Some programs reach out to disenfranchised or at-risk youth; others limit participation to young people who have maintained a certain grade point average or have applied or auditioned to participate in the program. Many programs seek a heterogeneous set of participants to build understanding and tolerance among young people. Some other programs are targeted toward homogeneous groups in order to offer specific support, cultural awareness, a sense of belonging, and pride to a particular subgroup of youth.
They are committed to offering supports and opportunities to socially marginalized youth—in the case of CYWD to young female prostitutes in San Francisco, and in the case of. Community programs for youth may engage a set of youth in communities that are particularly isolated and where youth have less access to social integration. For adolescents living in rural communities, where the proportion of parents working outside the home is the largest in the country, community programs for youth can nurture engagement and create a strong sense of belonging Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, a.
An after-school program in rural Kentucky the Clinton County School District , for example, offers an academic summer camp to youth. These young people participate in sports activities, dancing and music, hunter education courses, computer skills training, communications skills activities, and public speaking. Given the isolated nature of this Kentucky community, opportunities for special field trips or exposure to diverse skills training are more limited than in urban areas.
For these reasons, the on-site program is complemented with a Spanish course taught on-line by a teacher 90 minutes away, and young people take electronic field trips by way of the Internet Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, a.
Some community programs for youth are designed as drop-in activities, where young people can come and go and participate in rotating activities of their choice. Other programs require youth to make a commitment to the program and as a result have high expectations for their involvement. These programs support prosocial norms by teaching youth responsibility to uphold certain rules of behavior, to be accountable to the program and its expectations, and to agree to live up to a set of morals and values.
At all costs, the center enforces these established rules and expectations of respect. The objective is to help young people integrate these norms into their character and their behavior in other parts of their lives McLaughlin et al. Many community programs for youth incorporate multiple opportunities to build efficacy. Programs may vary in the extent to which they allow youth to participate in the leadership of the program. However, many programs believe that youth can play a variety of roles in designing, delivering, and evaluating activities.
Youth participants may help identify needs and set goals; help design the structure, activities, and supports that will be attractive and accessible to youth; help staff understand what youth need and how to relate to them; help identify community and family issues that may be barriers for youth participation; and help create an environment for youth to positively contribute to their community.
Some programs develop youth councils to systematically generate youth involvement. Others involve youth in responsible leadership positions around program activities, such as tutors, peer counselors, and event organizers Burt, Community programs for youth that incorporate opportunities for efficacy may, in fact, be youth-centered or run entirely by adults.
Are program goals focused on youth as resources or as problems? They are likely to avoid or leave programs that seem punitive or deficit-based and instead choose ones that acknowledge their assets and help them to develop their strengths. Youth-centered programs provide rich opportunities to support youth efficacy—for youth to experience leadership, assume responsibility, and develop problem-solving skills. Faced with declining enrollment of youth over 13 years of age, Louisiana 4-H developed a survey to ensure that their curriculum and program strategy were designed around ideas that teens themselves indicated were of interest.
They found that the topics of interest changed as young people got older. At higher grade levels, for instance, they were much more interested in jobs, careers, and options after high school.
They also discovered that the traditional 4-H program topics of health, safety, and nutrition had to be packaged in terms of fitness or sports in order to attract adolescent interest. Although the youth did not want to discuss personal grooming, they were eager to participate in activities about fashion Acosta and Holt, This program granted youth responsibility and supported efficacy by involving them in deciding the nature of the program activities.
There are programs that have explored including young people as evaluators of their programs. At the heart of many community programs for youth are opportunities for skill building. Programs can use a wide variety of activities, such as community service, adventure and outdoor activities, art, drama, music, religious instruction, sports, cultural awareness, academic improvement, and career preparation, to support positive youth development and to meet the program-specific objectives.
The exact content or focus e. Save the Children programs, for example, include activities to promote cognitive ability and intellectual growth, as well as social and emotional growth, through a range of activities, including tutoring, computer training, recreation activities, team-building programs, and youth leadership activities Terao et al.
