Rachel Antrobus has been the Director of the Transitional Youth Programs at the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth & Their Families since January 2008, where she works to implement the Mayor's Transitional Youth Task Force. She has expertise in coordinating a coalition of youth service providers, both nonprofit and government-funded, towards catalyzing change in youth leadership, system development and interagency collaborations. Prior to coming to DCYF, Rachel was the director of the San Francisco Youth Commission for over two years.
Diana Pang is currently the Program Coordinator for the San Francisco Youth Commission. She was a Youth Commissioner from 2005-06 and is a graduate of Marshall High School in San Francisco as well as the University of California, Berkeley.
Deep within all communities, young people are the seeds for social change. Youth commissions (or councils, advisory boards, and other formal decision-making bodies) were created and have been steadily rising in number since the 1990s, when youth work departed from viewing young people as deficits to seeing them as assets for change. Their experiences, passion and ability to see beyond the constructs that limit adults make them ideal catalysts for policy-making. Many cities and counties have subsequently adopted the guiding principal that youth must be meaningfully engaged as a viable entity to spur sustainable political impacts. Youth commissions are a powerful resource, but are only as powerful as the communities from where young people's leadership is nurtured and grown. The City and County of San Francisco's Youth Commission has born great fruit-in both policy and community change and in personal transformation.
The following paper aims to highlight the San Francisco Youth Commission as a case study of one of many successful youth advisory bodies. This resource is presented in a practitioner-friendly format in an effort to exchange with readers, especially with other youth commission staff across the nation, on ways of securing and implementing effective councils in their own cities, given each city's social and political parameters. In the past two years, staff provided countless hours of consultation, and fielded questions regarding the formation, daily operations, strengths and challenges of San Francisco's civic youth engagement work. Hopefully, this publication can deepen the analysis of youth inclusion in practice and serve as a useful application that can inspire new or different approaches in the growing field.
ROOTS: Its Unique History
The San Francisco Youth Commission is often studied and referenced, as it became the first city-chartered youth council in the United States in 1995. A city-chartered amendment to create any city-advisory body is an effective model to secure permanency and stability; its passage, by way of a ballot initiative passed by the majority of voters, ensures its existence under the city's Constitution, regardless of a change in political administration or budget shortfalls that may threaten the continuation of ad-hoc bodies and pet projects.
The road to establishing the first city-chartered commission was fraught with challenges and the lessons learned can be extracted and optimized for those who are seeking to create a sustainable, long-term youth council. San Francisco also contains its own unique set of protectorate factors that ensure broad youth inclusion. The early history of San Francisco's momentum is quite particular to the region, as the City's politics demands greater public transparency and enable more forward-thinking policies.
Beginning in 1991, interns from the Mayor's Office convened to discuss policy issues, providing the Mayor's Office with the groundwork for bringing forth an informal youth voice. Concurrently, youth advocates city-wide won a major victory in November 1991 when voters passed the Children's Amendment to establish the Children's Fund, whereupon three cents of every hundred dollars of property tax collected would be allocated for children's' services. This decisive win is regarded as a national model to secure a permanent revenue stream for youth services, generating approximately $40 million in the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Shortly thereafter, then Mayor Willie Brown created the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families (DCYF), a city department dedicated wholly to funding grants and initiatives for children and youth services 0-17 years of age.1
The 1991 victories set the tone for the creation of a Youth Commission four years later. There were, however, initial setbacks. In early 1995, a community-organizing coalition pressured the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city's legislative body, to create the Youth Commission. Sponsored by then-Supervisor Angela Alioto, the resolution failed at City Hall. The campaign strengthened its organizing and lead legislators to sponsor a charter amendment on the November 1995 ballot as Proposition F. The ballot initiative passed by 60% of the voters, and the following year, the first Youth Commission was appointed and sworn into office.
