Interagency Collaboration and the

Development of a Common Outcomes

Framework and Equity Considerations to

Advance Positive Youth Development

U p d a t e d A u g u s t 2 0 2 2
Youth have needs that interact across youth-serving sectors. Youth also have the

capacity to thrive depending on competencies and supportive conditions across

multiple life domains. For example, mental health is important for employment,

and vice versa. Yet the landscape for thriving is not equal for all young people and

opportunities are not equitably offered to all youth in their schools, communities,

and the broader society. Young people from diverse backgrounds encounter

vastly different experiences with opportunity, inequality, inequity, and privilege.

Youths’ lives are not siloed, which highlights the importance of interagency

collaboration. Developmental experiences are cumulative, too often resulting in

advantage or disadvantage being predicted by group identity or neighborhood

conditions.

Equity requires an intentional counter to systemic, multi-generational, and

intersectional barriers to opportunity resulting in disparate developmental

experiences. An intentional, equity-focused approach to sharing common goals

and outcomes presents a new opportunity for interagency collaboration. In this

brief, we present a case example of interagency collaboration across youth-serving

agencies at the federal level to develop a common outcomes framework based on

positive youth development. We further share examples of what an equity

approach to the common outcomes framework might look like. While the

case and equity examples are based at the federal level, they are

generally applicable at state and local levels wherever agencies

are working together to improve youth outcomes.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Jason Katz, Alicia Wilson Ahlstrom, David M. Osher, Mary Thorngren,

Eloisa Montes, Cheri Hoffman, Sarah Oberlander

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American Institutes for Research

United States Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning

and Evaluation Office, Children and Youth Policy Division

Forum for Youth Investment

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Positive Youth Development is “an intentional, prosocial approach that

engages youth within their families, peer groups, schools, organizations,

and communities in a manner that is productive and constructive;

recognizes, utilizes, and enhances youth’s strengths and assets; and

promotes positive outcomes for young people by providing

opportunities, fostering positive relationships, and furnishing the

support needed to build on their leadership strengths.”

- Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs, 2016, p. 16

In this brief, updated from the original written in 2021 and expanded to include

equity considerations, we will focus on the importance of collaboration across

youth-serving systems that recognize, promote, and align policies and practices

that support equitable outcomes. We summarize the key features of such

collaboration; the challenges to collaboration; and activities to support equityfocused collaboration. We will then present a case example of interagency

collaboration, based at the federal level, involving collaborative efforts of youthserving agencies in developing a common outcomes framework grounded in

positive youth development and aligned with equity.

INTRODUCTION

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Youth experience needs that are not limited to one sector and the success of

young people depends on equitable and robust opportunities for growth in

competencies and supportive conditions across multiple life domains (Osher et al.,

2020a). For example, mental health is important for employment, and vice versa.

Youth may have difficulties with school attendance if they are experiencing

unaddressed housing needs, all of which highlights the importance of interagency

collaboration. Interagency collaboration can work hand-in-hand with a positive

youth development approach (PYD), which can refer to (1) the process of youth

development, (2) a philosophy or approach to youth programming, or (3) specific

types of youth programs (Hamilton, 1999). This brief focuses primarily on the

second sense of the term, as reflected in the Interagency Working Group on Youth

Programs’ (Working Group’s) definition of PYD (see the definition of PYD used in

this brief on the previou), updating the framework to consider how an equity

frame amplifies practices that promote PYD for all youth. PYD emphasizes

programming intended to enhance developmental assets in youth’s lives, which

have been categorized as physical (e.g., health-promoting habits), intellectual (e.g.,

decision-making skills), psychological and emotional (e.g., emotional selfregulation skills), or relational (e.g., positive relationships with peers and adults).

Individual assets interact with other ecological assets including caring

neighborhoods and positive classroom and school climates (Osher, Cantor, Berg,

Steyer, & Rose, 2020b; Shek, Dou, Zhu, & Chai, 2019). A robust approach to equity

extends this understanding of PYD to take into account the interrelationship

between individuals and ecological assets and how young people access

opportunities and what they experience in various spaces (Osher, Pittman, Young,

Smith, Moroney, & Irby, 2020, p. 18).

POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND THE IMPORTANCE OF

COLLABORATION ACROSS YOUTH-SERVING SYSTEMS

Interagency cooperation, coordination, and collaboration are not synonymous.