Programs focusing on a specific activity can support skill building in a number of different areas. An arts program, for example, may involve youth in researching their cultural history and painting community murals to reflect what they learn. A sports program may focus not only on skills development, but also on teamwork and problem solving McLaughlin, Library-based programs encouraging teens to read can provide a variety of educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities that help the participants improve academic performance, develop social skills, learn new hobbies, and build self-esteem.
Through reading opportunities, these programs focus on critical thinking, communication skills, social skills, and creativity American Library Association, Examples of skills that are incorporated into programs are plentiful.
Volunteers of Campfire Boys and Girls provide youth with assistance,. The program curriculum incorporates general decision-making, problem-solving, planning, and goal-setting techniques taught through life examples that both the director and the youth provide Ferguson, Programs that address a number of developmental outcomes with each activity offer what is referred to as an embedded curriculum McLaughlin, For example, YO!
An after-school dance program for youth integrates cultural history into the dance lessons and gives them responsibility for program planning, advertising, and marketing. A championship inner-city basketball team begins each after-game briefing with an assessment of teamwork and sportsmanship.
Programs such as these teach skills—writing, dance, and basketball—but they also build skills around responsibility, leadership, persistence, and connection to the family, schools, and the community.
Community programs for youth offer many opportunities for the integration of families, schools, and the broader community. Thus far we have described the specific ways in which individual organizations design and operate programs.
But youth development depends not only on the independent efforts of programs, but also on these efforts in collaboration with the community as a whole. Peter L. Benson, president of the Search Institute, describes a community by three characteristics: 1 a shared commitment, in which adults, organizations, and community institutions unite to affirm their responsibility to youth and their ability to make a difference and take action; 2 daily opportunities for individuals to acknowledge, encourage, and support youth; 3 intentional involvement of organizations, institutions, and systems—including schools, congregations, youth organizations, businesses, health care providers, and foundations—in pro-.
Given the focus of this report, the committee was particularly interested in highlighting strategies through which community programs for youth integrate their activities with the broader community. Many programs in fact do target the community more broadly, seeking to reach and influence young people, their families, and other community members, organizations, and businesses.
HOME, for example, is a community-based youth membership organization where young people throughout the city of Alameda, California, collaborate with each other and adults to create important projects and innovative businesses. The achievements made through these youth-initiated projects pave the way for adults to embrace youth as contributing members of the community and for youth to learn the skills they need to be effective, enterprising citizens.
As well, many programs that are focused on individual-level outcomes also influence community-level outcomes. Community programs for youth may, in fact, focus beyond individual-level outcomes to strengthen community capacity. Youth participants in the Community Impact! Most young people grow up in families, spend much of their time in schools, and are surrounded by communities, so incorporating opportunities for developmental outcomes into their lives demands coordinated efforts among these stakeholders.
No single community organization can provide the range of developmental, preventive, and intervention programs and services required to give young people the experiences they need to mature into successful adults. Agreeing on what communities want for all young people is an important factor in supporting youth development. Youth service provid-. They must decide what youth need to develop into healthy, self-sufficient, and involved adults and how the community can best meet those needs.
Through that collaborative process, they can begin discussing a youth development framework and how it might translate into a vision for young people in their community. The committee explored in more depth a few particular strategies to integrate community programs for youth with broader community priorities.
Over the past 10 years, there has been growing interest in community-wide programming initiatives for youth. Consistent with the importance we place on the interconnections across the various social settings in which adolescents live, these community-wide initiatives have sought to take a broader view of the developmental needs of youth.
Also growing out of a community development perspective, these initiatives have focused on a coordinated effort to increase the services and programs for youth across the community. These types of initiatives are particularly noteworthy, since they seek to provide a coordinated approach to meeting the needs for positive youth development. Such initiatives also offer the possibility of implementing a monitoring and self-evaluation system that regularly assesses the needs of youth and matches them against the range of services and programs provided by the community.
Such a coordinated approach appears to have a good chance of actually ensuring the adequacy of community-wide services for youth. Communities That Care. It helps states and communities assess and prioritize needs, choose the best approaches to promote youth development and prevent problem behaviors based on those needs, and evaluate the effec-.
