Available Tools and Resources

St. Paul
 
Links to tools and resources are provided throughout this online tool kit, tied to the issues and tasks where they are most relevant. Below are some key resources that can support your interfaith service-learning efforts. You’ll find:

Tools Developed through the Inspired to Serve Pilot Project

In addition to this online tool kit, the following resources and opportunities are available:

Inspired to Serve: An In-Depth Training on Launching an Interfaith Service-Learning Network

This in-depth training introduces participants to the Inspired to Serve model for interfaith service-learning with middle and high school youth. It highlights core concepts of the approach, the opportunities and challenges of getting started, and the steps needed to establish a leadership group and partnership in your community. Contact Interfaith Youth Core for more information.

Exploring Your Community’s Strengths and Hopes: A Step-by-Step Guide for a Youth-Led Listening Project (PDF)

Offers ste-by-step guidance for interfaith groups to conduct a community listening project in order to better understand their communities, thereby improving the service-learning experience for all involved. For more background information, see the description in the investigate section of this tool kit.

Fact Sheets on Key Themes in Inspired to Serve

The Inspired to Serve project team developed fact sheets on four "critical shifts" in the project that are reflected in this online tool kit. The following four fact sheets (each 2 pages long) are useful references for sharing these core principles:

Walking the Walk

This is the complete service-learning program for high school students that was developed by the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia and utilized as the foundation for the Philadelphia site of the Inspired to Serve pilot project. The curriculum is designed for 15 to 20 teenagers from diverse religious institutions to participate in a 13-sesson program of interfaith engagement, service-learning, community building, and creative reflection. They gain experiences, skills, and resources necessary to live in a diverse world, deepening their own identities while breaking through walls that distance and divide them from people of other religious, cultural and economic backgrounds. Download a brochure (PDF) about Walking the Walk. Here are two sample activities:

  • Asking Good Questions (PDF)—A 60-minute activity guide that helps youth learn to ask honest and respectful questions that reflect curiosity, not judgment.
  • Sharing Meaningful Objects (PDF)—A 45-minute group activity in which young people share something meaningful to them from their own tradition or culture.

The Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia also offers individually tailored Interfaith Education and Dialogue workshops.

Other Online & Downloadable Resources

Bridge Builders

Join this social networking site to connect with other advocates of interfaith service-learning and to download free interfaith youth organizing tools. This site is a project of Interfaith Youth Core.

National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (Learn and Serve America)

Supports the service-learning community by providing timely and relevant information on service-learning principles, practices, techniques, and methodologies. It gathers and catalogues research, evaluation, and best-practice information from across the United States. Staff are available to assist in locating materials, referrals, reference information, and technical assistance. (Research, tools, and resources developed as part of the Inspired to Serve project are also available through the clearinghouse.)

Interfaith Leader’s Toolkit
Developed by Interfaith Youth Core, this brand-new toolkit takes you through the A-to-Zs of interfaith organizing, from the perspective of youth leadership and development.  To order a copy, contact info@ifyc.org. 

Service-Learning in Community-Based Organizations

Developed by Search Institute for the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, this guide offers helps for community-based organizations in using service-learning principles and practices in their programming, drawing on what’s known about high-quality service-learning programs and practices.

Youth Engaged in Service

An online tool kit from the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.

Training Opportunities

Interfaith Youth Core Training

Interfaith Youth Core, a national partner in Inspired to Serve, provides a range of training and other events that nuture mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others. To request a trainer or learn more, please fill out this online form.
 
Search Institute Training

Search Institute, a national partner in Inspired to Serve, provides more than 20 workshops and training events to equip individuals and organizations to become asset builders in work and daily life. This includes in-depth training on service-learning and on building Developmental Assets in faith communities.

Conferences

Interfaith Youth Core’s Interfaith Youth Conference

Every two years, youth and adult interfaith activists and organizers gather for motivation, networking, and learning about building the interfaith youth movement in their communities, nationally, and around the world.

National Conference on Volunteering and Service

The world’s largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the nonprofit, government, and corporate sectors. Each year, it includes a Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships Day.

National Service-Learning Conference

Hosted by the National Youth Leadership Council, this annual conference is the largest annual gathering of people interested in service-learning. General sessions, featured forums, and service-learning projects, the conference engages participants in the myriad local, national, and global issues that service-learning addresses.

Search Institute’s Healthy Communities ● Healthy Youth Conference

This annual conference from Search Institute is designed for and by youth and community development practitioners as a place of inspiration, strengthening, deepening, and connecting.

Organizations

Interfaith Youth Core

An international nonprofit building a global movement of young people committed to working with people of different religious and philosophical backgrounds to serve the common good. IFYC provides trainings for young people and their allies interested in leading interfaith youth service work around the world.