The San Francisco Youth Commission is unique compared to the majority of the nation's youth commissions. San Francisco Youth Commissioners are the youngest appointed public officials in the city and are guaranteed involvement in policymaking decisions due to the Commission's placement in the city's charter. Central to this design is that legally, the Commission must provide advice on all legislation that impacts the city's youth.2 The Mayor, along with his or her budget and policy teams, meets with the full Youth Commission annually to highlight youth recommendations for the forthcoming fiscal year. As it is under the City Charter, the Youth Commission can only be removed by the passage of another charter-amendment seeking such cause.
The grassroots call for the Youth Commission's creation planted its roots deep in the community and in the decade since its inception, has grown into a unique and rich resource for policymakers, the community and young people to engage in the political process. In a city abundant with opportunities for civic engagement and a history of community organizing, the Youth Commission's grounding in the city's neighborhoods is a critical key to its longevity and success.
BRANCHES: The Structure
The San Francisco Youth Commission is part of the legislative branch, housed inside San Francisco City Hall.
The Youth Commission is comprised of eleven appointed youth representing each of San Francisco's supervisor districts and six young people appointed by the Mayor who represent ‘underrepresented communities' and/or non-traditional and emerging populations as defined by current data, community input and Mayoral interpretation. All Commissioners must be current residents of San Francisco and between the age of 12 and 23 at the time of appointment. The full Commission meets twice a month, on the first and third Mondays.
There are three staff members that support the Commission, which operates on a budget from the General Fund of just over $200,000. The ability of the staff to balance youth development principles with knowledge of the political process and build relationships that can increase access to the political process for Youth Commissioners is critical to the success of the Commission. Much staff time is spent developing strategic relationships with youth-serving community-based organizations, decision-making boards and advisories and with elected officials and their staff. Staff must be connected to the community and to City Hall to ensure that Youth Commissioners can be successful in bridging the chasm between local government and the communities that elected officials are intended to represent.
Through its committees, which are not stipulated in the bylaws or the Charter, Youth Commissioners address issues of youth justice, employment, health/wellness, housing, social services, recreation, arts and city services. In addition, there are committees that work on an ad-hoc basis, including the education committee (partnering with San Francisco Unified School District) and other joint partnerships and projects including the Transitional Youth Task Force (Department of Children, Youth, and their Families), Juvenile Advisory Council (Juvenile Probation Department), Youth Empowerment Fund (Department of Children, Youth, and their Families), and the Transitional Youth Housing Work Group (Mayor's Office of Housing).3
The committees address the diverse issues facing the City's youth and are reaffirmed every year. The committees can be thought of as the working hands of the Youth Commission; they regularly meet in the community, assess needs and partner with issue-specific programs and advocacy efforts. As new issues arise in the community, they are often assessed to determine their priority and then are moved into a committee for deeper work.
One major asset of the Youth Commission is the city's Children's Fund. This tax revenue creates a fund of over $40 million dollars for enrichment opportunities for children and youth. This funding stream offers many opportunities for San Francisco's young people to be trained and exposed to politics, which often includes educating and meeting with local legislators, understanding and mapping community issues and lobbying for changes in their community.
Challenges
The challenges of the Youth Commission are as plentiful as the rewards. The clear tension between a policy and budget-focused Commission working on behalf of an often disconnected and disenfranchised constituency and the need to maintain a youth development framework presents a set of challenges that are not easily managed or resolved.
Being guided by the City Charter presents some challenges. The City Charter includes language from the Commission's authorizing ballot initiative that defines the Commission's intended outcomes and role in municipal government. The bylaws are readopted annually and outline the membership, meeting requirements, officer roles and attendance rules of the Commission. The compliance with these specifications is critical to the success of the Youth Commission because, unlike other youth development programs, the Commission is a legal body that must adhere to local and state laws regarding attendance, access and equity. For example, agendas for all Youth Commission meetings, both full meetings and committee meetings, are required to be posted 72 hours in advance and locations must be accessible to the public, as stated by the state Brown Act and the even more stringent locally based Sunshine Ordinance. These laws aimed at providing transparency and open government often do not allow for more creative locations and activities that would be more ‘youth-friendly'. Often times this tension of adhering to such laws inside a fundamentally youth development activity requires staff to put charter laws ahead of developmental need.
