Do you work for or with an agency that wants to include youth and young adult voice in agency decision–making?

You are invited to take part in a research study that is pilot testing the Agency–level Assessment of Youth and Young Adult Voice, a new survey to measure organizational support for the meaningful participation of young people in agency–level advising and decision making. This study is being conducted by researchers at Portland State University in collaboration with Youth M.O.V.E. National. The purpose of this study is to determine whether this survey is an accurate assessment tool for agencies to use if they wish to measure their support for the inclusion of youth and young adult voice.

To do this, we are widely recruiting people in the field to complete an online survey that takes 20–30 minutes. We are looking for potential participants who are knowledgeable about the presence of policies and procedures to include youth and young adult voice within a particular organization.

If you are interested in participating, please review this information carefully:

• The first step will be to use an online form to register people from your organization to participate. You will be asked to provide a name, email address, and role for each person you register, so please discuss this with the people you want to sign up.
• You must register at least two people from your organization, and we suggest that at least one should be a young person (age 15 or older) who has received services from your organization (or one that serves a similar population).
• It is important that people who take the survey have knowledge about your organization’s efforts to promote youth/young adult participation in organizational advising and decision making.
• If you register more than 15 people from your organization who complete the survey, you can request a report on your scores when the data analysis is complete next spring.

We plan to allow about a month for people to register. At that point, we will email all the people who are registered and provide a link to the survey. Anyone who completes the survey can opt to enter a drawing to win an Amazon gift card — we will randomly select one of every 50 entries to win a $100 gift card.

When you are ready with the information you need, use the button below to access the online registration form:

Register for the study

Taking the survey is completely voluntary and we ask that you please review the Information for Survey Participants to understand the risks and benefits associated with the study, as well as your rights as a research participant. If you experience technical difficulties or if you have any questions about the study, please contact Jennifer Blakeslee at 503-725-8389 or jblakes@pdx.edu.

Thank you—and please forward this invitation to your colleagues!

Janet Walker and Jennifer Blakeslee
Portland State University

Brie Masselli and Kristen Thorp
Youth M.O.V.E. National

This activity is supported by a grant funded by both the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, and the Center for Mental Health Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services (NIDILRR grant 90RT5030). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL). The content does not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.