A Plan for Youth Opportunities

Download the entire plan as a pdf file

What does it take for our community to support youth to become healthy, empowered and valued 21 year olds?

This is the question that Youth Services, Inc. is working to help figure out in Windham County, VT. As an organization committed to listen to and learn from the youth it serves, Youth Services, Inc., embarked on a process in 2007 to develop a strategic plan that would guide the agency and the community in service youth in Windham County, Vermont. This strategic planning process was the catalyst for The Listening Project.

The Listening Project was a call to action for Youth Services, Inc.’s Board, staff and stakeholders as well as all adults in the community. From it, Youth Services led a Youth Opportunity Planning Process that has generated a list of actions that will shift the culture of the community.

A Beginning: The Listening Project

Twenty youth from around Windham County, Vermont, were selected to participate as respondents in the action research of The Listening Project. These young people were identified based on several social characteristics including gender, age, class and location of residence. They are young men and women ages 13-19 from working class or poorer backgrounds and from all four school districts in Windham County.  They all meet the criteria for inclusion as “youth living in particularly difficult circumstances.” 1

Five youth meeting the same criteria were selected to participate as research interviewers. The interviewers worked on a team with an adult research partner of the same gender. Before beginning interviews, the teams completed a 2 ½ day training, piloted questions, developed a final schedule for interviews, then conducted 1-hour interviews with the 20 youth respondents. Following these interviews, there were three focus group meetings to which all of the youth participants were invited. At these meetings, they reviewed initial findings and provided initial analysis in the form of additional commentary.

All the data gathered was collected and analyzed in the report The Listening Project: Giving Voice to Adolescent Youth Living in Difficult Circumstances by Dr. Gloria Rudolph and appears in the summary document of the same name.

What matters for youth

From the research, three areas of concern emerged from the youth participants and interviewers that could be used as guides for planning in the community:

• Everyday relationships
  • The number one need expressed by every participant was not about resources or services but about relationship building.
  • We must stop the “bad kid” label syndrome; this labeling has pernicious effects on youth and their work every day.
  • Partnering with youth makes a difference.  Adolescent youth are valuable community resources with important skills and information to contribute.
• Places for youth to gather
  • Teens have ideas and want to talk about what they might want in a teen center.  They also identified auxiliary services they would need to access such a place.
• Life planning and social support
  • Positive social support networks can be maintained and extended.  It is a challenge to the community to figure out how to nurture and sustain relationships and bring in new people that might be a position part of teens’ current support systems.
  • There is a need to stress out safely at school.
  • Teens have dreams for the future and need help planning now.

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The Youth Opportunity Planning Process (YOPP)

The Youth Opportunity Planning Process (based on the work of William A. Lofquist2 ) has been initiated by Youth Services, Inc. It is a systematic approach that guides interested people—youth and adults—through a clear process of taking a look at their community and the various factors important in the lives of young people and then leads to the shaping of an action strategy.

The Youth Opportunity Planning Process outlined by Lofquist is about transforming communities to “build prevention capacity.”3 This means that a community would be actively and assertively engaged in crating conditions and qualities that promote the well-being of people—including youth. The community development principles he articulates that influenced the design of the Youth Services work are:

• Participation: When people have an opportunity to participate in decisions and shape strategies that vitally affect them, they develop a sense of ownership and commitment to carry them out.
• Responsibility: One can only be responsible for oneself in relation to another person. When people work together toward a mutually desirable goal that promotes their mutual well-being, a sense of community emerges.
• Changing conditions: when people work together to create conditions that promote their mutual well-being, not only is a clear sense of the common good strengthened, but the individuals involved are provided with opportunities for personal growth as well.5

What is unique about this process

Instead of focusing on individual youth as problems to solve, the focus of the Youth Opportunity Planning Process is on the conditions that youth are living in—the difficult circumstances—or the “conditions” of their lives. 6 Elevating the community development work to the level of community conditions rather than a traditional individualistic prevention model means:

• Youth and family behavior and blame are out of the spotlight.
• Participants realize their role in positive change, enhancing self-esteem.
• Teams form as they work toward mutual goals.
• Partners are inspired to “come to the plate” as realties get named.
• Future condition-improving activity is inspired as people have successful experiences with planned changes.

