or continued our dynamic, field-based, system transformation partnerships with 15 additional state or county jurisdictions across the United States and the territory of Guam — and we are making a real difference on behalf of youth, families and their communities. These include: Milwaukee County, Wis.; Cobb County, Ga.; Dutchess County, N.Y.; Clark County, Nev. (Las Vegas); and, Lancaster County, Neb.

California Partnerships Helping Reduce Gun Violence, Incarceration

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California has comprehensively strengthened its gun safety laws over the past 25 years and is now generally considered to have the strongest gun safety laws in the nation. Giffords Law Center, which evaluates the strength of state gun laws, affords California the top rank on its Annual Gun Law Scorecard. These legislative changes have been associated with significant declines in overall gun deaths and homicides at the state level.