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"Accept everything about yourself, I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end, no apologies, no regrets.          Clark Moustakas

"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. 
     Look the world straight in the face."

                                    Helen Keller

Why Participation is Expected to Benefit Youth

Article from StateUniversity.com

There are a number of reasons that both scholars and parents expect young people to benefit from participation in clubs and youth organizations. These reasons have to do with the activities, roles, and relationships available to children and adolescents when they participate in clubs. Activities are important in several ways. For one, participation in a supervised constructive activity limits the time that is available for less constructive activity, such as television watching, or for getting involved in risky behaviors. For another, activities offered by clubs or youth organizations enable members to learn valuable skills. Many of the activities offered by clubs help students to extend and elaborate on the more formal knowledge learned in school.

Club membership provides an opportunity to participate in new roles. The leadership roles that are available in clubs provide a valuable experience that is not generally available to young people. Other roles, such as being a helper in a service club, a soloist in a music club, or an artist making scenery in a drama club, enable identity exploration.

Finally, relationships formed with adult leaders and with peers at the clubs are important. Adults and peers at these organizations can serve as models and as sources of social support, friendship, and caring. Several developmental theories point to the importance of adult mentoring for child and adolescent development. Mentoring relationships are important characteristics of clubs and youth programs. Adolescents who have an after-school relationship with a mentor are far less likely to use drugs or alcohol than adolescents who do not have such relationships. Peer relations might also benefit from participation in clubs. "Hanging out" unsupervised with peers contributes negatively to child and adolescent development. However, participation in supervised constructive activities provides adolescents with opportunities to gain social skills from positive interactions with peers.

Shirley Brice Heath has elaborated on the importance of extracurricular activities in the arts. She points out how arts groups offer young people activities, roles, and relationships that can contribute positively to their development. According to Heath, many youth art programs design environments that prepare youth for problem solving, conflict resolution, and productivity in work, family, and other community settings. Heath highlights the critical thinking, identity exploration, collaboration, organization, and pursuit of excellence that transpires when youth participate in artistic groups. Community arts organizations often help older youths to elaborate their knowledge and skill by bringing younger participants into the group. By dedicating themselves to long-term projects, young people learn to stick with and complete projects, and they have the opportunity to produce creative works for audiences by putting on shows and plays. The racial and socioeconomic barriers that are breached by the work of such organizations is likely to benefit both youth and communities.

Four high school boys afflicted with spring fever skipped morning classes. After lunch they reported to the teacher that they had a flat tire. Much to their relief she smiled and said: "Well, you missed a test today so take seats apart from one another and take out a piece of paper." Still smiling, she waited for them to sit down. Then she said: "First Question:  Which tire was flat?"

POINT TO PONDER: "Rather than standing or speaking for children, we need to stand with children speaking for themselves. We don't need a political movement for children... [we need to] build environments and policies for our collective future." - Sandra Meucci

Children and Youth Voice, Youth Involvement, Youth Engagement, Youth Organizing and Youth Participation

About Us

Mission

Youth on Board helps young people and adults think differently about each other so that they can work together to change society.

Vision

Youth on Board envisions a world where young people are fully respected, and treated as valued and active members of their families, communities, and society. To reach that end, we work to:

• Change attitudes and strengthen relationships among young people, and between young people and adults;
• Support young people to be an active force for change in all aspects of their lives; and
• Ensure that policies, practices, and laws reflect young people's role as full and valued members of their communities.

Youth on Board helps young people and adults think differently about each other so that they can work together to change their communities and schools. We don't just build skills, we build mutually respectful relationships between young people and adults that allow young people to move from the margins of their communities into the center.

What makes our services unique:

• We put young people at the center of everything we do, and help  them develop the skills they need to take charge of their lives.
• We focus on building mutually respectful relationships by helping people listen to and understand each other.
• We work with clients over a period of months or years to ensure permanent, meaningful change.
• We work with you to analyze and address the attitudinal and structural barriers to youth involvement.
• We show you how to get young people involved at every stage of the process, from planning to implementation to assessment.
• We are committed to supporting youth voice at every level of decision-making.

