The Creative Youth & Community Development research initiative, commissioned by ArtPlace America and led by Creative Generation, seeks to explore the intersections of arts & culture, community development, and youth development through community based, youth- and practitioner-led research. In 2020, the initiative produced a series of web-based tools and resources created by and for practitioners operating in this intersecting space; these are included in the research section of this resource center.
The preliminary research from this initiative is showcased in the publication, Centering Creative Youth in Community Development: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan, aimed to answer the question: What impact do creative youth have on communities? Through the perspectives of young creatives, the answer is simple: Unabashedly, young creatives believe their projects benefit both people and places and promote more just and thriving communities. This answer is more deeply explored through three sets of findings: community benefits defined by young creatives, opportunities for partnering to expand the reach of projects, and defining success in new ways.
In this resource center, Creative Generation is committed to continuing to explore the intricacies of ideas with continuing publication of thought-provoking blogs, new perspectives from youth and practitioners, news updates relevant to the topic, and more.
This section contains key publications, summaries of findings, and more.
This section contains the case stories from the preliminary research and additional stories of youth-led, place-based creative projects from communities around the world.
This section contains thought-provoking questions, big ideas for the future, and the voices of young creatives and practitioners to help drive the intersectional field forward.
We, at Creative Generation, are proud of this work; our partnership with ArtPlace America; and most importantly the values-based approach we took to centering young creatives in understanding their community development work. As practitioners, we encourage you to engage with these resources for their content, of course, but also for insights on the processes which can enable the full potential of young creatives in community development. We specifically call on our peers to draw attention to:
The power of young people in catalyzing social change through youth-led, place-based, creative, community development projects;
The responsibility of their adult allies in ceding power, co-creating, and bridging the work beyond existing silos; and
The potential – modeled in this very research initiative – of empowering and uplifting young people to lead the generation, documentation, and dissemination of knowledge about this work.
Our hope is that together, this body of research provokes necessary dialogues among practitioners, youth and their adult allies, and other field-wide decision-makers to envision a new future for the role of creative youth in community development.
Latest News & Updates
