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The Context for Collaboration
How do we best meet the needs of our youth as they make the transition into the adult world? For young people to succeed in life, they need to develop competence, confidence, and connections to real-world experiences at critical points during their educational, career, and personal development. Our schools cannot do this alone, nor can youth development, social service, or workforce preparation organizations - they need partners.
For this reason, over the past decade collaborative structures called Intermediaries have emerged, designed to bring together a range of local resources to promote young people’s self-confidence about their abilities, increase their connections to adults and opportunities, and foster the personal, academic, and work-related competencies they need to succeed.
Intermediaries support effective programs for youth and augment the efforts of local organizations dedicated to serving youth in a wide variety of programs and settings including education, workforce development, after-school, youth development, community and school partnerships, and others serving special populations of vulnerable youth.
About
the Intermediary Network
The Intermediary Network connects local and national organizations
to share effective strategies, to learn from one another, and to grow and
professionalize intermediary practice across the country.
The Intermediary
Network
- Promotes the importance of intermediary organizations and activities
on the public policy agenda.
- Establishes standards of quality for intermediaries and their staff.
- Provides state-of-the-art professional and leadership development opportunities
through a facilitated network of the top practitioners in the country.
- Engages members in a peer-supported, self-managed, professional learning
community.
- Represents the collective voice of organizations and individuals performing
intermediary functions.
Download
the About INet Document (PDF
112 kb)
Intermediary
Network Features
Members of the INet contribute to and benefit from a professional,
peer-to-peer network, facilitated by New Ways to Work and supported by the
following elements.
- A leadership team, composed of local, state, and national practitioners
and policy makers to fully develop and refine the standards of membership,
address the core questions surfaced as allied fields of practice are brought
to the same table, identify quality practices, and inform the creation
of initiative approaches, tools, and materials to support local practice.
- Intermediary Network
Practice Communities.
- Common tools and frameworks that reflect an expanded vision of local
intermediary practice in order to promote, guide, reflect and support the
work at the local level.
- Peer-to–peer coaching strategies, where network members work to support
others faced with similar challenges.
- Documentation, collection, and dissemination of quality practices and
promising approaches to challenging issues.
- Research and evaluation of the effectiveness of intermediary approaches
in addressing the issues of transitioning youth.
- The development of a public policy agenda, to promote and sustain intermediary
practice.
- A regular electronic newsletter to update progress and communicate success
to a broad audience.
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