The scientific knowledge base underlying this approach includes understanding the root causes of both positive and problem behaviors.
These root causes include risk factors for adolescent problem behaviors— those factors associated with an increased likelihood of such behaviors. Root causes also include protective factors—those factors that appear to buffer the effects of risk and promote positive youth development even in the presence of risk.
The approach is designed to reduce risk in ways that enhance protective factors. The knowledge base also includes identification of programs, policies, and actions that have demonstrated their ability to reduce risk and enhance protection. The model began with a field test in in Washington State with 25 communities, then in in Oregon with 39 communities.
It has now been adopted by the U. It has allowed them to take the lead in prevention, get funds transferred, and helped to educate citizens and practitioners about this effective approach to prevention.
The state of Pennsylvania in collaboration with federal funding sources serves as one example of the use of this model. The state made a commitment to help communities put together a coordinated effort around prevention.
Communities were encouraged to combine the processes and skills of community building and community development with the evidence emerging from the field of prevention science in order to evaluate community needs and resources; design a more comprehensive, coordinated set of services and programs for children, youth, and families; implement their design; and put in place an extensive evaluation component to monitor progress and improve design.
Communities applied for planning and training grant funds. At present, the state plans to provide training for up to 20 new communities per year until the demand for this program is met.
The evaluation of this effort, based on a quasi-experimental design, is just beginning. Initial results focus only on implementation in a limited number of communities. Reports over the next. Increased number and quality of activities and opportunities in core concept areas in community. Community Change for Youth Development. Petersburg, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; and Austin, Texas and working with them to develop and implement an integrated set of activities for youth ages 12 to 20 Gambone, The three communities with the most comprehensive plan that was consistent with the goals and developmental perspective were selected.
Unlike the Communities That Care initiative, this project involved little state funding. Instead, the communities received some support and were required to identify and recruit other sources of funding. Two things are very exciting about this community effort. First, the core concepts identified were based on solid research and fit with the positive developmental features of settings outlined in Chapter 4. Second, initial studies of the planning and implementation phases suggest that communities can come together to increase the range of opportunities available to their youth Gambone, Nonexperimental evaluations of this effort are ongoing, and a great deal will be learned from these studies.
School-Based Community Centers. Schools often serve as a gathering spot for community activity focused on the development of its youth. Two schools in New York City, I.
A survey of parents indicated concern about homework patterns, so the program began as a homework tutorial. Gradually it has expanded to include computer labs, dance classes, arts programs, and career readiness support. Resources are also available through the program to parents and the community U. Department of Education, Other similar models now exist across the country.
Closely related to these community-wide initiatives are a wide variety of capacity-building intermediary organizations that have emerged over the past decade. These organizations have grown out of a need to advance the vision of comprehensive promotion and implementation of youth development. These organizations are helping to chart, support, implement, and sustain multiple changes for multiple stakeholders, such as youth development providers, funders, and researchers Academy for Educational Development, The Community Network for Youth Development CNYD , an example of an intermediary organization located in San Francisco, California, has been instrumental in promoting a youth development approach and supporting youth workers and directors.
Indeed, data are often collected on the prevalence of youth risky behaviors, but rarely on measures of positive youth development such as those included in the Five Cs model Lerner et al. Here, lessons can be learned from the process of measuring developmen- tal outcomes such as school readiness among preschool-aged children world- wide.
Similarly, what the field of youth development needs is a measure of readiness for the many challenges of early adulthood, including school-to-work transition, family formation, and citi- zenship, that includes an assessment of competencies or strengths. Every one of these young people must be afforded the chance to negotiate the transition to a happy, healthy, and productive adulthood.
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After-school programs, scout groups, community service activities, religious youth groups, and other community-based activities have long been thought to play a key role in the lives of adolescents. But what do we know about the role of such programs for today's adolescents?
How can we ensure that programs are designed to successfully meet young people's developmental needs and help them become healthy, happy, and productive adults?
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