Contact Name
Barbara Dietsch
562-799-5126
bdietsc@WestEd.org

By Bonnie Benard

I’ve often asked people to identify the source of the above words. Someone almost always responds, "Jimmie Carter!" (As founder of Habitat for Humanity, he has played a role in restoring and building thousands of homes for those in need). In actuality, however, these are the closing words of the peace plan forged by the two rivaling gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, after the Los Angeles riots of 1992 (in the wake of the Rodney King beating). Unfortunately, their peace plan and offering of service were ignored.

Over the last few years, these words have come to signify for me the incredible loss and despair we face as individuals, families, communities, and especially as a nation, when young people are denied the supports and opportunities, often referred to as "social capital," critical to their healthy development. Having the opportunity to contribute, to give one’s gift back to the community, is not just a "nice to-do" but, rather, a basic developmental need which, when met with positive supports and opportunities, is associated with positive youth development and individual health and well-being–AND with positive community development and community health and well-being.

The perspective I’m describing goes by many names: resilience, strengths, assets, wellness, health promotion, positive psychology, youth development, and community youth development. No matter what language, the movement for positive approaches to working with young people is escalating across the country. Fortunately, this fervor is supported by research in multiple fields.

Research from brain science (Sylwester, 1995); multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993); motivational psychology (Deci, 1985); effective schools (Comer et al, 1996; Rutter et al., 1979); healthy families (Steinberg, 1997); community collaboration and development (White and Wehlage, 1995); prevention program evaluation (Melchior, 1998; Tierney et al., 1995; Tobler, 2000); child and youth development studies (Masten and Coatsworth, 1998); and, most importantly, from long-term studies of individual resilience in the face of risk and challenge (Werner and Smith, 1992), is finding that healthy development and successful learning are the products of three critical developmental supports and opportunities:

• Caring relationships which means having someone who is "there" for you, who listens, who pays attention, who is patient, and whom you can trust.
• High expectation messages that convey positive beliefs in your capacity; offer respectful guidance and structure; look for your strengths, interests, and dreams; challenge you to do your personal best; and give you the message you have everything you need within your own heart and mind to be successful.
• Opportunities for participation and contribution which include belonging to a group, having responsibilities, developing competencies and skills through direct experience, having a voice and choice, making decisions, planning, and having ownership and leadership. Most importantly, these include opportunities to give back your gift–to be of service to other people, to nature, to your community and world.

It is no coincidence that resilience and other social-behavioral research continually identify these three characteristics as supporting healthy and successful outcomes. It is precisely through caring relationships, high expectation messages, and opportunities for participation and contribution that we engage young–and old!–people’s intrinsic motivation, their drive to meet their developmental needsfor safety, love and belonging, respect, mastery, challenge, power and identity, and, ultimately, for meaning.

So what does all this mean for prevention–teen pregnancy or any other–and for schooling? If we want positive health–including prevention–and learning outcomes, we must do three things. First, we must make sure our schools, community-based organizations, and prevention programs are staffed with caring adults who enjoy young people; who believe in, offer guidance without coercion, look for– and encourage–the wisdom, strengths and gifts of youth; and who can let go of some of their adult control and provide youth the opportunities for active involvement, service, and contribution in their schools and communities

Second, we must support our prevention program staff, our families, our teachers, and our youthworkers in their roles as caregivers to young people. They need workplaces and programs that provide them with opportunities to experience caring relationships, high expectation messages, and participation and contribution.

Third, adults who work with youth must be committed to working together in partnership with them to change their schools and communities into places where young people can grow up healthy. This approach, now called community youth development (CYD), acknowledges that participation in the community is critical for healthy youth development. CYD believes youth participation is also critical to community health and development. In fact, a community cannot be considered healthy if its youth remain isolated, segregated, and marginalized. Community youth development means young people are not done to or for but done with.

In schools and community-based organizations across the country, youth are beginning to hold positions in policymaking and governance. They are sitting at the decision-making table and presenting before city councils and other local and state governing boards. They are organizing in their communities to fight for environmental and social justice. They are running recreational programs for themselves. They are even partnering with their teachers to create inclusive classroom environments in which students help design the curriculum and create projects that impact the community (see the CYD Journal for numerous examples of these efforts).

All of these efforts are grounded in the belief that youth participation is not about creating separate "fix-the-kid" youth-specific projects or programs. It means that youth participation must be a principle grounded in the very nature of how students learn in school and work in our communities; in how schools, classrooms, and work experiences are structured and taught.

Ultimately, youth power is a win-win, "power to the people" agenda. When we work in partnership with our young people and truly, "Give them the hammers and the nails; they will rebuild the city" and reweave the fabric of community essential to the well-being of us all.

Bonnie Benard is a Senior Program Associate in the Human Development Program at WestEd’s Oakland office.