Youth Engagement Mini-Series: A Coalition’s Honest Journey to Centering Youth Voices

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A state coalition’s honest journey to engage, empower and center youth voices. 

Last month, PreventConnect brought you some of the youth voices leading the way in California’s fight to end gender and power-based violence. 

For part two of our mini podcast series on Youth Engagement, we’re sitting down with the staff who created the space for them to speak.

Jessica Merrill and Melodie Kruspodin lead the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence’s statewide work to engage and center youth in violence prevention efforts. 

On top of training and technical assistance for local centers across the state, they are cultivating youth-engagement programs at the coalition: making sure youth voices are heard and centered in the Partnership’s policy and advocacy work. They put together the Orange Day rally at the capitol last month, which brought together dozens of youth leaders and gave them a platform to tell policy-makers what they need to see to create violence-free schools. 

Jessica and Melodie are bringing their combined expertise in prevention, culture change, communications and leadership, to talk about how the Partnership is making space at the table for youth leadership.

We’re sharing honest challenges that come up at organizational and statewide levels, what they’ve learned in their work,  and what’s next as they turn the planning they put into Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month into sustainable year-round efforts.

This is part two in our five-part mini-series on Youth Engagement in Prevention. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

CPEDV Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month

Youth in the Lead Outreach Toolkit