Long Range Focus Area 4:
Resilient Youth, Families, and Communities
Team Co-Chairs: Ben Silliman, State 4-H Office; Thearon McKinney, State 4-H Office;
and Bettina Odom, Bertie Team members: Crystal Smith, Granville; Reba Green-Holley Gates; Katherine
Williams, Wake; Jill Glenn, Wake; Charlenzo Belcher, Wake; Doug Beaver, Yancey;
Don Mebane, Forsyth; DeRonnie Harrison, Mecklenburg; Natalie Rountree, Hertford;
Iris Fuller, Orange
Objective 5
Youth in high risk environments will participate in community based programs
resulting in opportunities for the youth to increase internal and external assets.
Objective 6
Families vulnerable to stress and crisis will be engaged to acquire resiliency
skills to help youth cope with hardships.
Objective 7
Youth and adults in communities will strengthen capacities in understanding
community needs, policy development, resource development, and collaboration
through training and technical assistance.
Program Description
The youth, families, and communities of North Carolina face challenges which
threaten their coping and healthy development. Reduced capacity in turn threatens
the economic, social, and environmental well being of educational, corporate,
and governmental systems on which the citizens of North Carolina depend.
The "Resilient Youth, Families and Communities Long Range Focus Area"
of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service takes action to strengthen
the resiliency of youth, families, and communities. Resiliency is the ability
to cultivate strengths to positively meet challenges. The program focuses on
positive youth development, helping youth become fully prepared, not just problem-free
(Pittman, Irby, Tolman, Yohalem, & Ferber, 2001). A wide variety of learning
and leading experiences can help youth and empowering families to avoid risks,
build assets, and prepare for meaningful adult roles in family, work, and civic
engagement. Working together, practitioners, researchers, and program participants
can overcome challenges (e.g., poverty, drugs, violence) and set new standards
for programming that live up to the state motto:
Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great…the old North state.
Pittman, K.J., Irby, M., Tolman, J., Yohalem, & Ferber, T. (2001). Preventing
problems, promoting development, encouraging engagement: Competing priorities
of inseparable goals. Tahoma Park, MD: Forum for Youth Investment.
Situation Statement
The Children's Index, a profile of Leading Indicators on the Health &Well-Being
of North Carolina's Children, 2002, published by the North Carolina Child Advocacy
Institute indicates that youth ages 0-17 represent 24.4% of North Carolina’s
population. Children in poverty, a critical indicator, had decreased at the
millennium. Yet the 16.1% rate for children in poverty was still among the highest
in the nation. The 35.8% rate of families under the NC Self-Sufficiency Standard—before
the economic downturn—indicates the economic and social pressure faced
by youth and families across the state. The North Carolina Rural Economic Development
Center indicates that poverty is most acute in rural areas of the state.
The Children’s Index shows decreases in teen pregnancy, school dropout,
and child abuse, but increases in youth involved with the juvenile justice system
and almost a third of students failing to achieve state school standards in
math and reading. Decreasing welfare rolls (38.8% from 1998 to 2000) mean increasing
demands on limited-resource families to provide for children and increasing
pressure for youth to become upwardly mobile. Increasing immigration, primarily
of Hispanic families (whose population grew ten fold in the past decade), presents
challenges of economic and social adjustment for all North Carolina youth, families,
and communities.
While there is never a bad time to make a positive difference, several emerging
opportunities show promise for addressing the root causes of youth risk and
for promoting positive youth, family, and community development:
Health behaviors. While levels of drug/alcohol/tobacco abuse, teen
pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and youth violence have largely
dropped below peaks of the past decade, these problems remain a threat to many
youth across the state. In addition, health and fitness have become increasing
problems for all age groups.
Literacy and academic competence programs. Investments in schools are
gradually raising reading and math scores but large numbers of youth continue
to underachieve while many new immigrants struggle to gain basic literacy skills.
In addition a growing digital divide in computer literacy between “haves”
and “have-nots” further limits teen and adult potential.
