Thank you for your interest in writing a guest piece for Youth Today. Our guest authors come from a range of backgrounds and include youth, professionals who work directly with young people, researchers and policymakers.
We welcome guest pieces in two categories – Opinion and From the Field. Opinion pieces represent a specific position or opinion backed by facts, examples or research. From the Field pieces highlight work happening with or on behalf of young people and offer ideas on how others can learn from your work.
Please carefully review the guidance below prior to submitting your piece.
YOUTH TODAY’S FOCUS
Youth Today is a publication from and for those who believe when youth thrive, we all thrive. With this goal, we must look beyond work within systems to work across systems. We must look beyond care and support for youth to ensuring all young people thrive.
Your guest opinion piece should fit core aspects of Youth Today’s focus for audience and content:
- Audience: When writing your piece, please ensure your piece is relevant to and offers insights, perspectives or recommendations for an audience of youth development professionals (across systems such as out-of-school time programs, child welfare, juvenile justice, opportunity youth and k-12 education) that are coordinating programs, leading organizations, or leading systems.
- Content – Age: Youth Today focuses on the period of adolescence (from 10-25). While we will occasionally publish content tied to early childhood, this is not our primary focus. When writing your piece, please consider this primary age group.
- Content – Youth Development Principles: Youth Today focuses on lifting up high-quality positive youth development across the full range of youth-serving systems (including but not limited to out-of-school time programs, child welfare, juvenile justice, opportunity youth and k-12 education). When writing your piece, please make explicit connections to the youth development principles or underlying theory connected to your opinion or from the field piece.
- Content – Cross systems connections: Special priority will be given to pieces that focus on connections across systems or broad learning and development ecosystems rather than focusing on or being applicable to just one system.
OUR GUEST OPINION CRITERIA
Your guest opinion piece should:
- Make a factual argument that is based on your experience and expertise and backed by additional facts, examples, theory or research. Please include evidence and references supporting your assertion as embedded hyperlinks.
- Provide a call to action for readers.
- Be written in a conversational tone.
- Follow AP style.
- Be approximately 600-800 words long.
- Be certain that your submission wholly represents your original work, and properly credits any research or reporting cited.
Submissions that are chosen for publication will be rigorously fact-checked and edited in accordance with journalistic style and standards.
Please review these examples of Guest Opinion pieces:
- Youth mental health is personal. Our solutions need to be systemic.
- Reimagining the “aging-out” mindset: Building networks of care, not just building independence
Tips on writing an opinion essay
- “How to make hard facts easy to read” (Poynter Institute)
- “Op-Ed Writing: Tips and Tricks” (The Op-Ed Project)
- “How to Write an Op-Ed or Column” (Harvard Kennedy School)
GUEST FROM THE FIELD PIECE CRITERIA
Your guest from the field piece should:
- Highlight innovative and impactful positive youth development work happening with or on behalf of young people. Your piece must be more than a program profile, it must highlight lessons learned or ideas for future replication, expansion or improvement that others can learn from.
- Make explicit connections to how this work fits in the context of the broader youth development or allied youth fields and highlight how the work connects to positive, justice-oriented, strengths-based approaches to youth development.
- Provide concrete examples of how others can learn from or take action based upon the work you are sharing.
- Be written in a conversational tone.
- Follow AP style.
- Be approximately 600-800 words long.
- Be certain that your submission wholly represents your original work, and properly credits any research or reporting cited.
Submissions that are chosen for publication will be rigorously fact-checked and edited in accordance with journalistic style and standards.
Please review these examples of From the Field pieces:
- Reimagining support for learning differences: What parents find in learner-centered environments
- Q&A: From Kentucky to Alaska — Four perspectives on what rural kids need now
SUBMITTING YOUR GUEST PIECE
Contact us us with your ideas or completed opinion piece at talkwithus@kpcatalysts.com.
Please include your best contact phone, full name, and title(s), organization(s) with links, your LinkedIn account if available, the titles of any books or related research papers with links, and any potential conflicts of interest you may have re: your research sponsors or grants.
Given the number of submissions we receive, we may not be able to respond to everyone who submits. If you do not hear from us within 14 days, we understand that you may choose to submit your essay for consideration at a different publication.
Like most mainstream news organizations, we do not pay writers who submit guest pieces.
We look forward to hearing from you.