Agencies that cooperate are aware of each other and their interactions are limited

to general information-sharing, support, or referrals. Coordination involves

fragmented yet interdependent organizations that coordinate activities, staff, or

other resources. Collaboration brings organizations together around selecting

common means and ends and acting together to accomplish goals in a way that

neither organization alone could (Osher, Williamson, Kendziora, Wells, & Sarikey,

2019), along with a jointly developed structure, mutual authority and

accountability, and shared resources and rewards. Because family voice and

CONTINUUM OF COLLABORATION

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perspective are important drivers of quality, it is recommended that effective

collaboration involve families and youth as partners. Agencies that collaborate can

be youth- and family-driven, but often collaborate in a top-down fashion that is

agency- and professional-driven (Morrissey-Kane & Prinz, 1999; Osher & Osher,

2002).

Different agencies have successfully promoted collaboration in the past. One

example is the Safe School/Healthy Students program (1999-2018), which braided

funds from the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and

Justice, supported local collaborations that included schools, mental health, and

justice, and also employed a braided approach to supporting technical assistance

and evaluation (Osher et al., 2019). Other strategies that federal as well as state and

local agencies might employ to promote collaboration include: loosening barriers

to combining funding from across federal agencies; providing more flexibility in

the definition of intended beneficiaries (e.g., age of youth served); reforming the

RFP process to encourage collaborative approaches to solving problems; offering

more time for grantees to identify best partners, especially community-rooted

partners who have deep relationships and a demonstrated track record with the

least served populations of young people; using braided or blended funding

approaches; developing and disseminating common application and reporting

forms; fostering a comprehensive approach to addressing youth needs as an

alternative to focusing on individual programs; and developing and applying

common definitions, outcomes, and metrics (Interagency Working Group on

Youth Programs, 2016).

A current example of collaboration is the Interagency Working Group on Youth

Programs [Working Group], which actively involves representatives from 21 federal

departments and agencies who meet regularly to learn together, share

information, and oversee website and social media activities that make

information available to youth, practitioners, and others that can be change

agents to improve youth outcomes. One important part of their work has been to

develop a common outcomes framework, which we describe below.

ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE COLLABORATION

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In this case example, we will focus on the development of a common outcomes

framework by the Working Group. The Working Group was launched in 2008

through an executive order to enact such reforms as described above and to

improve the coordination and effectiveness of youth programs. Currently, the

Working Group is a collaboration of 25 federal departments and agencies. The

Working Group’s strategic plan, Pathways for Youth, is grounded in PYD and

serves as an intentional response to feedback from federal agency staff and youth

in listening sessions. One of the plan’s three strategic goals is “collaboration and

coordination—promote coordinated strategies to improve youth outcomes.” This

goal, in turn, has three objectives: (1) align and simplify federal guidance for youth

programs; (2) coordinate youth programming and funding support at the federal,

state, local, and tribal levels; and (3) coordinate technical assistance efforts to

leverage resources. The Working Group meets monthly to share information

about promising programs and initiatives and to discuss and plan collaborative

activities that realize the collective agenda. The Working Group has an accessible

information website to provide one-stop shopping for youth-serving organizations

and others (youth.gov), and this website also has a section that showcases federal

collaboration, including topics related to shared outcomes and metrics.

CASE EXAMPLE: THE INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP

ON YOUTH PROGRAM’S DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMON

OUTCOMES FRAMEWORK

BACKGROUND

A modified Delphi process that had been successfully employed in the past to

help participants from many agencies come to agreement (see for example,

Dymnicki et al., 2016; Dymnicki et al., 2020) was used to build consensus among

Working Group members about common outcomes. Whereas in a traditional

Delphi process pseudo-codes are employed to keep the facilitator blinded to

respondents’ identifiable information (Jorm, 2015), this was not done in the case

example because of transparency and attentiveness to particular agencies’

mandates and priorities and to provide space for dialogue as needed. Additionally,

the approach used in the first round of the Delphi process differed from the

approach employed in the second and third rounds. The first round was unique in

having participants rank-order prioritized outcomes. The latter two iterations

rather focused on whether respondents agreed with the outcomes and indicators,

or to indicate what they would revise, add, or remove.