Learn and Serve America, Corporation for National and Community Service

Provides direct and indirect support to K-12 schools, community groups, and higher education institutions to facilitate service-learning projects by providing grant support, training and technical assistance resources. It collects and disseminates research, effective practices, curricula, and program models.

National Youth Leadership Council

NYLC is a national leader in the service-learning field, sponsoring projects, training, resources, and a national conference to aimed at creating a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world with young people, their schools, and their communities through service-learning.

The Pluralism Project

Located at Harvard University, this project helps Americans engage with the realities of religious diversity through research, outreach, and the active dissemination of resources. Through an expanding network of affiliates, they document the contours of our multi-religious society, explore new forms of interfaith engagement, and study the impact of religious diversity in civic life.

Points of Light Institute

Provides research, analysis, tools, and training to support the creation and management of volunteer programs.

Search Institute

An independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. Through research and evaluation, resources and services, and collaboration Search Institute strives to help people understand what kids need to succeed and to take action based on that knowledge.

Youth Service America

An international nonprofit resource center that partners with thousands of organizations in more than 100 countries to expand the impact of the youth service movement with families, communities, schools, corporations, and governments. It seeks to improve communities by increasing the number and diversity of young people, ages 5-25, serving in important roles.

Books to Order

Acts of Faith:The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation by Eboo Patel (Beacon Press, reprint edition 2008) ISBN-13: 978-0807077276
In telling his personal story, Eboo Patel—the founder of Interfaith Youth Core—describes the essential work of uniting different religions to perform community service and explore their common values that will help define the 21st century. Can be ordered from Interfaith Youth Core.
 
All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must Do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents, 2nd Edition by Peter L. Benson (Jossey-Bass, 2006) ASIN: B001VV2YQ0
This book by Peter Benson—the president of Search Institute—describes a community change approach built on the framework of Developmental Assets that emphasizes building local capacity. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
 
An Asset Builder’s Guide to Service-Learning by Eugene C. Roehlkepartain (Search Institute Press, 1999) ISBN-13: 978-1574821147
Presents a basic framework and step-by-step process for service-learning in multiple settings (schools, faith-based organizations and networks, and community-based organizations). Presents the PARR model (Preparation, Action, Reflection, Recognition), which is utilized in the Inspired to Serve project. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
 
Building Assets in Congregations: A Practical Guide for Helping Youth Grow Up Healthy by Eugene C. Roehlkepartain and Peter L. Benson (Search Institute Press, second edition 1998) ISBN-13: 978-1574821130
Offers a detailed guide for applying asset building in faith communities. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
 
The Best of Building Assets Together: Favorite Group Activities That Help Youth Succeed by Jolene L. Roehlkepartain (Search Institute Press, 2008) ISBN-13: 978-1574821598
This collection of group activities and worksheets can be used with youth groups and networks to promote dialogue about specific assets among young people. These can be used as part of reflection time throughout service-learning projects. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
 
Bring Learning to Life (Learn and Serve America)
This free kit of resources from Learn and Serve America introduces the benefits of service-learning in K-12 education settings. Videos, PSAs, action guides, and other materials are included in the kit, which may be ordered from the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse at http://www.servicelearning.org.
 
Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action, edited by Patrice Brodeur and Eboo Patel (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006) ISBN-13: 978-0742550674
Describes the growing numbers of young people from all faith backgrounds who are committed to interfaith understanding and cooperation and the practical models for engaging them effectively. Can be ordered from Interfaith Youth Core.
 
Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things by Kelly Curtis (Search Institute Press, 2008) ISBN-13: 978-1574822540
This guide demonstrates how youth leaders, teachers, peer program advisors, adults who work with teens and adolescents, and professional organizations with a youth focus can foster empowerment and leadership qualities in youth. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
  
The Asset Activist’s Toolkit by Jolene L. Roehlkepartain (Search Institute Press, 2005) ISBN-13: 978-1574828627
This notebook includes dozens of tools to motivate all aspects of community life for positive youth development. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
 
The Asset Approach: 40 Elements of Healthy Development (Search Institute Press, 2006) ISBN-13: 978-1574821918   
This booklet gives an overview of the assets, their power, and practical ideas for getting started. Comes in packages of 20. Can be ordered from Search Institute.
 
The Complete Guide to Service Learning: Proven, Practical Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility, Academic Curriculum, & Social Action by Cathryn Berger Kaye (Free Spirit Publishing; 2003) ISBN-13: 978-1575421339
This book features chapters on a variety of topics, complete with inspiring quotations, background information, activities, and real-life examples