Shanetta Martin is a Senior Program Associate at the Forum for Youth Investment where she oversees work on youth and community engagement connected to state and local youth policy efforts. Shanetta joined the Forum in 2004. Through her work with leading state and national policy organizations, Shanetta has experience in working with policy makers, foundations, nonprofits, communities and young people to build broad-based partnerships that work toward improving public policies for children, youth and families. Shanetta brings expertise in youth engagement in policy making to the Forum. Her work at the Forum is focused on coordinating the provision of technical assistance to key change makers in state and local communities that work on strengthening connections between the full range of stakeholders to move youth policy agendas while ensuring youth participation in that process. Her work has involved collaborating on the development of conceptual frameworks and tools with leaders in the field of youth development to help states and communities do business differently to improve youth outcomes. Prior to her work at the Forum, Shanetta was involved in youth civic engagement where her primary responsibility at a statewide policy advocacy group was to build civic leadership skills among youth (ages 12 – 24) and to create opportunities for youth voices to be involved in public policy discussions. This work included documenting the voices of young people, facilitating opportunities for young people to experience the policy making process first-hand, fostering relationships between young people and policy makers, engaging non-traditional youth leaders, and coaching college age youth to train the next generation of civic leaders. To do this work, Shanetta worked with government agencies and institutions as well as broad-based nonprofit groups and community-based organizations. Shanetta comes to the Forum from Michigan’s Children, a statewide policy advocacy group and affiliate of Voices for America’s Children. While there, she coordinated the organizations Youth Policy Leadership Program that empowered young voices and provided policy makers the rare opportunity to hear the concerns of young people. In addition, Shanetta facilitated hands-on civic engagement experiences and service-learning opportunities for Michigan youth. She also served as a consultant to communities on local youth advocacy initiatives. Shanetta earned a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities Pre-Law and History from Michigan State University and a Master or Arts in Family Studies. Committed to increasing the quality and quantity of youth investment and youth involvement in the United States, the Forum supports organizations and communities that invest in young people by promoting a “big picture” approach to planning, research, advocacy and policy development among the broad range of national organizations that help communities invest in children, youth and families. The Forum for Youth Investment is the core operating division of Impact Strategies, Inc. ISI is the legal entity created to house the Forum for Youth Investment, the Cady-Lee Meeting Center and future related endeavors.