Sharing Power
A Liberating Practice for Youth Sexual Health Education
We can build a brighter future for young people across the state of Colorado through collective impact across sectors and true youth-adult partnership. This necessitates that Trailhead and partners across systems examine the power and influence we hold in spaces that impact youth and determine how we will leverage this power to better center the needs of young people and marginalized communities.
At Trailhead, the Youth Sexual Health Program has looked to Raji Hunjan and Jethro Pettit’s definition of power as a starting place for defining the root of this liberating practice, in which Hunjan and Pettit write that, “Power is dynamic, relational, and multidimensional, changing according to its context, circumstance, and interest. Its expressions and forms can range from domination and resistance to collaboration and transformation.”
As a public health institute and leader of Colorado’s Youth Sexual Health Program, Trailhead holds power and influence in its relationships with funders, state and local governmental agencies, and through its longstanding network of community and institutional partners. Trailhead also holds power as leaders of Colorado’s WISE (Working to Institutionalize Sex Education) Initiative that leads the expansion of comprehensive sexual health education across the state. In all spaces that we engage in, Trailhead commits to being strong advocates with and for young people through expressions of power that are rooted in collaboration, transformation, and dismantling of oppressive systems.
Putting This Liberating Practice into Action
Included here are examples of sharing power in action. These examples share how Trailhead engaged in this liberating practice in the development of this report, and identify ways that partners can share power that were included in the anti-oppressive recommendations developed by the Youth Sexual Health Program Board.
Continue to Explore this Liberating Practice in Action
These examples provided are not exhaustive. Further actions that center power sharing can be found throughout the anti-oppressive recommendations section of this report. Across all sectors, partners will find opportunities to engage in this liberating practice.
We invite you to explore these recommendations in depth for opportunities to take immediate action, engage in learning, conversation, and collaboration, and envision new ways to engage diverse communities in sexual education.
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Trailhead is acknowledging and leveraging the nuanced roles we play and the power we hold to initiate change within the funding sector.
As a nonprofit public health institute, Trailhead receives funds for internally housed programs, passes through funds to grantees for funders, and is an advocate for funds for many of our partners. Holding this multifaceted philanthropic identity means that Trailhead has access to and relationships with many funders. Because of this privileged positionality, Trailhead has a unique opportunity and responsibility to advocate for equity and trust-based funding practices from a nonprofit, community-based perspective.
Trailhead is leaning on the recommendations from the Youth Sexual Health Program Board to guide the organization in its conversations with funders and have experienced encouraging shifts when we have centered the liberating funding practices shared by the Youth Sexual Health Program Board.
For instance, one long-term statewide funder that supports many youth sexual health initiatives across Colorado recently agreed to multi-year funding and another funder has been lifting up Trailhead’s work and the work of fellow partners to peer funders across the country, reducing barriers to identifying other sources of funding.
Trailhead believes that more dramatic shifts in traditional and current funding practices are possible and has convened an internal philanthropy working group to further explore and solidify the role that Trailhead can play in addressing the inherent power imbalances that exist between funders and grantees. Together, Trailhead is committed to bold, courageous conversations and actions that support movement towards justice and abundance, a society in which the Trust Based Philanthropy Project describes as, “A world where relationships are built on vulnerability, transparency, and humility; where community and nonprofit leaders are valued, supported, and trusted; and where funders bring an awareness of power and equity to their grantmaking.”
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Learn more through the anti-oppressive recommendations for all sectors.
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Learn more through the anti-oppressive recommendations for funders.
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While also noted as a liberating community engagement practice, building bi-directional partnerships through reimagining board agreements is dually a power sharing practice.
When convening the Youth Sexual Health Program Board for this project, it was clear that Trailhead needed to revise its traditional board agreement template to ensure bi-directional partnership and center the organization’s commitment to the recommendations that were to be produced by the Youth Sexual Health Program Board. Consulting Within Your Context developed an expectations document for Trailhead as both an organization and for its leadership. This document outlined expectations that Youth Sexual Health Program Board members could have of Trailhead in this process and ensured that any power dynamics were addressed from the beginning. The goal of the document was to ensure bi-directional partnership, autonomy, and respect and its overarching aim was to disrupt the status quo relationship between organizations and boards.
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Learn more through the anti-oppressive recommendations for community-based organizations.
And Look At You, You Have So Much Meaning
by Saber Ali, a student at AUL Denver
“You can love whoever you want to. Relationships aren’t just about physical attraction, they are also about the connection between two people’s souls.”
Utilizing Liberating Practices to Take
Anti-Oppressive Action
As partners across the sexual health field move to explore and implement the anti-oppressive recommendations for action across systems, the liberating practices should be utilized as strategies for ensuring that action is rooted in anti-oppression.