All of us must have a hand in raising
our youth
We see it and hear it all the time: an unfortunate
story of a fallen youth. A story about drug addiction, family
separation, school dropouts, homelessness and criminal involvement. In
the extreme, even a story about a teenager's death.
With the life of a young person on the line, we think,
"What a tragedy! It's not fair!" Following that, we tend to ask, "How
did this happen? Who let this happen? Who, in the life of this child, is
to blame?"
That's when we start pointing fingers - everywhere. It
was the schools' fault, it was the juvenile court's fault, it was the
best friend's fault, it was the family's fault. Someone has to be
accountable, someone has to take responsibility, someone has to take the
blame. Our society is very good at pointing fingers when something goes
wrong with a young soul.
Of course, someone does need to take the blame. In
fact, it is about time that we all take full responsibility for the
health and well-being of our youth. We can too easily be a community
that focuses on failure and the need to place blame. Let's challenge
ourselves to be a community that is focused on the success of our youth,
and let's take the responsibility of wanting to be part of that success.
All of us can join hands and work together to support
positive youth development in our community. We can do it by focusing on
what are called developmental assets. These assets were cataloged in
research conducted since 1989 by the Search Institute, an independent
nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge
and resources to promote healthy children, youth and communities. The
developmental assets are defined by researchers as "the building blocks
that all youth need to be healthy, caring, principled and productive."
Forty assets have been identified. Some are external
assets - for example, family support, safety at home and in the
community, and positive peer influences. Others are internal assets - a
sense of purpose, motivation to succeed in school and the habit of
reading for pleasure.
Simply put, the more assets a youth has, the more
likely he or she is to succeed. The simplicity of asset development is
that we focus on building strengths in our youth, instead of defining
the weaknesses.
It's important to understand that asset development
does not depend only on parents, it is not taught just by teachers, and
it is not used solely in adolescent therapy by counselors. The critical
concept in asset development is that everyone in the community takes
responsibility for youth.
The developmental assets approach is simple, and it
does not take a child care expert to identify what our young people
need. If there is one thing that is critical to the healthy development
of young people, or the recovery of young people that are living the
consequences of their poor or forced choices, it is the awareness that
adults believe in them and give them the guidance and caring they need
each and every day.
Currently, in Lane County, a movement is growing. The
developmental asset language has been quietly spoken among agencies and
youth professionals over the past decade. But something has been
triggered, because now there are youth professionals and agencies in
Lane County that want to shout out, "Get off your assets, and let's all
help our youth be successful."
What this movement needs now is to get everyone in
Lane County involved in raising our youth. Not just youth professionals,
but the store clerk, the bus driver, the mechanic, the painter. Everyone
needs to become involved - and everyone can become involved - in
creating an asset-rich community. It's time to stop sitting back and
pointing our fingers of blame when we see young people failing. It's
time to take responsibility for ensuring their successes.
Craig H. Smith is a program manager for the city of
Eugene's Recreation Services Department. Information on asset
development can be found at
www.search-institute.org.
September 15, 2005
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/09/15/ed.col.craigsmith.0915.p1.php?section=opinion
