INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

12 FEBRUARY 2001
_________________________________

Describing Primary Supports

When kids walk in here, its entirely different than when they walk into school. They're not expecting to fall. They open the door differently, their caps turned back on their heads, they’re ready ... What fires them up is getting excited about personal achievement. They are able to master concrete skills that are applicable to the real world.   

— Charles Hammond, former Director 
          Bicycle Action Project

When the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development asked focus groups of young people what they most wanted during their non-school hours, the answer was, "Safe parks and recreation centers; exciting science museums; libraries with all the latest books, videos, and records; chances to go camping and participate in sports; long talks with trusting and trustworthy adults who know a lot about the world and who like young people; and opportunities to learn new skills." (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development 1992) Most of these are easily accessed through a vital and varied system of primary supports.

Primary supports, in our definition, includes the full array of programs, places and activities beyond schools that are available to and appropriate for all children and their families, and that supplement the family's own capacity to promote its children’s safe and healthy development. This encompasses a broad range of activities and programs, including child care and after-school tutoring in church basements, sports leagues, scouting, choirs, and public parks and museums. In previous reports, Chapin Hall Center for Children has argued for greater emphasis on promoting the healthy development of all children and enhancing the functioning of all families through the availability of a wide range of opportunities for exploration, skill development, and support. Such a system of primary supports could provide an important balance. The current emphasis on treating problems of troubled children and families is typical of our nation’s service system. (Wynn, 1994) Chapin Hall has placed a priority on promoting an increased understanding of the importance of these primary supports as a critical component of an effective and holistic social service system for children and families.

In this report, we will examine a number of youth-serving programs, specifically those characterized as among the best of their kind, and those that are providing some segment of their programming for youth in poor communities. These programs may be offered through small, local, grassroots, youth-serving agencies or large, national, multi-service organizations; they may be through museums or public parks; they may serve exclusively African American boys from an impoverished neighborhood or bring together a variety of young people from across the nation. What they have in common is a commitment to meeting normal developmental needs of young people, rather than focusing on the provision of treatment for specific problems.

The study that informs this report grew out of a desire to understand more about the variety and richness of the youth-serving programs throughout the country. We appealed to individuals knowledgeable in the field of youth development to help identify a diverse set of programs that were among the best of those providing youth-development activities. Although we encouraged these informants to share information about programs in all communities— economically disadvantaged, socio-economically mixed, or affluent—informants were most excited about those reaching young people from poor communities. This de facto bias in the programs studied has allowed us an opportunity to explore the unique circumstances of youth-serving programs with a special mission to either reach a mixed-income population, or more often, to target youth from low-income families.

Through extensive interviews with the leaders of these programs, we learned about the programs’ missions, activities, services, practices, challenges, and perceived benefits for young people. In the first section of this report, we will discuss the role and importance of primary supports — particularly in low-income communities — describe the study that informs this report, and explore the significant commonalities among the programs studied.

The next section of the report analyzes the interviews with program directors. It is in this section that we explore the content, goals, and strategies of the programs. We have sorted the programs into six categories — Performance and Self-Expression, Recreation, Self-Enhancement, Educational Enrichment and Career Exploration, Developing Citizenship, and Comprehensive Service Programs.

The final section of our report synthesizes this analysis in order to examine the benefits offered by primary support programs in general and to highlight the challenges they confront. We offer recommendations for further study and consideration, and present conclusions based on the study. In an appendix to the volume, we include profiles of all of the programs that were included in the study.

As the Lilly Endowment has stated, youth development

is not a happenstance matter. While children can, and often do, make the best of difficult circumstances, they cannot be sustained and helped to grow by chance arrangements or makeshift events. Something far more intentional is required. a place, a league, a form of association, a gathering of people where value is placed on continuity, predictability history tradition, and a chance to test out new behaviors.

This study represents an opportunity to understand how programs that are seen as among the best of their kind think about the activities and options they provide and about their responsibility to the children, families, and communities they serve. Such an understanding can help to inform efforts to comprehend the primary supports sector and to facilitate planning and improvement of youth development efforts.

Merry, Sheila M. (2000) Beyond Home and School: The Role of Primary Supports in Youth Development. Chicago: Chapin Hall Center for Children

* You can also read Chapter 1: The Role of Primary Supports on this site.
  The full report is downloadable in PDF format at http://www.chapin.uchicago.edu/