Bridging Research and Community Practice in the Field of Youth Development through University Outreach

Abstract

This chapter describes our experience and the lessons we have learned in engaging in outreach scholarship to mobilize adults on behalf of youth development. These lessons are grounded in two overarching contemporary trends: the movement to reembrace the civic mission of higher education and the movement to engage adults to contribute to the positive development of youth. In this chapter we seek to outline the key strategies and roles of outreach to give definition and acknowledgment to the important tasks and roles of being "bridgers." We continue to struggle to learn methods of doing so. Our hope is that the university will increasingly support outreach scholars and their community partners to increase adult involvement--be it through advocacy, policy setting, youth work practice, or volunteering--in the lives of nonfamilial youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)