With the task to represent the diverse voices of young people 12 to 23 years old, another challenge of the Commission is to ensure that all young people have access to the Commission, whether as commissioners, committee members or constituents. The staff actively works to recruit young people that have the skills, diversity and experience to hit the ground immediately-as the Youth Commission terms are just a year and there is little time for training before work begins and Commissioner's schedules are filled with meetings, site visits and hearings.
It is challenging for young people to be able to advocate effectively and accurately and represent the true needs of the city's youth, particularly those youth accessing city and county services, including foster care, juvenile justice and mental health services. The diversity of the Youth Commission is perhaps its greatest asset and its greatest challenge - engaging young people that are in ‘transition' and experiencing complex family dynamics, lack of success in school, homeless or substandard housing, run-ins with the juvenile justice system, as well as many other issues, is not a challenge that most adult policymakers face. If these developmental issues and basic needs are not adequately acknowledged and managed, the Commissioners have little ability to address the larger more systemic issues that San Francisco's youth face.
Besides the challenge of identifying and appointing youth that have both experience in, or knowledge of city and county youth services, and have the ability to advocate for appropriate changes, the Youth Commission faces the fundamental challenge of representing a marginalized, tokenized, and stereotyped population. Government has little existing infrastructure to ensure the inclusion of young people and young people are often not seen by elected officials as a constituency to take seriously as they have little money and are either too young or choose not to vote in elections. This problem is rarely acknowledged despite the fact that so many policy decisions disproportionately effect young people.
FRUIT: The Outcomes
Despite these challenges, the Youth Commission has had substantial policy and advocacy outcomes in the past thirteen years that have helped make San Francisco a place where young people thrive and grow. Often, the policy wins have grown from community organizing efforts where the Commission has leveraged its position in City Hall to gather political support.
The following are a few of the Youth Commission juiciest wins that have leveraged its strengths to catalyze change by prompting planning efforts, raising awareness of emerging issues, advocating for budget needs and influencing local policy. The Youth Commission's work is guided by the interest of its Commissioners every term, and by the political winds and public will. However, its charge is to ultimately advise and advocate for better policies, programs, and budget priorities for youth in San Francisco. Since the Commission is organizationally situated under the legislative branch, it attempts to mirror and impact the City's lawmakers --- who creates laws, balances the budget, and have contact with constituents.
Prompting Planning Efforts: The Transitional Youth Task Force
In the spring of 2005, the Youth Commission wrote a resolution urging Mayor Newsom to create a taskforce to address the complex issues of young people aged 16-24 transitioning out of public systems including foster care, juvenile justice, mental health, special education and teen parent programs.4 Over the past 22 months, a dedicated group of young people, community-based programs and city departments have met and developed comprehensive recommendations around health, housing, education and employment needs of these underrepresented populations.5 The cornerstone of the taskforce rests on the conscious design of a young adult and adult partnership. The taskforce is comprised of one third young adults who experience and advocate for such systems of care, and two thirds youth-serving providers, advocates, and department heads. The recommendations of the taskforce are thorough and inclusive, deservedly garnering attention, buy-in, and funding. In the 2007-2008 budget the transitional youth effort received over $1.5 million dollars to begin planning multi-service centers, launching an outreach effort, funds for emergency rental assistance, and for the creation of an Interagency Council. In the months and years ahead the taskforce will transition into a permanent interagency council inside DCYF that will carry out the cross-system implementation of such recommendations. The Youth Commission has staffed the young adult team of the taskforce, created a common advocacy plan, hosted joint workgroups, and leveraged training and site visits.