Staff members at Youth Services are working hard to shift their own attitudes in working with youth. Instead of viewing youth as objects in developing programs, they are viewing youth as resources and partners. This means having shared control over programs and program development leading to personal growth for both youth and adults.7 As one youth (John) put it when he was describing this in action, “In other words, if you work with us as partners you get a better result because we know about things that directly affect us, and it’s good for us because we feel like we are really part of things.”

At all phases and in all stages of the process, youth have been engaged as true partners in the work; when youth who are frequently viewed as objects and recipients by adults are given an opportunity to share their voices in decisions that affect them not just personally but as a group then the outcomes are more potent and effective for the entire community. Committing to truly working with youth presents a myriad of variables into the process that many adults experience as challenges or barriers (for example, timing of meetings, meeting places for those without transportation, differing levels of understanding and access to technologies, etc.). 8

Inputs

At a meeting on June 29-30, 2009, Youth Services, Inc. Board members, staff members and youth representatives articulated a set of initial conditions to be addressed in our community development plan.

Action groups developed ideas for action that were consolidated and those conversations were the base on which a larger community conversation was built. Specifically, a set of conditions, current and desired, were articulated to describe the outcomes of any planning process.

On July 21, 2009, a session was held with community partners, staff from Youth Services, Inc, and youth. During this session, representatives from different agencies and entities attended a day-long session with the intention of beginning action plans in specific conditions for change. The task was to think about the existing condition and then to think about what could be done to achieve the desired condition using a template and with the aid of a facilitator. Several new areas for action groups were articulated (VIII-X) and actions were developed for these conditions as well.

On September 15, 2009, action groups met again to more fully articulate some of the actions suggested and to prioritize actions for youth in Windham County. Some participants had been part of prior planning meetings while others were joining groups for the first time. Facilitators from the previous meeting reconvened with action groups wherever it was possible to carry knowledge of the process into the discussion.

Conditions

For all of the areas below, Condition A is “the way it is” and Condition B is the “desired result” or “how we want it to be.”

• Housing
  • Condition A (HA1): Not enough affordable housing
    Condition B (HB1): There is enough affordable housing to meet our needs.
  • Condition A (HA2):  No safe, stable place to live for some youth.  
    Condition B (HB2): A supportive, safe, stable home for youth to stay long-term and to gain skills to be successful in living independently.
• Families
  • Condition A (FA1): There is a lack of support –emotional and financial for families.
    Condition B (FB1): There is effective emotional and financial support for   families.
  • Condition A (FA2): Relationships in families are sometimes strained and challenging and lack good role models.
    Condition B (FB2): Relationships for youth in families are respectful, positive, safe and families have good role models for supporting and empowering youth.
• Schools
  • Condition A (SA1): Lack of respect and boring teaching methods.
    Condition B (SB1): Schools have a climate of respect and engaging teaching methods.
• Transportation
  • Condition A (TA1): Youth do not have the transportation they need to get to jobs and activities.
    Condition B (TB1): Youth have increased access to Brattleboro, activities, services, and jobs.
• Places for Youth to Gather
  • Condition A (PA1): Youth feel that they have nothing to do and no places to go that are positive for them.
    Condition B (PB1): Youth feel engaged and have things to do and places to go that are positive for them.
• Law Enforcement
  • Condition A (LA1):  Youth and police often don’t know or understand one another.
    Condition B (LB1): Youth and police have a history of positive connection and working things out together.
• Relationships between Youth and Adults
  • Condition A (RA1): Lack of mutual respect and partnering between youth and adults.
    Condition B (RB1): There is mutual respect and understanding between youth and adults.  Through partnering they change attitudes and see each other as resources.
  • Condition A (RA2): Once a youth has made a mistake, they get the “bad kid” label.
    Condition B (RB2): Youth who have made mistakes are seen as whole people who have learned and have something to contribute because of experience.
• Diversity
  • Condition A (DA1): There is not information or understanding between people and organizations don’t represent the diversity of the County.
    Condition B (DB1): There is mutual respect and understanding between people. Through partnering they change attitudes and see each other as resources and create more diverse organizations and groups.
• Employment
  • Condition A (EA1): There are not enough jobs for youth who want to work that also set them on a path to a good career.
    Condition B (EB1): Jobs for youth that pay well and enhance their future potential are available and accessible.
• Substance Abuse
  • Condition A (UA1): Drugs and alcohol are plentiful, accessible to youth, and use is frequently not discouraged.
    Condition B (UB1): Youth don’t desire or abuse drugs and alcohol.

