Since the partnership between Youth Today and Knowledge to Power Catalysts (KP Catalysts) began over four years ago, Katherine Plog Martinez has been dedicating her time, talent, energy and perspectives to the publication. From helping launch the original Youth Today advisory council to serving as managing editor for the past year, Katherine has been committed to reinvigorating Youth Today to the field status it once held.
With Youth Today now transitioned to its new publisher and permanent home, Katherine is shifting into more behind-the-scenes roles at Youth Today and KP Catalysts to allow her to return to full-time consulting via her new firm, Katherine Plog Martinez Consulting.
We got to know Katherine in her role as a senior consultant with the Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality at the Forum for Youth Investment. We convinced her to join us in the rollout of the Readiness Projects and then accepted her invitation to expand her solo consulting business to a three-person partnership (KP Catalysts) when we transitioned out of the Forum. Over the next four years, Katherine worked with a portfolio of consulting clients, took on the responsibilities of managing partner for the firm and contributed to our ambitious “big swing” projects to center youth thriving, including the acquisition of Youth Today. She did all of this while also pursuing her Ed.D. long-distance at the University of Pittsburgh. Earlier this week, we had the opportunity to attend as Katherine successfully defended her dissertation.
[Related: Q&A — The Alliance for Youth Thriving]
To mark this transition for the publication and this milestone for Katherine, we sat down to talk with her about her research, her time with Youth Today and what advice she has for the continued success of Youth Today.
Q: First, congratulations on successfully completing this milestone while juggling all these roles. Your dissertation is closely aligned with your interests and experience and with your work as facilitator of the Youth Development Practice & Pathways Working Group, co-managed by KP Catalysts and the Partnership for Student Success. Was this fortuitous? Intentional? Both?
Courtesy of Katherine Plog Martinez
Katherine Plog Martinez takes a selfie at the University of Pittsburgh campus panther statue on her first day there.
Katherine Plog Martinez: It feels fitting to be having this conversation with you during Afterschool Professionals Appreciation Week. While my career has been at the intersection of youth development, out-of-school time (OST) programming and education systems, OST has held my heart since my first job in the field when I began to realize it could be a career. OST professionals have the power to transform young people’s lives every day, yet we don’t recognize and value the field and the profession.
When I began the Ed.D. program, I was considering focusing on something related to the professionalization of the role and in the service of job quality and a thriving workforce that the National Afterschool Association (NAA) so adeptly advocates and galvanizes the field around.
As I considered how to focus my problem of practice, it made sense to tie my dissertation directly to the work of the Youth Development Practice & Pathways Working Group (YDP&P). The group had a goal of increasing access to foundational youth development training for both the evidence-based roles core to the Partnership for Student Success and for youth development practitioners in more traditional out-of-school time settings. We realized we were using “Youth Development 101” as shorthand for what we wanted to provide without clarity on just what that meant. Over the last year, I worked closely with YDP&P members to define the foundational knowledge youth development professionals need to be successful when first entering the field.
Q: This dissertation was not designed to sit on a shelf. Tell us about the product and how you plan or hope to see it used in the field?
What we created is a research-aligned, field-validated framework of foundational knowledge for early-career youth development professionals. Later this year, we’ll be sharing it in a white paper that both introduces the framework, shares connections to aligned trainings and provides a guide for how organizations can use it to consider aligning their trainings to it or use it as a tool to affirm and validate the trainings they already offer. Beyond this, I heard directly from practitioners that they believe the framework can be useful in supporting a wide range of hiring, onboarding and professional learning practices. There is much left to figure out, but I hope we will find ways for it to take root across the field.
Q: What did you learn along the way that you’d like to share?
So much, but since I’m usually the one harping on word count, I’d highlight a finding that lines up directly with research the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) did in 2023 as part of The Power of Us. When you ask youth development professionals about the knowledge and skills they believe they need to be successful, they include what NIOST called “dispositions” and what I called “ways of being.” Things like patience, creativity and flexibility. There is a fear that comes up in both research and conversation that if we move toward stronger systems of competencies, professional learning or credentialing, we may lose the artistry of the role. I think intentionally including things like the ways of being in our frameworks and systems helps us to remember that work with young people — while deeply connected to what we know from the science of learning and development, developmental relationships and more — is also deep heart work.
Q: In your role as managing editor of Youth Today, you have reviewed every submission over the past year. What are you most proud of when you reflect on Youth Today’s content during this time?
One of the first things we did when we took over publishing Youth Today was change the tagline. There were two key phrases in the new tagline — “When Youth Thrive, We All Thrive” and “from and for the field.” You’ve really led the charge in bringing the overarching idea to life. I feel like my role has been boosting the commitment to being from and for the field. I look at every piece and ask what a practitioner will know or do after reading the article that they didn’t before. We’ve pushed authors to include more tips and ideas for actions in their pieces. And we have truly become a publication from the field. Between actively seeking out articles from youth development practitioners and researchers and creating an easy process for those who submit articles to us based on a great idea, each week we are lifting up voices of leaders in afterschool, child welfare, K-12, postsecondary transitions and more.
Q: You also made it a priority to form partnerships with youth journalism programs and provide additional supports for youth columnists wanting to reflect on the profession. What more would you like to see happen on this front if resources were available?
My own background in youth development and journalism is deeply intertwined. As a managing editor of my high school newspaper and editor-in-chief of my college newspaper, I had connections with amazing adult role models, developed leadership and managerial skills and honed my voice as a journalist and columnist. And in two early youth development roles, I launched youth journalism programs.
When our advisors and partners consistently told us they wanted to see more youth authors, I was game. But I knew we didn’t have the capacity to launch a youth journalism program as a small, largely pro bono team. In came partnerships with YouthCast Media, Youth Communication and KidSpirit — three great organizations supporting young journalists to tell their stories — that allow us to reprint and share the work of their young journalists. We have also been very lucky that young writers find us. We give careful attention to preserving their voice while helping them strengthen their pieces.
We get a lot of really cool stories from young entrepreneurs who are starting organizations to serve huge community needs. If we had more capacity, I’d love to see an ongoing feature on youth who are making a difference in their communities, really lifting up the people, places and opportunities that made their can-do attitude come to life.
Q: Finally, what advice do you have for us as you start the next phase of your journey? What can we do to ensure that Youth Today remains a priority read for you and your clients?
What I have loved about Youth Today since I picked up a copy for the first time in 2006 was that it wasn’t a journal, but a newspaper. Youth Today has always been a space to lift up the current trends and current issues. While it’s grounded in research and best practice, the content is practical and actionable. I would encourage you and everyone who writes for Youth Today to continue focusing on that intersection of research and practice and to consider how each piece might be a pebble that creates ripples of change through the field.