Raising Awareness - Shedding Light on the Tree
Since its inception, the Youth Commission has served as a sounding platform for young people to make their voices be heard by city officials. The litany of campaigns begun through the efforts of the Commission not only effectively organized youth to reclaim their access to City Hall, but often became catalysts for public policy solutions.
Quality of Life Concerns - In April 2002, when police officers started to fine youth for skateboarding in public and private spaces, the Youth Commission held a hearing that subsequently led to the creation of the Skateboarding Task Force. The Commission's master report and findings continue to be used and replicated in other counties facing similar concerns. In January 2004, the Commission pushed the city to address its youth recreation crisis. Nearly 150 youth came to the "Recreation Revolution" hearing to speak about the lack of recreation and entertainment options for youth, resulting in the formation of a large coalition aimed at creating a youth multi-service center. Since 2004, DCYF and Recreation and Parks have partnered to create RecConnect-an effort to make recreation centers and park facilities more relevant and accessible for all youth.6
Justice Matters - In 2002, the Youth Commission led the "Stand up and Speak Out About Violence" hearing, where nearly 200 participants spoke poignantly about the rise in youth violence. It was also one of the first organizations to contain and capture the youth dialogue when months after the "Stand Up" series, sixty police officers responded inappropriately to a school fight at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, an inner city public school with the highest concentration of African American students in the city. The Youth Commission leapt into action and attracted 200 people to a hearing on police brutality. Youth Commissioners questioned representatives from the Police Department and the SF Unified School District about their policies for police presence and conduct in schools. Critical questions raised and powerful testimonies provided were later used to inform the task force that investigated if there was any police misconduct by SFUSD.
Bread and Butter - In 2006, the Commission partnered with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) to increase outreach efforts and facilitate the largest city-wide youth-based focus group conducted by DCYF staff to determine top youth concerns. The top ranked issues were violence prevention and youth employment opportunities. Subsequently, the DCYF 2007 budget specifically prioritized and increased funding for these categories. The Youth Commission thus plays a critical role in determining city-wide service allocations for different funding streams. In addition, youth voice not only supplements, but fortifies the integrity of a municipal initiative that tax payer dollars are done so in an accountable and youth-appropriate way.
Reports and Documents - Planting More Seeds
Throughout the 2000-2004 terms, the Commission organized massive "Speak Your Mind Series," comprised of town halls that engaged hundreds of youth to provide public comment and testify in front of the Board of Supervisors on the state of education, health, and housing. Each special topic town hall resulted in a comprehensive youth written report. The 2001 report, No Place Like Home, sprouted the beginning advocacy efforts of transitional youth issues of youth homelessness, transitional housing, and couch surfing. In 2002, the Youth Commission issued a report on the state of San Francisco public schools that highlighted school climate, curricula and foods that were not conducive to student learning. In 2004, after a student was sexually assaulted, the Youth Commission held a forum and published a detailed report to investigate the issue and placed sexual harassment as a main concern around school violence. These youth-initiated and youth-led reports illustrate the inherent power that comes about when young people exercise their voice, utilize quantitative and qualitative data, and seek collaborative and accessible processes: they begin the dialogue of real policy change. Moreover, these reports, entirely researched, written, and organized by young people, have been referenced countless times to incite and support advocacy groups and their policies.7
Advocating for Budget Needs: Growing and Funding for YouthVOTE
As part of its broader budget advocacy platform, the Youth Commission promoted the inclusion of funding in the 2007-2008 budget for the citywide youth voter education and a city survey on services, needs and the priorities of high school-aged youth. Department of Children, Youth, and their Families (DCYF) responded with the inclusion of $150,000 for the project. Anticipating three elections in 2008, YouthVOTE is now funded to have dedicated staff, a full survey, mock election, voter curriculum, and youth-led candidate forums to inform the San Francisco Unified School District and the city/county on what issues are important to youth. This will amplify the voice of young people regarding ballot initiatives, needed services and critical issues. The data will also help inform funding and policy initiatives of the Youth Commission, DCYF and other youth-serving agencies. Thanks to the budget advocacy by the Youth Commission, the San Francisco Board of Education unanimously endorsed YouthVOTE.8
Shaking the Legislative Branch - MUNI to spare the air, to spare the fares
Youth transit justice was the cornerstone of the 2005-2006 term. The Youth Commission's alignment with the goals of the Transitional Youth Task Force-prioritizing needs of 18-24 year olds-prompted original legislation authored by the Youth Commission urging the Board of Supervisors and the city's public transportation authorities to provide discounted fast passes for young adults between 18 to 21 years old. The issue of a "fair fare" was so compelling that the Youth Commission became ubiquitous in the media, symbolizing the power of youth and the issues that they valued. Engaged and excited scores of youth and youth organizations attended the series of public comment sessions held by the Board of Supervisors. Ultimately, the city's legislators approved of the legislation, although real monetary commitment from the city's transit agency has not been secured.
