Adam F.C. Fletcher is a writer, speaker and consultant focused on engaging people throughout their own lives as well as our schools, families, communities and the world.
Adam’s Short Story
Adam F.C. Fletcher is an advocate and educator focused on engaging people throughout their own lives as well as our schools, families, communities and the world. As the founder of more than 100 initiatives in dozens of communities, he has supported thousands of low-income people, people of color, and other communities experiencing inequity as they become engaged in changing their lives and changing our world. An internationally recognized expert on youth engagement for more than two decades, Adam has consulted on projects across the US and Canada as well as more than two dozen international projects, written more than 50 publications, keynoted more than 300 conferences, and worked with more than 500 organizations focused on engaging every young person, everywhere, all of the time. His latest book is Democracy Deficit Disorder: Learning Democracy with Young People, and he continues serving nonprofits, government agencies and K-12 schools as the director of the Freechild Institute for Youth Engagement. He is also the historian behind NorthOmahaHistory.com and has written eight books and hundreds of articles under the pen name Adam Fletcher Sasse.
Adam F.C. Fletcher Long Bio
For more than 20 years, Adam F.C. Fletcher has worked across the United States, in Canada and around the world to transform the roles of people throughout society. His work motivates and strategizes with individuals, organizations and communities as they discover how to work together to foster positive, powerful realities for everyone, everywhere, all of the time.
He is the founding director of the Freechild Institute for Youth Engagement, focused on connecting young people and social change around the world, and SoundOut, the first international organization committed to promoting student voice and Meaningful Student Involvement throughout the education system. He is also the founder and editor of NorthOmahaHistory.com, celebrating people, places and events in Nebraska’s predominanantly African American community.
As a child, Adam grew up in a primarily homeless, border-crossing, low-income family. Generational PTSD, untreated addiction and growing up in a depressed communities presented Adam with challenges at every corner, but with the support of adult allies throughout his youth he became the only child in his family to graduate high school on-time, and the first to complete college. Adam frequently says youth involvement saved his life. Spending more than a decade growing up in a low-income African American community, Adam developed a commitment to serving communities of color and low-income communities that has stayed with him since.
First working with young people when he was 14, Adam began his career in nonprofit organizations in the Midwest as a line-level youth workers. As a teenage teacher in a program inspired by Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed,” Adam found his passion for youth engagement and stayed with it from different directions. After working as a summer camp nature counselor, an experiential education facilitator and ropes challenge course director, Adam led summer camps across the nation. He was also a youth center coordinator, and as an independent living skills instructor with organizations including the YWCA, Planned Parenthood and the YMCA. Adam served three terms with AmeriCorps, including serving Kurdish and Iraqi refugee families in Nebraska and in rural northern New Mexico. He was also a fellow with the Points of Light Foundation in Washington, DC, and a fellow with Communities for Learning in New York City.
Adam has been a leader in nonprofits and government agencies as well. The former executive director of two international nonprofits, Adam was most recently the leader of Generation YES. After 25 years of operations, he helped sunset the organization while supporting a dozen employees and programming in 300 K-12 schools transition their efforts in student voice, digital equity, and school improvement. Adam was a government employee the State of Washington and a contractor for the federal Corporation for National Service. He was the first student engagement specialist for Washington State’s education agency and a co-founder of the state’s Youth Service and Leadership Team, and later worked with the Washington State Department of Health as the Coordinated School Health Program manager. He also directed a statewide youth-led campaign against childhood obesity for two years.
Adam’s writing has appeared in both magazines and academic journals around the world, including Educational Leadership, NAESP’s Principal Magazine, and an Australian journal called Connect for Student Participation. Adam’s most recent book is called Democracy Deficit Disorder: Learning Democracy with Young People, and was published by Peter Lang International Academic Publishers (2023). He is also the author more than fifty other publications, including Steps to Youth Leadership in Modern Times (2022); Student Voice Revolution: The Meaningful Student Involvement Handbook (2017); Facing Adultism (2015); The Practice of Youth Engagement (2014); The Guide to Student Voice (2013); The Freechild Project Guide to Youth-Driven Programming (2013); and SoundOut Student Voice Curriculum (2008), all released by CommonAction Publishing. Adam also authored chapters in A Handbook for Student Engagement in Higher Education: Theory into Practice (2020, Routledge), Empowering Students for the Future: Encouraging Self-Direction and Lifelong Learning (2019, Rowman and Littlefield), and School Connectedness and Meaningful Student Participation (2009, U.S. Department of Education).
Writing as Adam Fletcher Sasse, he is also the author of several local history books, including the #OmahaBlackHistory: African American People, Places and Events in Omaha, Nebraska (2021); the North Omaha History series (2016); A Picture History of Omaha’s Saratoga Neighborhood (2022); and The Guide to Fort Omaha (2017).
Adam’s volunteer service includes serving on the Board of Directors for Generation YES, Capitol Clubhouse, and Partners in Prevention Education, all in Olympia, Washington. He was on the steering committee for Future Friendly Schools, was a founding advisor for the Institute for Democratic Education in America, was a guest editor for Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Eduction and was a contributing editor to the Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. Adam has also been on advisory boards for a number of organizations, and was named a “director emeritus” for the National Youth Rights Association.
The 16th Surgeon General of the United States David Satcher named Adam a “Healthy Schools Hero” for the national nonprofit Action for Healthy Kids. Adam has been granted other local, national, and international recognition, too. He has received the Projecto Juventude Award from the City of São Paulo, Brazil; the Youth Empowerment Advocate Award from the Human Services Coalition of Miami-Dade County, Florida; the Community Engagement Pioneer Award from the City of Hampton, Virginia; and the Partnership Award from the SOAR Children and Youth Coalition in Seattle, Washington.
Adam’s graduate work was at the University of Washington College of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and received his undergraduate degree from The Evergreen State College focused on Youth Studies and Critical Pedagogy.
Today, Adam lives in rural Oregon. Learn more about him at adamfletcher.net and reach him by calling (360) 489-9680.
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