AMCHP 2005 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
DELIVERING RESULTS, IMPROVING PREGNANCY & BIRTH
February 19-23, 2005
DEB WISNIEWSKI : Okay, so we've heard a little about why it's important to be partners with youth and some of the systems and programs that are in place about supporting youth in transition, and then Alex shared with us some of the benefits for both youth and for adults and organizations as well as tips for working with youth. But now what I want to do is have you look a little bit at yourselves. This might be seen as just at little bit mean, but I'm going to make you guys to a little bit of work. Let me first give you an explanation of what's going to happen. There's a spectrum of attitudes about youth involvement that was developed by Lonquist and it looks at youth involvement from three different perspectives on this spectrum.
The first one is youth as objects. And when we talk about youth as objects, what we mean is not that she's an object here that I can just clunk on her head, but that this poor girl here really doesn't know what she's doing and it's our job as well meaning adults to tell her what to do. Let me give you an example of that. Let's say that we have a group of youth who are planning to come to a future AMCHP conference here in Washington D.C., because it's all going to focus on youth transition, and the advisor that works with this youth group knows that the youth need to raise some funds to get to this conference. So at the youth group meeting, the advisor comes in and says "Okay, you guys. You're going to need to raise some money. Here's how you're going to do it. We're going to sell magazine subscriptions, we're going to have bake sales, and I'm going to tell you exactly how you're going to divide up the responsibilities and this is how it's going to happen". This gets a good response from the youth. And the adults, you know, "I've had experience with this, trust me. I know this will work." That's really an attitude that's called youth as objects. I'm thinking that this youth really needs someone to tell them how to do things, what to do.
The next level on this is youth as recipients. Now here, the attitude basically is that youth need our guidance. They can learn to do these things but only with my help. I can lead her down the path to becoming a very capable adult someday and by me helping her along that way, she'll be able to eventually be able to do those hard things. But, for now, I'm going to allow her to have a part in decision making and I'm probably going to give her the things that aren't that important to worry about, just in case she makes a big mistake, or are the things that I don't really want to deal with, as an adult. So, back to our example of these youth coming to the AMCHP conference, I may come into this meeting and say "Okay, we're going to be selling magazine subscriptions and having a bake sale. Now, youth, you can pick out three of the magazines that you want to sell and I'll tell you what the rest are. But you guys can pick out three of them and, I'll tell you what, you guys go ahead and plan that bake sale. You guys go ahead and make those cakes because I really hate to bake. I know you guys can do this and if it falls through, it falls through, it's not that big a deal". But I'm helping her become a better decision maker.
The layer that we really want to work towards is youth as partners. I'm exaggerating things here just a little bit about those other levels, but I want you to note that most adults that we know, and I'm sure every adult in this room, wants to do right by youth. That doesn't mean we know how to. Part of it is really thinking about our attitudes. When we look at youth as partners, we really are coming into that relationship with an understanding that youth have something to give. That, not only is this good for youth to participate in, it's good for me, as an adult, it's good for the agency or organization that I work with, it's good for the program I work with to have youth involved in this. We each bring gifts to the table to share with each other.
As an adult that may be working with youth, certainly I have those experiences. Certainly I have knowledge of the systems. Certainly I have information that youth may not have. But youth bring their own set of strengths to the table, as well. So, using, again, our example of a group of youth trying to work their way to the AMCHP conference that's going to focus on transition, we come together at a meeting and I can say "How do you want to raise money to get to this conference? What are some ideas that you have? What do you need to figure out in order to put these ideas into action?"
Magazines and bake sales may not even enter the room. Maybe it's a teen dance or maybe it's some other activity that really appeals to the youth that I may never have thought about. But as an adult working with that youth, it doesn't let me off the hook saying "Okay, it's all yours. Go try to do it and then when you fail, I'm going to sit there and go 'ha, ha, ha. Should have listened to me'". The idea here is that I have a responsibility to say "How are you going to plan this? What help do you need from me? What role can I have with you? You want to have a teen dance? Let's think about the places you can have it. You know what? I know somebody who works at the local YMCA. Maybe that would be a place. Would that work for you guys? You like that idea? You don't like that idea, let's go on to Plan B". The other question to bring up is "What happens if you don't raise enough money? Let's really think of these things". So you can see that's a very different relationship, this partnership. I'm going to have you guys take just two minutes to do an activity.
You're all going to get one of these sheets of paper. What I want you to do is just look at each of these. They're all different colors, it doesn't matter what color you get. Each one is a different scenario about working with youth. I want you to take a minute and see if you read through that scenario, if you were looking at youth as objects, how would you help them? What would you do? If you were looking at them as recipients, what would you do? And if you were looking at this as a partnership relationship, what would you do? I'm just going to give you a minute to fill out your paper, and don't worry, you don't have to share it with anybody in the room. It's just for you to really see what this means in action.