The best support and opportunities for all young people

Young Americans today face challenging realities on their journey to adulthood. With parents working longer hours and the absence of grandparents and other community adults who used to make up support systems, the intergenerational fabric of the community has frayed. Youth development strategies aim to re-weave the community fabric in a new way: one that takes the supports and opportunities that young people should have and re-institutes them in the context of the realities of today’s youth. While many of these realities are harsh, we know that young people themselves want to be involved in their communities. The importance of building positive partnerships between youth and adults in this process cannot be stressed enough.

The effort is based on influencing three critical elements: information, attitudes, involvement. The transformation of each of these areas, both in the public and private spheres, is a necessary condition for change. For example, in the area of ​​information, the country is currently concentrating on collecting mainly negative information on youth, for example, adolescent births, school dropouts, and juvenile detention rates. Inspiring a 180-degree turnaround, we need to collect information such as: average number of hours youth participate in after-school activities, ratio of computers to youth during non-school hours, and percentage of youth working part-time jobs. All three elements are intertwined, as the way information is collected and communicated affects attitudes, as well as how and if people choose to get involved.

Only through broad community engagement, strong public will, and diverse partnerships can youth development take root, grow, and be sustained over time. Ultimately, mobilization must be supported by alliances among all systems in a community that affect youth (ie, education, business, health care, juvenile justice, faith-based groups, and recreation). Building these relationships and establishing youth development infrastructures to improve adolescent development pathways will take at least 10 years.

Localities that currently spend their resources on efforts to “fix youth” will need to pool, redirect, and increase their financial commitment to youth development. These additional dollars will ensure that all youth have equitable access to supports and opportunities, especially youth living in economically disadvantaged areas.

Our information about the services youth need and use remains unpredictable. Communities do not know what they have or what they need. They typically have no way of knowing how well services are being used and which services need to be improved.

Good information is important to youth services for exactly the same reasons as it is to everything else. Accurate and accessible standardized information enables people to find the services they need and use them effectively. It allows communities to manage, evaluate and improve their services and determine the need to change, eliminate or develop new ones.

Many national efforts to measure outcomes now use deficit-based indicators to assess the status of youth in society, such as teen pregnancy rates, youth crime figures, and dropout rates. While these measures are important, they don’t tell the whole story about youth experiences. Measures that reflect the positive conditions and experiences of young people are also important.

The accelerating trend of the past decade toward empowering our nation’s youth to succeed has fostered a new awareness of and commitment to this most valuable resource. Some basic questions are:

– How much do we currently spend?

– How much should we spend?

Some progress has been made through new initiatives in education finance reform and service integration, providing more effective delivery of social, health, and educational services to children and youth from the classroom to government. This document establishes an initial framework and formula for evaluating the financial resources and mechanisms necessary to move American society closer to this ideal. The following were found to be possible root causes of these spending trends:

– Assessment of adolescents.

– Lack of consensus on youth development.

– Lack of adequate and protected financing. Funds are not protected or dedicated in the way necessary to sustain the long-term, comprehensive process of youth development.

We can support progress toward the ideal by:

– Search for new types of information.

– Take advantage of the momentum after school.

– Carry out a sustainable public investment.

Youth development is an investment that must be made by each sector of the community in general, both public and private. Examination of federal and state tax matching, dedicated local taxes, and incentives for business and philanthropy could lead to models for providing adequate and sustainable funding for youth development. National brokers should work to cultivate this leadership at all levels of government and at the grassroots, through the creation of electoral districts.