What kinds of supports are necessary to aid youth in their critical period of development during adolescence? If enabling is the extreme side of support and is actually a deterrent to positive youth development, what type of support is actually helpful?
When thinking of ways to support youth in their development, always begin with asking the young people themselves what it is that they believe they need to help them be successful. One example can be supporting a young person in their path to attending college.
If you are providing a service where you are matching young people with college information so they will have the opportunity to attend a college, ask the young person what supports would be helpful in fully utilizing this service to be able to experience the opportunity of attending college. They may respond that they will need support with the application. A hands-on support would be filling the application out with the young person, checking it out for errors if necessary, helping them get the money for the application fee, helping them write the essay, etc. This hands-on support is helpful if the young person appreciates and needs the structure that your presence provides.
The hands-off approach for helping with the application process would be to establish a check-list for the young person that outlines the things they need to do to complete the application and letting them know you will be available for questions if necessary and you will review the application once it is completed. This approach allows the youth to possibly make mistakes but have an opportunity to remedy the mistakes on their own, perhaps, before they bring you in to review the final outcome.
Some youth appreciate and ask for one support over another and it is always best to gauge from their request what is preferable. Your insight as a youth worker, however, should stay abreast to
- make sure that your hands-on support does not venture into territory where it is enabling a youth to avoid their own responsibility.
Make sure that as you support, you are gently teaching as well so that ultimately, the young person feels comfortable attempting on their own and validating their work on their own. To reinforce its message, remember the old adage: Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
