With the passage in early 1975 of the social service amendments to the Social Security Act, referred to as Title XX, a major new opportunity to serve children and youth has emerged. Seizing the opportunity will be largely dependent on the well-prepared presentation of a case for the needs of young people by dedicated advocates in every state. Title XX fosters a decentralized program of Federally supported services as set forth in a Comprehensive Annual Services Program (CASP) Plan published by each governor, and prepared and administered by the designated Title XX agency in each state. In addition, the law encourages very active participation by private organizations, agencies, and individual citizens in the development of the plan and, by contract, in the provisions of the services planned. This manual is designed to help advocates for children and youth understand the opportunities in Title XX and prepare for effective participation in the state planning process. The manual is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the background and philosophy of Title XX; Section 3 outlines the operating requirements of the new law; Section 4 describes the planning requirements in Title XX along with detailed examples of how Title XX can be used to fund children and youth-oriented services programs; and Section 5 suggests some "next steps" for state or local action. (Author/RWP)