Advancing Youth Development Works
This New Theory Offers Positive Results
Youth Development Theory is a concept that is instrumental in working with young people in today's world.
Young people are not motivated or inspired to work hard while in school and others are pre-occupied with their responsibilities that aren't being fulfilled while attending school says the March 2006 released report "The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts", funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Interviewing and studying young people in the US who dropped out of school before graduating, the report voices how though 35 percent reported that they dropped out because they were failing, 69 percent said they were not encouraged to try harder or interested in the instruction. Almost half said that they had responsibilities that conflicted with school-whether it was earning money for the entire family or supporting their own child. It is assumed from their responses that they would have been more interested in participating in a school environment if their opinion was solicited when establishing the school culture or if the school provided them with the relevant services, supportive relationships and tangible opportunities to reach their goals.
Enter the case for youth development-the new catch-phrase that has circulated throughout the nation as the answer in an instant that will save youth--particularly in urban areas-- from the escalating statistics of youth delinquency and despair.
A self-proclaimed "youth advocate", Washington DC native Adrienne Hawkins recalls her days years ago when she was a teacher in a public high school, "If I knew then what I know now about icebreakers and ways to initiate team building in the classroom, my experience would have been different...for teachers [the expectation] is not about building relationships with the youth and getting them familiar with you and each other first. It is about teaching the curriculum and preparing them to test."
Hawkins, 28, is currently a Family Services Coordinator for Covenant House Washington's Peer-Supported Pregnancy Prevention Program (PSP³). Before being promoted to this position, Hawkins began as a youth facilitator, facilitating daily activities during the PSP³ after-school program to youth in grades 6-12. As a facilitator during the after-school program, Hawkins believes that, contrary to her experience as a teacher, she was expected to connect with the youth on many levels, and encouraged to build a sense of connectivity among the youth by aiding them in their different development levels-two things that were not central to being hired as a teacher. The message of expectation was further conveyed when then-executive director of Covenant House Washington, Vincent Gray, in an unprecedented move, mandated that all CHW front-line employees get trained in Advancing Youth Development (AYD) theory.
"AYD is about meeting the youth where they are and helping them achieve as demonstrated through outcomes," says Hawkins. Currently working with young people who are casually suspended from their local school with, in her opinion, no understanding of what they are to do while not in school, Hawkins is hoping to work with the District of Columbia school system (DCPS) in developing ways to discipline misguided youth without routinely suspending or expelling, which she believes does not really teach the youth anything. "You can't just discipline or suspend a student and expect that that's the answer... Where are the outcomes, the supports put in place for there to be a change in behavior?"
AYD training manuals define youth development conceptually and practically. As a concept, youth development is defined as the development and learning that a young person is experiencing at all times. Since that can happen around or away from adults, the training maintains that it is important for youth workers-adults who work with young people as a profession--to understand that when they are working with young people, they are working with people who have a set of varied experiences upon reaching your classroom, after-school program, or community event. Contrary to the often held belief that children are empty-vessels waiting to be filled, youth development recognizes that when a youth worker comes in contact with a youth person, they are approaching someone in the midst of their own youth development process. Developed and piloted by the National Training Institute more than five years ago before being implemented nationally, youth development training aims to equip the youth worker with the language and guidelines of how to aid that young person in their development.
"[AYD] does not work from a deficit or prevention stance but instead the complete opposite," Mustafaa Madyun, program associate with the Child, Youth Investment Trust Corporation (CYITC) tells his fresh batch of trainees during each new training class. Madyun facilitates the AYD training sessions for individuals and community based organizations, like Covenant House Washington, funded by the trust. According to Madyun, there are currently only eleven people city-wide certified to train youth workers in Advancing Youth Development theory.
Hawkins and supporters of the training believe schools would become models of youth development in practice if they provided more opportunities for young people to test their strengths and learn new things about themselves rather than focusing on the deficits and risk factors. An example would be implementing more hands-on opportunities to explore, earn and express rather than environments where they are expected to sit, repeat, be quiet and memorize. Instead of telling the young people about the positive choices that await them if they choose wisely, engaging them in exploratory activity where they are expected and able to make the choices best for them as they learn.
Chrystal Jones, mother to 11 year-old Aaron who was moved to a charter school when concerns about growing class size and overly traditional teaching styles prevailed agrees.
"I think with the youth and the problems that they face today, I think schools have become antiquated, not meeting the needs that kids have. Today's youth are a new kind of youth-- very intelligent, and very innovative yet they need someone to tell them 'no' without breaking their spirit... When they have an opinion they are looked upon as being disrespectful. Discipline is still needed but we have to learn how to teach outside of the box. "
An active parent, involved in her child's school and after-school parent boards, Jones believes herself to be educated on the things that work and don't work well when it comes to using best practices to teach and reach young people. If given the opportunity to make changes in the public school system, she would begin on the front lines.
"I would incorporate a more innovative way of teaching instead of using the current method of day to day instruction," she shares. "I would get teachers to know their students personally so they can teach them in ways that relate to them... Use the carry-out or the neighborhood store-terms relevant to them to explain concepts."
Supporting Jones' advice, the book Kids as Planners: A Guide to Strengthening Students, Schools, and Communities through Service-Learning outlines for teachers, school administrators, students, and community partners the process for designing, implementing and evaluating projects for young people to do that will meet many educational reform objectives: standards-based learning, character education and school-to-career initiatives.
All in all, it boils down to how the youth respond to the attempts of incorporating strategies to advance youth development. Fifteen year-old Tiffany Lewis says it best when she resounds, "School should be a place where we are encouraged to be the best we can be. When it seems that that is not the case, school, to me, is a waste."
