Increase Civic Engagement
Increases Protective Factor:
Community Opportunities for Prosocial Involvement and Connection
When youth are involved in extracurricular activities like sports, band, drama clubs, student government, or community service, protection increases and they are less likely to be involved in substance use and delinquency.
How does this strategy increase this protective factor?
Civic engagement refers to participation in a range of political and non-political activities, including voting in elections, participating in group activities, and volunteering in communities. Research supports the connection between civic engagement and benefits to communities, as well as benefits on participant health and wellbeing for individuals across the lifespan. Increased civic participation has been shown to build an individual’s social capital, which expands one’s social network, increases individuals’ sense of purpose, decreases feelings of isolation, and reinforces positive community norms. Across communities, civic engagement can positively impact the quality of life for its residents by allowing them to use their skills, knowledge, experiences, and enthusiasm to influence change.
Youth and adults alike face a number of barriers that can impede their ability to participate in civic engagement activities, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, lack of understanding, and lack of knowledge of available opportunities are common. Increasing participation among all members of a community is important, as it can lead to continued civic participation throughout the lifespan, reduced engagement in risky behaviors, as well as provide the positive health benefits described above., Your community may undertake this strategy if it lacks civic engagement opportunities or if participation in existing opportunities is low.
Before You Begin
Understand the current state of civic engagement across adults and youth within your community. To begin this work, your coalition should understand what civic engagement looks like within your community by collecting information on a variety of measures including available opportunities, current participation across groups, and common barriers to participation.
Resources:
The Compendium on Civic Engagement and Population Health is a comprehensive resource compiling measures and types of civic engagement, as well as existing indicators and data sets that communities can use to understand civic engagement.
The National Conference on Citizenship hosts the Civic Health Index (CHI), which measures citizen engagement at the national, state, and sometimes local level.
Colorado State University also created a Civic Capacity Index (CCI) to measure a community’s capacity for change.
AmeriCorps offers a comprehensive report on volunteering in the U.S. The report includes volunteer rates, rankings, trends, and demographics represented nationally, by state, and in major metropolitan areas.
The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) provides data-driven reports on examples of states where youth have and can influence election results to emphasize the importance of engaging them, as well as a data tool “Youth Voting and Engagement in America” which includes data at the national, state, congressional district, and county levels exploring civic engagement participation and conditions that shape that engagement.
Use the International Association for Public Participation’s IAP2 spectrum to assess the level of public participation local government and institutions use in decision making.
Understand the voting process in your community, as well voter turnout and access. A key component of civic engagement is participation in the voting process for elections at all levels. In order to promote voter participation, your coalition should first develop an understanding of what registration and polling policies, rules, requirements, and regulations exist and how they impact voter turnout and access.
Resources:
Vote.org provides state-specific information on election and registration deadlines and rules.
Colorado communities can utilize Just Vote Colorado or Go Vote Colorado to find locations and understand state and local voting regulations.
Healthy Democracy Healthy People offers the Health & Democracy Index compares public health indicators and voter turnout to the restrictiveness of voting policies in each state.
Understand how historically marginalized communities have been excluded from civic engagement, both in the past and presently, in your community. Research looking at civic engagement, including political involvement and voting, shows significant inequality across race, ethnicity, and class, resulting in underrepresentation. Your coalition should ensure that any effort you champion or support seeks to elevate the voices from historically marginalized individuals and groups within your region.
Resources:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation offers information on unequal opportunities for civic participation.
Youth Service America discussed strategies to ensure efforts engage “youth traditionally not asked to serve” in this report.
Learn about various barriers to voting youth of color and youth without college experience face in “Why Youth Don’t Vote: Differences by Race and Education”.
The Race Matters Institute of JustPartners, Inc. offers a free guide on conducting a Racial Equity Backmap, which helps groups and individuals consider and identify the various drivers of a given inequity.
Consider using an Equity Impact Assessment to better explore and understand such consequences. Both the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Race Forward offer free resources.
The Government Alliance on Race and Equity offers Racial Equity Toolkit An Opportunity to Operationalize Equity.
Identify and connect with other organizations and individuals working or interested in this area, as well as those that hold decision-making power. Working with other organizations and/or individuals is the best way to maximize your coalition’s power and allows for a greater influence. Before selecting implementation activities, your coalition should take time to understand who is already working in this space, who has power to influence decision making, and what efforts are already underway. Reaching out to these organizations and individuals can help you form partnerships and learn from current and/or previous systems-level work in this area.
Resources:
The National Academy of Community Organizers offers A Guide to Power Analysis in Community Organizing, which can help coalitions understand where power sits within a community around a particular issue.
Implementation Activities Aligned to Research
It is important to note that the uniqueness of your community, its resources, and its needs will ultimately determine what implementation of this strategy will look like. Additionally, it is important for your coalition to approach this strategy in a way that is aligned with your overarching goal(s). The list below offers suggestions and ideas of evidence-informed actions your coalition can consider taking as part of your implementation of this strategy.
Facilitate community mapping to understand civic engagement assets, barriers, and resources. Community mapping (sometimes called “asset mapping”), is a data-driven process that results in a visualization of community resources (social, cultural, economic), assets, concerns, and opportunities located within a community. Mapping activities can help communities collect information on a variety of topics, including what civic engagement opportunities, agencies, and needs exist.