METHODS

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The Working Group’s common outcomes go across seven broad domains (see

Table 1) and are congruent with PYD in several ways. First, the common outcomes

framework includes indicators focused on increasing developmental assets across

youths’ ecology, including internal assets (e.g., increased self-efficacy), relational or

social assets (e.g., increased positive relationships with peers and adults), and

environmental assets (e.g., increased healthy school climate). Second, the

common outcomes framework includes a whole domain focused on increasing

youth contribution (e.g., increased youth leadership opportunities). Third, the

framework focuses on reduced risk behavior (e.g., decreased substance abuse,

screen time, risky sexual behavior). Fourth, the Working Group’s common

outcomes framework focuses on reduced negative consequences of risk behavior

(e.g., reduced rates of youth delinquency, offending, and involvement in the justice

system). Fifth, the framework focuses on increasing longer-term positive

development outcomes (e.g., increased educational attainment, increased youth

employment in appropriate positions). The full common outcomes framework is

included as an appendix.

RESULTS

The Working Group’s efforts raise several implications for equity. First, the

identification of common outcomes suggests a parallel need to allow

communities to articulate a range of culturally-relevant and contextually-specific

ways these outcomes might be tailored for a wide range of youth. Further,

communities should have opportunities to name the supports and resources

communities might need to help young people actualize these outcomes and

provide feedback to agencies about barriers to equitable access to the federal

resources and programs that support PYD. In response, agencies must create

mechanisms to amend policies, programs, and processes within and across

agencies that present barriers to historically underserved communities as

identified through administrative review. Additionally, agencies should simplify

and streamline access, coordinating use of common language, aligned

administrative rules, and grant performance and data collection requirements.

These strategies would most effectively coincide with a commitment to providing

additional resources toward reducing disparities.

Figure 1 provides a visual representation of the common outcomes and Table 1

summarizes and defines the common outcomes and provides an additional

equity-focused example related to the relevant domain.

EQUITY IMPLICATIONS

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Figure 1. Common Outcomes Infographic

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Table 1. Common Outcome Domains and Definitions

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Collaboration across youth-serving systems is necessary for making a difference in

young people’s lives. To be maximally effective, it requires common outcomes that

can be used for planning, continuous improvement, and evaluation (Osher et al.,

2019). The Working Group example highlighted in this brief demonstrates the

feasibility of defining common outcomes for youth across federal agencies that

have diverse mandates and topical priorities in a way that is congruent with PYD.

While the case example focused on federal interagency collaboration, we expect

that the common outcomes framework can be adapted at the state and local

levels as part of multi-agency or coalition-based initiatives focused on PYD and

improving youth outcomes (e.g., Butler et al., 2018). In addition, federally funded or

other types of training and technical assistance centers have an important role in

supporting this work at multiple levels.

IMPLICATIONS

Butler, A. R., Katz, J., Johnson, J., Osher, D., Pentimonti, J., & Neiman, S. (2018). Continuous

improvement. In D. Osher, D. Moroney, & S. Williamson (Eds.), Creating safe, equitable, engaging

schools: A comprehensive evidence-based approach to supporting students (pp. 253–266).

Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Dymnicki, A, Bzura, R. Osher, D., Wandersman, A., Duplantier, D., Boyd, M., Cash, A., & Hutchinson, L.

(2020). Important implementation constructs for federal agencies in health and human service

settings that are selecting, monitoring, and supporting grantees. Evidence & Policy: A Journal of

Research, Debate and Practice. https://doi.org/h9pt

Dymnicki, A. B., Le Menestrel, S., Boyd, M. J., Lauxman, L., Oberlander, S. E., & Osher, D. M. (2016).

Developing a federal research agenda for positive youth development: Identifying gaps in the field

and an effective consensus building approach. Journal of Youth Development, 11(1), 5–19.

https://doi.org/h9pv

Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. A. (2002). Community programs to promote youth development.

Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Frey, B. B., Lohmeier, J. H., Lee, S. W., & Tollefson, N. (2006). Measuring collaboration among grant

partners. American Journal of Evaluation, 27(3), 383–392. doi: 10.1177/1098214006290356

Hamilton, S. F., & Hamilton, M. A. (1999). Building strong school-to-work systems: Illustrations of key

components. Washington, DC: National School-to-Work Office.

Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs (2016). Pathways for Youth: Strategic plan for

federal collaboration. Retrieved from https://youth.gov/sites/default/files/IWGYPPathways_for_Youth.pdf

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Mihm, J. (2014). Managing for results: Implementation approaches used to enhance collaboration

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Osher, D., Williamson, S. K., Kendziora, K., Wells, K., & Sarikey, C. (2019). Interdisciplinary and crossstakeholder collaboration for better outcomes. In D. Osher, M. J. Mayer, R. J. Jagers, K. Kendziora, &

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Appendix. The Interagency Working Group on Youth Program’s

Common Outcomes Framework

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