Juvenile justice. North Carolina is a national leader investing in
positive youth development through Support Our Students afterschool and Governor’s
One-on-One mentoring programs and promoting a restorative justice approach that
seeks to help offending youth reverse negative behaviors and reconnect with
communities.
Migrant families. The first 18 months in a new location represents
a critical transition period for immigrant families, with several levels of
adjustments related to relocation, acculturation, and economic adjustment. Youth
programs represent critical bridges for families and children.
Relationship skills. Connections to caring adults, positive peer relationships,
and skills for adult work and family relationships are critical assets developed
during adolescence. Welfare reform funding for youth development and marriage
preparation holds promise for building stronger families.
Parent support and involvement. Parents remain a youth’s most
important influence into teen years. Parent monitoring, support, communication
of a youth as well as their engagement in youth activities has a profound effect
on a child’s willingness and ability to take on new challenges as he/she
grows.
Community economic development. Many of the issues faced by current
and future generations are beyond the scope of personal coping and self-improvement.
Collaboration with agencies promoting community-level change is critical to
changing the balance of risk and resilience for communities.
Covenant for North Carolina’s Children. (2002). Kids Count Data Book.
Raleigh, NC: Covenant for North Carolina’s Children.
North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center. (2003). Rural Data Bank. Available
online at http://www.ncruralcenter.org/
Research Base
Promoting resilience among youth, families, and communities is grounded on two
complementary research bases. Developmental theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Lerner,
1995; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998), which undergirds traditional 4-H and positive
youth development programming, describes the stages of growth (e.g., infancy,
childhood, adolescence) across multiple domains (e.g., physical, cognitive,
emotional, social). Intimate social networks such as families, schools, and
peer groups and the cultural environment play important roles along with a youth’s
personal traits in the ecology of human development. Youth who accumulate greater
internal (personal) and external (environmental) assets and learn to avoid predictable
risks tend to experience better developmental outcomes (Benson, 1997). Leading
educators (Kolb, 1984) have proposed strategies such as experiential and cooperative
learning as means of fostering development, interaction, and adaptation capacities
at each stage of growth.
Prevention-oriented research and practice finds that in high-risk settings,
youth and families with fewer risk factors and more protective factors experience
more positive youth and adult development (Fraser, 1999). Risk factors are individual
and environmental hazards (e.g., poverty, neighborhood crime, poor quality schools,
child abuse) that increase a child's vulnerability to negative behaviors. Protective
factors are individual and environmental safeguards (e.g., positive social norms,
adult supervision and support) that enhance a child's ability to overcome risks.
Risk factors do not guarantee negative behaviors but increase the odds that
they will occur. Protective factors serve as buffers to foster adaptation and
competence in the child. Educational programs that are designed to maximize
"protective factors" while minimizing "risk factors" have
emerged from research and programs on risk prevention used in communities and
schools (Catalano, et al. 2001; Mihalic, Irwin, Elliott, Fagan, & Hansen,
2001; SAMHSA, 2003).
Both positive youth development and prevention programs identify important educational
and therapeutic activities with families, peer groups, schools, and community
groups as important strategies in efforts to promote positive youth and adult
outcomes. A broad range of research on youth development (see Child Trends,
2003) and programming (Eccles & Gootman, 2002) continues within both traditional
youth-serving organizations (e.g., 4-H, Scouts, schools, faith-based organizations)
and in targeted programs (e.g., afterschool, drug-prevention, school and community
settings) to identify what strategies work best for which individuals and groups
in what settings.
Benson, P. (1997). All kids are our kids. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1970). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Catalano, R.F., Berglund, M.L., Ryan, J.A., Lonczak, H.S., & Hawkins, J.D.
(2002). Positive youth development in the United States: Research findings on
evaluations of positive youth development programs. Prevention and Treatment,
5. Article 15. Available online at : http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume5.pre0050015a.htm
Eccles, J.; & Gootman, J.A. (Eds., 2002). Community programs to promote
youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Fraser, M.W. (Ed., 1997). Risk and resilience in childhood: An ecological perspective.
Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning
and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Lerner, R. (1995). America’s youth at risk. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Masten, A.,D., & Coatsworth, J.D. (1998). The development of competence
in favorable and unfavorable environments: Lessons from research on successful
children. American Psychologist, 53, 205-220.
Mihalic, S., Irwin, K., Elliott, D., Fagan, A., & Hansen, D. (2001). Blueprints
for violence prevention. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency.
Online at www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints
SAMHSA. (2003). Center for Substance Abuse Prevention Model Programs. Online
at www.samhsa.gov
Target Audiences
Promoting resilience speaks to a wide variety of audiences. Developing Responsible
Youth Objectives 5, 6, and 7 address youth, families that nurture them, and
communities in which youth grow up. To the extent that all youth are vulnerable
to some risks, programs may target any group. Most programs will be more specific,
addressing those most at risk for health problems, crime and violence, substance
abuse, or school failure.
Teaching Points
Resources for understanding and working with youth, families, and communities
are noted in the Evaluation and Programming Resources sections below. Internet
sources such as Extension’s CYFERNet site, Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Administration (SAMHSA), Administration for Children, Youth, and Families
(ACYF) Youth Development site, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) will be particularly helpful in teaching about and locating
resources for promoting resilience. Professionals and volunteers working with
youth, families, and communities to promote resilience should be guided by the
following insights:
Positive youth development, a traditional 4-H philosophy and strategy,
is a relevant and effective strategy for formal and informal programming. Labeling,
corporal punishment, unsupervised activity and other non-professional practices
can be particularly damaging to youth at elevated risk. Professionals and volunteers
may be more effective with special interpersonal skills, using smaller group
sizes, and making other programming adaptations not typically needed with other
groups of youth and families.
Whether preventing risks or building protective factors, the earlier
that programming begins, the better. This general rule of investment in youth
programming is all the more true when stakes are higher.
Not all “risks” result in the same level or type of behavior
(e.g., poverty has different effects than child abuse) or require the same level
or type of programming response (e.g., school failure can lead to drug abuse
but each requires some different, as well as some similar strategies). Where
appropriate (e.g., special health, educational, or legal concerns, disability
or cultural differences), special training or adapted equipment and methods
may be required. If developmental deficits or risky behavior are well-established,
sustained and patient efforts are even more critical to positive growth than
with typical youth audiences.
While one-agency youth-oriented programs can effectively change knowledge,
attitudes, skills, or aspirations, and promote sustained behavior change, collaborative
efforts across organizations and communities tend to generate the energy and
imagination, fiscal and human resources to sustain resilience-promotion. In
fact, systemic change (e.g., policy and organization practices) is often a critical
gateway to changing conditions and opening opportunity for youth and families
to act upon knowledge and skills training by 4-H educators.
Individuals and organizations should all live by Dr. Sherrod Miller’s four rules of change:
If something needs to be changed, it is up to me—I shouldn’t wait for someone else to do it.
Every grand improvement begins with a first step.
When something does not work, stop doing it.br>
Nothing works all the time.
Miller, S., Wackman, D., Nunnally, E., & Miller, P. (1988). Connecting
with self and others. Littleton, CO: Interpersonal Communications, Inc.
Program Delivery Strategies
A wide variety of programming options can be used to promote resilience in youth,
families, or communities. Examples of such programs now under way include:
Support Our Students or Governors One-on-One afterschool and Challenge Camp programs
Juvenile Justice diversion and prevention activities such as afterschool, alternative school, weekend academies, teen court
Life Skills or community service programs with limited-resource youth, in housing projects, or in conjunction with drug prevention, welfare reform,
or community development efforts
Migrant education
Outreach to youth or families emphasizing particular ethnic groups such as African-American or Hispanic cultures
Workforce Preparation out-of-school programs
While the majority of programs will probably work with youth directly, programs
that help families guide and support youth and efforts to mobilize citizens
or organizations to support positive youth development can also be documented
as promoting resiliency.
