The National Network for Youth has worked since March 1993 to define the core elements of Community Youth Development (CYD) and to chart a course capable of mobilizing the emerging field from a vision to a blueprint for action. This has involved clarifying the purpose of CYD, formalizing its methodologies and strategies, and identifying outcomes and impact goals.

Through this process, we have learned that CYD expands on the definitions of youth development and community development to create a new and larger context for youth in community -- where young people's developmental processes are addressed, and, at the same time, youth are important contributing community members. CYD assumes the involvement of young people in their own development and that of the community, in partnership with adults, to make use of their talents and increase their investment in community life. CYD is about young people actively involved in the process of developing their own identity, self worth, independence, sense of belonging,, as well as their connection to family, community, the earth and the sacred. Key principles of CYD include the following:

• Creating a culture of respect and partnership
• Creating a just and compassionate society
• Creating safe space
• Creating a culture of appreciation
• Transferring practical, usable skills
• Being conscious stewards of relationships
• Finding and living one's true calling.

Voices and stories of the young people and adult partners in the National Network speak loud and clear about the power and potential of CYD, in creating communities that are just and compassionate, where young people are valued and engaged in full and healthy development. -However, -the increasingly complex set of risks and opportunities today's young people face and an increased focus on measuring program outcomes and impacts among foundations and government funders have accelerated the need for organizational development processes.

This led to the development of the CYD Framework or logic model, which was originally published in Vol. 1, No. 1 of the CYD Journal, in the article "Community Youth Development: A Framework for Action," by Della M. Hughes and Susan B. Curnan. The Framework was updated in Winter, 2002, in the article, "Toward Shared Prosperity: Change-Making in the CYD Movement," also by Hughes and Curnan.

See also Della Hughes' article, "From Newtonian Physics to Chaos Theory: The Foundation of CYD," for more on the origins of Community Youth Development and its foundation in the new sciences.