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The Government's Role in Rebuilding Healthy Communities for Youth

Excerpted from Finding a Focus:
Rethinking the Public Sector's Role in Building Assets in Youth
by Hope Melton and Eugene C. Roehlkepartain
(from Spring 1996, Youth Update newsletter)

Investing in Tomorrow:

The Governments' Role in Rebuilding Healthy Communities for Youth Government plays a critical role in ensuring the well-being and healthy development of children and youth. From education to health care to economic assistance to crime prevention, many government programs and services disproportionately affect youth.

While services for youth with specific needs are important, specialized programs and services cannot, by themselves, reverse many of the challenges all young people face. If we are to ensure the health and vitality of our young people, there needs to be a commitment to nurturing and strengthening the developmental foundations that all youth need in order to grow up successfully.

Through RespecTeen-sponsored research with more than 250,000 youth across the United States, Search Institute has measured the presence and impact of 30 of these foundations-or assets.

The 30 developmental assets can be divided into six categories: support, boundaries, structured time use, educational commitment, positive values, and social competencies. The more of these assets young people have, the less likely they are to be involved in risky behaviors. Furthermore, young people with more assets in their lives are more likely to be involved in positive behaviors like volunteering and doing well in school.

Search Institute has identified at least eight ways for the public sector to play a role in nurturing the development assets in youth.

Providing Support-
Relationships are at the heart of providing support. While government cannot force relationships to develop, it can create environments in which positive relationships are more likely. This may involve housing planning that encourages interaction among neighbors, creating safe neighborhoods and parks, ensuring that families have necessary supports, and developing intergenerational programs through parks and recreation departments. Policies such as community policing also have the potential to develop more positive relationships.

Finally, government needs to ensure that its own employees are equipped to build assets in their own families and communities. Policies should be flexible to allow employees to fulfill their roles as parents and/or be involved in their communities through mentoring, volunteering in youth programs, and other asset-building activities.
Creating Boundaries-
A sense of support and affirmation needs to be complemented with clear boundaries and expectations regarding what kinds of behaviors are acceptable to the community and what kinds are not. Government can and should identify the community's norms and values by listening to citizens, set boundaries based on these shared norms and values, educate community members about the boundaries and their importance, and consistently enforce boundaries through policy setting and law enforcement.
Opportunities for Structured Time Use-
Recreation, camping, sports, and other types of youth development programs are essential for young people's healthy development. Yet these programs are often the first to be cut in times of budget tightening. Until these health-promoting programs are strengthened and made available to all youth, society will continue to spend increasing proportions of its resources on back-end responses such as more law enforcement, prisons, and treatment programs.
Nurturing Educational Commitment-
No person or organization can force young people to internalize a love for learning. However, government can invest resources (and encourage investment by business executives, civic leaders, and others) that stimulate interest in learning and allow youth to pursue their educational dreams past high school.
Cultivating Positive Values-
In our increasingly diverse, often fragmented society, it is difficult for young people to receive clear signals about the core positive values that are important for personal development. Government can play an important role in encouraging constructive, respectful dialogue about the values (such as freedom, democracy, and justice) we share as a society and seek to pass on to our young people.
Building Social Competencies-
Many government entities can engage young people in service and leadership projects that build life skills such as decision-making, planning, and assertiveness. Young people can be involved through graffiti removal, leadership in summer parks and recreation programs, or citizen patrols of adults and youth to enhance the safety of neighborhoods.
Catalyst for Change-
Asset building requires the involvement and engagement of all sectors in a community. Government can be a leader in initiating partnerships for youth between the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.
Renewing Community-
When government begins to shift its thinking to a focus on the positive things young people need, it will discover there is a power in focusing on the youngest generation. Communities will begin to recognize that young people are the future as well as a resource and a precious gift today.

As people feel supported and connected, as they articulate a shared sense of values, and as they work together on behalf of children and youth, their commitment to the community and its future will grow. When that happens, a community will be well on the way to having the energy, skills, commitments, and resources to address other pressing needs and to move toward a renewed sense of community for all residents.