Unique to the Youth Commission's Charter is the legal mandate that it must be referred with on all legislation relevant to children and youth. Although the Youth Commission cannot pass policies itself, many of Commissioners have authored sound policies and resolutions that were picked up and sponsored by our city lawmakers. One example of this is the resolution mentioned above on transportation justice authored by the Youth Commission and then adopted and sponsored by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick. His sponsorship helped create citywide recognition and momentum for this important issue of transit justice for youth.
MORE FRUIT: The Youth Shall Inherit the Earth
Beyond the policy changes that the Youth Commission has helped make, the Commission has also been critical to many young people's development. Offering support and access to make real civic change, the Commission has been a catalyst for personal growth and transformation.
Over the past eleven years, nearly 100 young people have been appointed to the Commission, many of whose life-paths were substantially impacted by the experience. Unfortunately, since youth development is a peripheral outcome of the Commission, growth has not been measured. Like any youth work, the ‘fruit' is often elusive and unseen for years, yet seeds of access to government and the ability to organize for social change are undoubtedly planted in Youth Commissioners, creating lifelong community advocates and organizers.
All Youth Commissioners have made a substantial investment in public service and representing their communities inside City Hall and many have continued in non profit and community work, continued or returned to school with a deeper investment and become active in electoral politics.
The diversity of the Commissioners themselves-mixing traditional and non-traditional leaders of differing ages, backgrounds and culture is essential to the success of the Commission in fully representing San Francisco's youth. In this way, the Youth Commission truly becomes a microcosm of the broader San Francisco community and creates a space where dynamic ideas and conversations occur to analyze youth issues and solutions.
The following are profiles of a few Youth Commissioners who have served over the past 11 years. While all of our Commissioners deserve to be highlighted, we specifically chose the five below for their unique experiences and point of entries, and moreover, their diverse accomplishments in and outside the Commission. There are many more amazing contributions to the Youth Commission that are too numerous to list, but whose invaluable work contributes to the foundation upon which future Commissioners will build.
Tanene Allison, 2000-2003
Community Affairs Officer (00-01), Media Affairs Officer (01-02), Chair (02-03)
After moving to San Francisco at age 17 from southern California, Tanene sought out opportunities to advocate for homeless, foster and queer youth issues. Eventually her quest led her to the Youth Commission to which she was appointed by former Supervisor Leslie Katz. This decision to move was to forever impact her path-leading to Harvard, MTV and back to San Francisco again.
A self-professed policy nerd, Tanene was already interested in public policy when she joined the Commission, but lacked the skills and opportunity to turn her interest into impact. At the Youth Commission, Tanene received staff support, training and opportunities to turn her passion into action. "It is because of the Youth Commission I went back to get my undergrad," Tanene notes, "as it offered me a community that backed me to get support for school." She didn't have family here and the Youth Commission provided a level of stability that made progress possible. "When I got my Master's [in Public Policy] from Harvard I got two tickets for graduation-I invited N'Tanya and Colleen (former YC staff), because they are my family."