Very cool.....see lots more of Youth on Board at:

www.youthonboard.org

Youth development must change. For 75 years experts and organizations have been working to standardize the way young people physically, mentally, morally and socially grow. This standardization has happened in programs, classrooms, hospitals and other settings where young people are grouped together according to "ability" and age. This process has been called "youth development".

Many young people have not responded well to this standardization. Despite laws enforcing standardized behavior and activities, in spite of the standardized educational practices and high stakes testing in schools and completely opposite of how many youth workers, sociologists, educators and researchers have expected. Young people and the organizations that serve them are increasingly identifying the flaws of standardization, and are working to transform these perspectives.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or time, we are the ones we have been waiting for; we are the change that we seek."

President Barack Obama

“The more kids participate in these clubs, the better self-concept they have,” said Dawn Anderson-Butcher, an associate professor of social work at Ohio State University.

“And then that self-concept makes children less vulnerable to engaging in problem behaviors.”

Even children who don’t attend a club every day still benefit, she added.

“We’re finding that daily attendance isn’t as important as whether the kids feel attached to the organization and have a good relationship with a staff member. Those two things predict the best outcomes and the least amount of vulnerability.”

This study, which appears in a recent issue of Children and Youth Services Review, surveyed nearly 300 children from age 9 to 16 in a city in Utah. About three fourths of the children were members of a local branch of Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The rest were children who weren’t members, but lived in the surrounding community.

The children filled out the Utah Division of Substance Abuse Needs Assessment Survey, which gauges how attached children feel to their family, neighborhood, and school; whether they have a strong sense of who they are, and strong self-esteem; whether they earn good grades; and whether they feel that they receive positive reinforcement for good behavior from their community.

It asks whether they have engaged in problem behaviors in the last 30 days. Problem behaviors include alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use; academic failure; and gang involvement.

Anderson-Butcher and Scottye Cash, also an associate professor of social work at Ohio State, compared the survey data with the last six months of the children’s attendance records from the club to see if there was any association.

Because club attendance is voluntary, some children come more frequently than others. They freely choose among recreational activities (such as playing basketball), academic assistance, and life skills classes. This study simply counted time spent at the club, and not children’s specific activities.

The study revealed that the more children participated in the club, the stronger their sense of self. Participation in the club boosted their social skills, as well as the positive reinforcement they felt they received from their community.

Children who experienced all these benefits were less likely to engage in problem behaviors.

“As kids’ self-concept improves, it reduces their vulnerability to negative influences, which in turn decreases their likelihood of using drugs and alcohol, joining gangs, or failing in school,” Anderson-Butcher said.

This study is the latest in a series of studies in which Anderson-Butcher has examined the benefits of youth clubs. She frequently works with federally funded programs including the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. All such clubs offer free educational programs that are meant to help children better themselves.

Her previous studies have shown that just getting children off the streets and into the clubs benefits them greatly. But children who participate in the educational programs gain an even stronger benefit. So do children who form strong bonds with adults who work there.

Based on this latest study, the researchers suggested that clubs target self-concept as a core component of their educational programs.

Getting adequate funding for programs is always a challenge for these clubs, Anderson-Butcher said. So is getting children to attend the programs.

“If a kid has to choose between playing basketball or going to a life skills class, which are they going to choose?” she asked. “Engagement techniques are key to helping children join these educational programs and stick with them.”

Employee retention is another critical issue. When children get to bond with an adult whom they see regularly, they build a stronger affinity for the club. That in turn leads to positive changes in their lives.

“Strong relationships are built over time,” Anderson-Butcher said.

“It takes time for the children to develop an attachment for the club — to feel committed to it, like they have ownership of it. And with that commitment comes the adoption of norms and positive behaviors.”

ksandvig@jailsergeant.com

Students Against Gangs - A place where students and youths can discuss gang problems with their peers, gang experts, police, and counselors.
       
 www.studentsagainstgangs.com 

Powerful Message and Video


 
This is one of those videos you never get tired of....enjoy

Way cool.....check it out

Linda from "The Women of Block 12" pointed out this video to me.  To me this is proof that there's still HOPE in our world.....thank you Linda!