Youth-Led Community Organizing ─ Theory and Action

Youth-led organizing, a burgeoning movement that empowers young people while simultaneously enabling them to make substantive contributions to their communities, is increasingly receiving attention from scholars, activists, and the media. Melvin Delgado and Lee Staples, recognized leaders in social work macro practice and community organization, have produced the first comprehensive study of this dynamic field. Their well-organized book takes an important step toward bridging the gap between academic knowledge and community practice in this growing area. The authors social justice-rooted perspective on the fields conceptual and practical foundations is an effective basis for analyzing youth-led community organizing, but they also offer glimpses of successful groups in action and helpful insight into how fledgling organizations can become stronger. These groups and their young participants represent the politics and activism of the future, and Delgado and Staples have produced a lucid, thoughtful guide to their key aspects and recent developments that students and researchers of community organization, not to mention the organizers and their facilitators themselves, are sure to find both inspiring and useful.

Melvin Delgado is a Professor of Social Work and the Chair of Macro Practice at Boston University's School of Social Work.

Lee Staples is Clinical Professor of Social Work at Boston University's School of Social Work.