The attached document is a further articulation of the action steps and suggestions made in these processes based on the groups’ recordings, and conversations with facilitators and staff. The priorities for action are highlighted in this document as well as some of the longer-term actions that might not be the top priority, but were still considered effective and meaningful. Wherever they could be, the current activities and partners involved have been noted.

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Who is involved

Youth Services, Inc.
“Youth and Families: Healthy, Empowered and Valued”

Youth Services, Inc. is a community-based agency that has been serving Windham County youth and families for over 37 years. During that time the agency has had four directors, a remarkable board of directors and an experienced staff that annually raise $200,000 to help us with our $1.6 million dollar budget. This budget supports the work of 7 programs and the 33 staff who are working in every town in the county assisting and approximately 2000 youth and families each year.

Most people know about Youth Services in Windham County because it houses Big Brothers Big Sisters in the county. Each year, 200 volunteers to be Big Brothers or Big Sisters, Host Home Providers for youth who need emergency housing, Diversion Panel Members, or Youth Services board or committee members.

In addition, Youth Services is the Student Assistant Professional program or SAP. Youth Services has 7 full or part time alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention and intervention specialists in most middle schools and all high schools in the county. In addition to SAPs, staff members work with juveniles referred to court diversion, with all youth who have been put on probation and all who have received an underage drinking ticket. As an agency, Youth Services wraps runaway and homeless youth in services to insure their safety and help them create a bridge back to a full and meaningful life off of the streets, we provide summer employment programs, hire and train youth who do street outreach, run drop in nights weekly for youth to have a safe and substance free place to have fun with others their age supervised by adults who care. Staff members go into homes to help youth and their parents/guardians take whatever that next step they determine they need to take.

Staff from Youth Services, Inc. have worked with facilitators and other community partners throughout the Youth Opportunity Planning Process. The coordinators of the Listening Project and the YOPP are Diana Wahle and Susan Gunter Mohr.

Community and MOU partners

Initially, the vision for the Listening Project came from an 11-person Community Wide Planning Committee convened by Youth Services, Inc. This committee included people from all over the county.

The work of the Listening Project and the subsequent YOPP has been funded by the Holt Fund and the Thomas Thompson Trust.

Almost immediately over 50 community partners expressed interest in joining the process with youth partners to build community resources that encourage positive outcomes. These partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that obliged the organization to:

• Inform its boards and advisory committees and staff of this effort
• Read the final analysis and disseminate it within the entity
• Attend a geographically relevant discussion with community partners on the final data analysis
• Host an internal forum on the data and what it means for the entity and its programs
• Insure that the governing board of the entity receives the analysis and uses it as part of their planning for next steps to provide service or mitigate root causes
• Share the organization’s strategies with Youth Services and The Listening Project planning team.

A full list of Community Partners is available on the Youth Services, Inc. website.

In addition to signing the MOU, over 75 people from these and other organizations attended the YOPP meetings mentioned above. Over XX people have volunteered to work on the action steps in some capacity.

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What’s next and what you can do

To insure that the plan developed in this process moves forward, we need your support, expertise and assistance. There are several ways for individuals, organizations and other entities to get involved:

• Work on a specific condition or action step.
• Keep everyone informed about what is happening with the YOPP.
• Connect Youth Services staff with specific individuals who might like to work on the YOPP.
• Introduce Youth Services staff to individuals or family foundations that might help finance some action steps.
• Work alone or on a team to research grant and foundation possibilities.
• Work on writing a grant alone or with a team.
• Participate in presentations to groups about the conditions or action steps prioritized by our community.
• Coordinate volunteers to work on the conditions or action steps.
• Make a donation to insure this plan moves forward.

If you have time, energy or resources to contribute, please contact Youth Services, Inc. at:

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