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.