While at Harvard, Tanene's path came full circle when she was able to write about San Francisco's black exodus as an editor of the Journal of African American Public Policy, host San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris as a guest speaker and introduce San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at a celebration of Gay Marriage. Building on her knowledge of how to make political issues relevant for young people, Tanene was able to bridge media with public policy work while working for MTV's THINK division, working on pro-social affairs, political and social programming for the network. Tanene is now back in San Francisco, continuing her work in increasing public debate around social justice issues through media-a tool she believes increases the access of underrepresented people as well as gaining broader support for social justice issues.
Cassandra James, 2005-Current
Chair, Youth Justice (05-07), Community Affairs Officer (06-07), Vice-Chair (07-08)
Having grown up in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood (District 10), Cassandra understood the impact of inequity in her community, particularly amongst Samoan and African American families. Though the seeds social justice had been planted early on, it was not until being uprooted and displaced by Hurricane Katrina while attending Dillard University did they fully emerge. When she arrived back to San Francisco, she thought of her position as a black woman on the local, national and global level in a more poignant way.
Cassandra has been an impassioned leader, advocating for the issues of her community and young people of color for the past two years serving as the Chair of the Youth Justice Committee, Community Affairs Officer and now as the Vice-Chair of the Commission. The impact her experience on the Youth Commission is most notably seen through her increased involvement in community organizing and organizations-working on community/political campaigns, as well as her membership in the San Francisco People's Organization, mentor at GirlSOURCE, member of the District 10 African American Community Policing Relations Board, the youth representative on the San Francisco Citywide Violence Prevention Council, and the Youth Commission liaison and young adult member of the Mayor Newsom's Transitional Youth Task Force.
Her involvement to address black out-migration and gentrification of the Bayview has not only earned her accolades, but paid professional opportunities as well. Since joining the Youth Commission, Cassandra has served as the staff at CLAER (Community Leadership and Emergency Response) Project. At CLAER, she worked to aid secondary victims of homicides and violence in the city's southeast sector, organized a mass march and candlelight vigil to oppose the war in Iraq, and sponsored a resolution to end the genocide in Darfur. Cassandra now advocates for girls in juvenile detention centers as staff at the Center for Young Woman's Development, the nation's first and forerunning organization created by and serving young women involved in the street economy.
Cassandra sees herself as a long-term advocate-a view of herself that the Youth Commission helped develop. Cassandra has also maintained and excelled in her school work, recently transferring to Cal majoring in Political Science and African American Studies.
Iqra Anjum, 2005-Current
Chair (05-07), Chair, Youth Employment (07-08)
Born in Pakistan, Iqra and her family immigrated to San Francisco's Excelsior neighborhood (District 11) when she was 12. Without English and a connection to the broader community, Iqra immersed herself into books and into schoolwork. After some involvement in community organizations, and graduating from School of the Arts, Iqra came to the Commission after an internship for her scholarship placed her in Supervisor Jake McGoldrick's office.
With little previous leadership experience, Iqra successfully ran for Chair in her first term. "Being Chair forced me to think beyond the immigrant voice that [is] often missing from citywide conversations and think bigger [sic] about the needs of all young people in San Francisco."
Iqra attributes her ability to see and make systemic change a direct result of her work on the Youth Commission as well as having an impact on her decision to change her major at Cal from Political Science to Ethnic Studies, with a minor in Public Policy. By understanding San Francisco's history and the impacts of gentrification, poverty, and class, Iqra has discovered a new passion for social justice advocacy, as well as a reconnection to her own culture.
