New Year, New Look at Positive Youth Development
Let Young People Take Charge and They Grow Up To Be Leaders
“Once a young person finds their voice and discovers their capacity to affect change, those traits become permanent,” says Steven A. Culbertson, president and CEO of Youth Service America, a national organization that promotes community service among young people.
Several of our PYD experts report having experienced that kind of indelible self discovery as adolescents.
As a middle-schooler, Wendy Wheeler volunteered to run a day camp with a friend. Together, they planned a summer’s worth of activities and assigned roles to the grown-up volunteers, who, assuming the girls were young adults, never questioned their leadership.
The day before camp started, the two girls asked an adult to give them a lift to the grocery store.
“The adults were surprised to learn that we didn’t drive—and even more shocked when they found out that we were only 13 years old!” says Wheeler, who years later is president of the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Wheeler’s colleague Carla Roach, senior director of the Innovation Center, shared a similar tale of youth empowerment.
In her very first job out of college, at a national youth development organization, Roach’s title was Youth Program Assistant. She thought the title referred to the “youth programs” that the group supported, but soon she learned otherwise. “The ‘youth’ in the job title actually referred to me,” she says—in other words, a youth staff member.
Roach was slow to understand her title’s meaning because her colleagues never made her feel like anything less than an equal partner. “The consistent and genuine respect that I received encouraged me to take on a leadership role in the organization, and it changed my thinking about how young people and adults can work together,” she says.
Joyce Walker, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Youth Work Institute, made another kind of discovery—one less influenced by adult expectations or approval—during a grueling YWCA canoe trip with 10 other girls when she was in the ninth grade.
“Probably the YWCA hoped I’d gain outdoor skills and discover a love of nature. My parents hoped I’d find friends.”
Instead, what she discovered, she says, was “a bold strong side of myself that I never dreamed possible. For years after, when faced with physical challenges and obstacles, I would say to myself, ‘Hey, you toted those canoes and packs—you can do this!’”
Experts' Favorite PYD Resources >> |
NCFY Podcast: The Power of Service
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