Invest in Young People or Deal With Fallout
“We need to invest in creating healthy communities or deal with the fall out, like crime and gang activity, all signs of young people feeling disengaged,” says Youthline National Spokesperson Stephen Bell.
According to Youthline a healthy community is one where young people have the opportunity to feel involved and valued; something they say is supported by research.
A Ministry of Youth Affairs report in 2000, Tough is Not Enough, suggests creating positive outcomes in either family school, peer or community environments works with young people, while their 2002 ‘Building Strengths’ literature review recommends that healthy neighbourhoods can help bring about these positive outcomes.
Youthline has led youth development research outlining eight key outcomes, which they say, if invested in, will turn this problem around.
The outcomes include supporting youth services to work collaboratively; connecting young people with community leaders and projects and involving them in community decisions; developing strength based relationships; valuing young people’s contribution to society; creating access to good information; connecting young people with their culture; creating avenues for young people’s views to be heard and finally supporting leadership development opportunities.
“There are two ways to work with young people, from a service perspective that focuses on fixing problems or from a community development perspective that fosters potential.
“Rather than taking a problem approach it is important to focus on what individuals can do well and how they fit into the larger community, allowing them to build self esteem and recognize that they can have higher expectations for themselves, than being in a gang, or being unemployed,” says Bell.