Empowerment Hub: Youth Leadership + Peer Support Resources

HIRING YOUNG PEOPLE
WITH LIVED EXPERIENCE

LIVED EXPERIENCE IS EXPERIENCE.

Valuing lived experience is essential in creating inclusive and effective youth services. This section focuses on the importance of hiring young individuals who bring first-hand experience and unique perspectives to the table.

Access resources that outline the benefits, best practices, and strategies for integrating lived experience into your organization. Learn how to create supportive environments, design inclusive hiring practices, and empower young people to contribute meaningfully to their communities and workplaces.

Hire Youth Handbook

Hire Youth Handbook

Created with the help of our National Youth Advocates, and funded by Liberty Mutual, this handbook provides best practices for youth-serving organizations that hire young people with lived experience, including the hiring and onboarding process, conflict mediation, and staff supervision.

Reports and Toolkits

Hiring and Retaining Employees with Lived Experience: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness

This toolkit offers strategies and guidelines for hiring and supporting employees with lived experience of homelessness.

Youth with Lived Experience: Employment Toolkit: True colors United

A detailed report reviewing the effectiveness and best practices of peer navigation in HIV care and treatment.

Trauma-Informed Care in Action: PSY & OCFS

This toolkit provides an understanding of how to create hiring practices, structures, and systems that recognize the existing traumas and prioritize the wellness of young people and program staff.

Podcast Resources

  • Young, Homeless and Alone on the Streets

    Sherilyn Adams, director of Larkin Street Youth Services, talks about youth homelessness and debunks myths about the crisis in San Francisco. | Help Chronicle Podcasts serve you better! Take our survey at sfchronicle.com/podcastsurvey.

    Learn more

Web-based Resources

Video Resources

Limiting Barriers to Youth Employment

This video, from PSY’s 2022 Western Conference, explores how to hire and support young people in full-time positions. Learn how to ensure your organization is valuing lived experiences in its hiring practices, and examine how applications can be exclusionary.

Accountability Best Practices for Supporting Young People

This video, from PSY’s 2021 National Symposium, examines how carceral, punitive, adultist, and restrictive policies, which typically disproportionately target & impact BIPOC & LGBTQ youth, often inform, maintain, and exacerbate homelessness. This session reviews disciplinary procedures through a restorative justice lens, with the goal of providing attendees with tools to differentiate between punishment and consequences. Watch now to develop a more holistic understanding of accountability best practices that center on trust and equity.

Paying Youth Equitably

This video explores how young people’s labor should always be compensated. This is a truth that holds especially true when working with young people — who are systematically exploited for their labor, creativity, and lived experiences. Learn how to meaningfully approach compensating youth for their ideation and consultation, best practices, including payment turnaround, determining payment rates, exploring different payment cycles, and more.

Accountability and Advocacy Best Practices for Service Providers Working with Youth

This session uplifts young people to share their past experiences with providers, and examines the discrimination biases often leveraged against 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, youth with disabilities, and BIPOC young people. Our panel of youth speakers share language best practices for providers to utilize to encourage honesty and transparency with clients and best practices for sustainable and meaningful youth collaboration.

Developing Sustainable Pipelines to Hire and Pay Youth

Hiring young people ensures that our collective work is equitable, meaningful, well-informed, and successful. Learn step-by-step guidance on building meaningful, sustainable relationships with young people, integrating youth voice, advocacy, and leadership into program ideation, development, and evaluation, co-creating pipelines that support the steady hiring of young people with lived experiences to run programs and lead teams, as well as discussing best practices for equitable collaboration.

Trauma-Informed Care Toolkit for Youth Service Providers

This toolkit was developed by the National Network for Youth to introduce community-based organizations that serve youth who have experienced homelessness with resources to understand Trauma-Informed Care (TIC). The toolkit focuses on how service providers can support youth’s wholeness by cultivating safety, awareness, trust, and empathy.

How To Employ People With Lived Experience

This video identifies lessons learned and best practices in supporting persons with lived experience working with criminal justice population.

Understanding and Working with LGBTQ Youth (LGBTQIA+ 101)

This 1.5-hour training provided by the Lexington Pride Center serves as a guide to understanding LGBTQ youth and the obstacles they face to acceptance and teaches you how to serve as an affirming and compassionate advocate for LGBTQ youths’ needs.