Anthony Valdez, 2000-2002
Government Affairs Officer (00-01), Chair (01-02)
As a fourth generation San Franciscan, Anthony's interest in policy and advocacy had not been sparked until be began his term at the Youth Commission as a Junior at Riordon High School. He remembers the mystical experience of entering City Hall during his first term and finding the power and the voice to make real change. He recalls the first time he stopped an elected official in the hallway of City Hall to explain the difference between graffiti and art. "After he told the supervisor about the distinction between the two, we were able to change the legislation she was working on," Anthony recounts. "That was one of the first times I knew I could do something real."
Since graduating from American University in Washington, D.C., where he majored in Political Science, Anthony has been working for Bay Area community organizations and is now staffing Senator Ellen Corbett's office in the East Bay, as well as applying to graduate schools in Public Policy. Anthony sees his dedication to policy advocacy as a direct link and momentum started at the Youth Commission.
Recently Anthony was asked to speak to youth in Hayward about his work. When one of the students asked how he got started in the political field, without hesitation, Anthony answered, "The San Francisco Youth Commission."
Mariposa "Mari" Villaluna, 2000-2003
Operations Officer (00-01), Community Affairs Officer (01-03)
Born and raised in San Francisco, Mari attributes her life long youth activism to her heritage (she is Mestiza of Indigenous, Pacific Islander and Pilipina heritages), belief in God, and the Youth Commission.
Of the approximate 100 Youth Commissioners that have earned a place on the advisory body, few parallel Mari's emotional and political intensity. At one point, Mari continued to serve on the Commission when she was houseless. She recounts how the Youth Commission was her home, and so she was never ‘homeless.' Mari came unfailingly to Youth Commission events, saw beyond her own struggle and connected her stories to larger structural inequalities. She advocated for peers who were homeless, sexually exploited, uninsured, and un/deremployed. In fact, her own circumstances prompted San Francisco to begin talking about transitional youth, or the invisible 18-24 young adult population who were exiting systems of care and lacked educational, employment, health and housing opportunities.
In 2002, Mari was chosen to be a San Francisco diplomat to Taiwan, and went to Taiwan to advise on youth issues, and to participate in their Global Youth Service Day. That experience crystallized her conviction to achieve global peace and understanding. When Mari was reappointed for a third term in 2003, she was instrumental in bringing attention to young workers' rights, and coordinated the first "Power Summit," the first one day gathering of Youth Commissions from the Bay Area.
Since exiting the Commission, Mari has done nothing short of fulfilling the trifocal of her beings. Mari went on to conduct research on the sexual exploitation of Pilipina entertainers in the Japanese industry while living in Tokyo. She examined the role of economic justice and Christianity while traveling to Venezuela and Cuba and breaking the unjust Cuban embargo with the organization Pastors for Peace. Back in California, she built some of the first Indigenous Filipino Mennonite Churches, and also worked to bridge Korean-American and African American race relations in Washington D.C.
Mari graduated from Mills College, where she studied Government and how that intersects with Ethnic Studies She also is a sought after college key note speaker and spoken word artist on issues of youth issues, violence against women, workplace justice, houselessness, borderlines, landlessness, gentrification, spirituality, mixed race identity politics, and carries an Indigenous young woman's perspective.
To be in the business of building an effective youth commission essentially means to be invested in the business of long-term, sustainable leaders. The Youth Commission is not looking for straight cash crops or immediate results. Rather, it is tilling the soil to ensure long term growth, because it is not merely the meek that shall inherit the earth - it is the youth that shall.
BRANCHING OUT: The Future
If local governments are wholly serious and committed to youth development, they must paradigmatically shift how we approach and think about youth. They are not only the future leaders of tomorrow, but also present movers and shakers. The success and sustainability of an effective youth commission depends upon a present-minded emphasis on youth power.
With continued commitment and interest in youth inclusion in non profit and government agencies, the Youth Commission's future lies in helping to grow more youth leaders throughout the city. Currently the Youth Commission is supporting the development and sustainability of youth advisories in the Juvenile Probation Department, the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Mayor's Transitional Youth Task Force and the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families' Youth Empowerment Fund and Policy Council. Civic youth inclusion is on the Commission's agenda, guaranteeing that it will remain a primary focus. We hope to create, support, and institutionalize more youth advisory councils.
