- According to Rutgers Cooperative Extension, 2003; US Department of Health and Human Services, 1996; National Order of the Arrow, 1992; Wing Span Youth Empowerment Services; Youth Leadership is the ability to lead others or get others to work together toward a common goal or vision. The understanding of work or labor and the competency to have it accomplished is a sign of youth leadership.
- “Youth development ought not to be viewed as a happenstance matter. While children can, and often do, make the best of difficult circumstances, they cannot be sustained and helped to grow by chance arrangements or makeshift events. Something far more intentional is required: a place, a league, a form of association, a gathering of people where value is placed on continuity, predictability, history, tradition, and a chance to test out new behaviors.”
The Youth Development Committee of the Lilly Endowment noted (Pittman, June 1991)
