Youth can be respected by adults as resources to and collaborators in their communities. In taking youth as resources as a new metaphor for relating to and understanding youth as resources to the community, the question of youth development becomes less one of how to preserve the social order but rather of how to involve youth in changing the social order. Youth can contribute to social progress and to community change, because they can take responsibility as members of a community and can participate in public debate. The task of supporting youth development, of providing adult guidance in a framework of respect for the potential contributions of youth to social change in communities, requires adults to support youth in a different way from dominant discourses that emphasize control and remediation. In school and in other community settings, youth can and should, according to this view, be encouraged to assume more active and discretionary roles in shaping their educational experience, in sharing the results of that experience with peers and adults, and in generating and applying new knowledge to benefit themselves and society.
Youth organizations are an important context for providing such active roles for youth.
One of the most important frameworks for structuring such opportunities is through power-sharing. In some cases, it has been elevated to state prevention policy. In Massachusetts, for example, The Department of Public Health demands that Involvement of key community leaders from all segments of the community is essential to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention efforts. An effective prevention effort seeks the active participation and involvement of all community systems. These systems include parents, teachers, school administrators, youth, local businesses, health providers, churches, and local government.