An area that has significantly grown for the Youth Commission is providing consultation and technical assistance to other Youth Commissions across the country. The San Francisco Youth Commission, as the first city-chartered youth commission in the nation, has gradually evolved into a best practice model. Commissioners and staff have spent countless hours consulting other commissions, including with the Philadelphia Youth Commission which was founded in 2007, and have engaged and hosted several series of Bay Area Youth Commission exchanges. The Youth Commission has also made some initial headway in attracting these California State Assembly representatives to promote statewide advocacy on issues specific to voter education and civic engagement for youth.
We encourage other cities to create comprehensive city-wide youth inclusion plans to enable young people to meaningfully engage in their government. Creating an effective Youth Commission or an advisory body is just one piece of a larger youth inclusion plan. Through such non-discriminatory ways of engaging youth, young people can develop political consciousness and effective life skills. It is the hope of the San Francisco Youth Commission that it has done its part in this larger youth movement to incite and propel Youth Commissioners as long-term social change agents.
References
Antrobus, R. (2004). Ten ways to empower your youth program: A literature review of youth program best practices. Discussion research paper. California State University, Long Beach. Center for Public Policy and Administration.
City and County of San Francisco (1996). City and County of San Francisco 1996 Charter Codified through Ord. No. 12-08, File No. 071136, approved January 31, 2008. (Supplement No. 13): Article 4, Sections 122 to 124. Retrieved December 19, 2007 from http://www.municode.com/Resources/gateway.asp?pid=14130&sid=5.
Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth (2008). Community impact and accomplishments. Retrieved January 2008, from http://colemanadvocates.org/about_us/impact.html.
Department of Children, Youth, and their Families (2007). The 2007-2010 children's cervices allocation plan of the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and their Families. Retrieved December 19, 2007, from http://dcyf.org/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=1618.
National League of Cities. (2002). Promoting youth participation Issue #3. Retrieved December 21, 2007, from http://www.nlc.org/ASSETS/0D069EAEC9F
F4188A1D646F38BB1A347/iyefactionkityouthpart.pdf.
Martin, S., Pittman, K., Ferber, T., McMahon, A. (2007, April). Building effective youth councils: A practical guide to engaging youth in policy making. Washington, D.C.: The Forum for Youth Investment, Impact Strategies, Inc. Retrieved December 19, 2007, from http://www.nlc.org/ASSETS/75F3EF3FBA844080BB3A7FD1D782E6AA/IYEF_
FYI_Building_Effective_Youth_Councils.pdf.
Mayor's Transitional Youth Task Force. (2007). Disconnected youth: A roadmap to improve the life chances of San Francisco's most vulnerable young adults. San Francisco, CA: Department of Children, Youth, and their Families. Retrieved December 2007, from http://dcyf.org/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=2242.
Mohamed, I., and Wheeler, W. (2001). Broadening the bounds of youth development. New York, NY: The Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development and the Ford Foundation.
1See http:///www.dcyf.org for more information on the creation of the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families and the Children's Fund.
2See Prop F that created the Youth Commission at www.sfgov.org/youth_commission.
3See the Youth Commission website for a guide to San Francisco's alphabet soup.
4San Francisco Youth Commission (2004-05). Resolution urging the Mayor to ordaine a transitional youth task force. Resolution 0405-005. IMPACT: A Multidisciplinary Journal Addressing the Issues of Urban Youth. Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2007, 8-9.
5To see the full Transitional Youth Task Force recommendations, see www.dcyf.org.
6To learn more about RecConnect, visit DCYF's website at http://www.dcyf.org.
7San Francisco Youth Commission publications and reports available at: http://www.sfgov.org/site/youth_commission_index.asp?id=4390.
8YouthVOTE resources available at http://www.sfgov.org/youthvote.