Resources:
The are numerous online resources that include a “how to” guide, as well as case studies showcasing how the community mapping process has been used in communities:
This resource offers instructions on how to use Google Maps, a free and easily shareable online resource, to facilitate community mapping.
To emphasize Positive Youth Development, be sure to include young people in all activities as decision makers and facilitators, not solely as participants. This could include young people developing maps of their shared spaces, advising or developing the process for facilitation, co-facilitating the process, analyzing their own results, and presenting the results directly to their school administrators and/or community leaders.Diverse youth or community member representation is essential so that the data captured reflect the entire community’s experiences.
Support efforts to increase voter awareness and participation in the community, with an emphasis on the local voting process and increasing youth participation in elections. Voting is a key component to civic engagement, but many people experience barriers when trying to participate. Your coalition can help reduce these barriers in a variety of ways including increasing awareness and education, as well as assisting individuals and groups in understanding the process.
Resources:
Healthy Democracy Healthy People offers a webinar, “Voter Registration and Opportunities to Expand Inclusion” discussing policies and practices that can impact voter registration, as well as explores innovative ways to promote it.
The National Voter Registration Day, an organization that supports non-partisan efforts to increase voter registration in the U.S., offers a variety of resources for individuals and organizations interested in supporting registration efforts in their communities.
Nonprofit VOTE offers resources to support non-profit organizations integrating non-partisan voter engagement into their ongoing activities and services. Per federal regulations, nonprofits are allowed to support voter engagement and education efforts, but they cannot support or oppose specific candidates.
The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) provides data-driven reports on examples of states where youth have and can influence election results to emphasize the importance of engaging them. Additionally, CIRCLE’s report “Expanding the Electorate” offers suggestions on how to increase voter participation among low-income youth.
Educate stakeholders on the importance of policies that have potential to increase voter participation. There are a variety of barriers to individuals’ participation in elections at all levels. However, there are promising policies that can address barriers and make participation more accessible across communities.
Resources:
The Center for American Progress highlights policies in their report “Increasing Voter Participation in America”.
Work with stakeholders to increase volunteering opportunities in the community for both adults and youth. Volunteering is a form of civic involvement that on its own benefits various facets of society and often increases participation in other forms of civic engagement. For youth in particular, volunteering can empower and equip them to become more active within their community.
Resources:
Youth.gov offers best practices for engaging youth in volunteerism, which can help guide them in identifying and creating opportunities.
Local organizations such as Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable works with 43 other charitable organizations in Colorado to increase and create civic engagement opportunities in Colorado. This organization helps local groups to get involved in the community and to measure their progress as well as the impact on the community through their activities.
AmeriCorps’ webinar “Latinx Civic Engagement” explores best practices for increasing participation in volunteering and civic engagement among Latinx youth, adults, and seniors.
Support stakeholder efforts to recruit youth to participate in volunteering opportunities within the community. If your community already has opportunities for volunteerism, but lacks youth involvement, your coalition may be able to help increase participation. Often the biggest barrier to youth involvement in volunteer activities is lack of understanding on how to get involved and lack of knowledge of available opportunities. Your coalition can help local organizations and individuals connect with interested young people by supporting education and outreach efforts. It may also be important to find out what other barriers exist to youth involvement locally (e.g., transportation) and see if there are ways your coalition can support addressing these barriers.
Resources:
Youth.gov offers best practices for recruiting youth for volunteer opportunities.
Youth Service America discussed strategies to ensure efforts engage “youth traditionally not asked to serve” in this report.
Work with education stakeholders to create service learning opportunities for youth enrolled in school. Service learning, which integrates community services activities and reflection into academic curriculums and content, has been shown to increase youth connectedness to school and the community, improve academic outcomes, enhance social-emotional skill development, and promote civic participation in the future.
Resources:
Youth.gov offers information about service learning, such as its benefits, implementation challenges and solutions, and best practices to support implementation including state and district policies.
A Practical Guide for Integrating Civic Responsibility into the Curriculum can be used to understand how civic responsibility and service learning can be built into curriculums. Its focus is on community colleges, but the learnings can be applied to different education levels.
Youth Service America has a library of resources with service learning curriculum ideas across grade levels.
Engage community members in dialogue and deliberation around key issues. Dialogue bridges understanding between different groups and/or perspectives. Deliberation allows community members to weigh options and arrive at a decision, whether a new policy, way of using funds, or a ballot initiative. Both dialogue and deliberation can be supported through the use of different tools and facilitation skills. Engaging in dialogue and deliberation makes community members more likely to participate in other civic behaviors.
Resources:
The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation offers an Engagement Streams Framework that outlines different types of tools and the right time and place to use them.
The Art of Hosting combines four tools (Circle Way, World Cafe, Open Space Technology, and Appreciative Inquiry) to harvest the wisdom of groups.
National Issues Forum provides guides that summarize some of the key perspectives on national issues to support informed deliberation. Each issue guide uses three approaches that help to discourage polarization that occurs along a binary.
AORTA provides a guide to Anti-Oppressive Facilitation that can help facilitators get started with quick tools for guiding groups.
- Civic Participation. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Accessed at https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-health/interventions-resources/civic-participation#18
- Civic Engagement. Youth.gov. Accessed at https://youth.gov/youth-topics/civic-engagement-and-volunteering