Meeting the Needs of Youth-at-Risk in Canada : Learnings from a National Community Development Project

4. Conclusions

This report presents the experiences of five sites that took part in a national community development project aimed at high-risk, or out-of-the-mainstream, youth. At the beginning of this report, we defined community development as a process which involves community members coming together to work on problems of mutual concern. The definition implies that as communities "develop," they gain the ability to meet their own needs more effectively. These are consistent with those contributing to the current thinking on population health. Research on population health has found that the health of a population rests, in large part, on its ability to take control of their lives and meet their own needs (Hill, 1991; Igoe, 1991). This requires increasing self-efficacy, raising the level of community dialogue and including greater community participation in decision making. This is especially important for vulnerable or high-risk populations, such as out-of-the-mainstream youth.

Population health also emphasizes the importance of addressing some of the issues in the community that increase risk conditions. Among the health determinants identified by the population health approach are low education levels, restricted access to health services, poor social support networks, low income and social status, poor health practices and coping skills and relative underemployment. Population health theorists suggest that programs are required that develop people's skills, strengthen community action, promote healthy public policy, create supportive environments for people and re-orient existing health services in these directions (Hill, H. et al., 1994/1995; Kaskutas et al., 1991/1992).

The evidence from the CD-OOMY national project supports many of the ideas emphasized in the population health literature. For example, the experience in some of the sites showed that involving youth in community development work was an important developmental experience for these young people. Working on the project actually changed some of their personal determinants of health or risk factors. In some cases, the sites experienced a degree of change at the community level as well. In these sites, networks were developed by the community development groups with other partners in the community.

One of the challenges encountered in this project was that community development takes time to unfold. Many of the community development groups simply did not have the time to develop to their potential as community change agents. Moreover, the time factor is related to the issue of sustainability. Many of these groups will continue on after the federal funding for this project has ended. As they continue to develop, they will solidify their gains and acquire other sources and forms of support. This will bring these groups the necessary resources to continue in their community development activities. They will achieve the legitimacy and credibility required to undertake the steps in the second phase of the community development model presented in this report.

A number of important lessons were learned in the CD-OOMY project. It is clear from the participants that community development is a process. It takes time, a lot of effort and a great deal of patience. We also learned that more and more people are realizing the importance of involving young people in the decisions that directly affect their lives. However, turning this realization into action has a long way to go.

We also discovered something about timing and people's commitment. Both the adults and youth involved in the project's groups faced a number of challenges related to time. For some, impatience and the need to see immediate change caused them to become quickly disenchanted with a process that is, by nature, slow and full of obstacles. For others, the familiarity of attending meeting after meeting numbed them to the urgency that others among them felt.

Some participants told us that the best way to account for our results was to consider "the timing" of our project. What they meant was that things were changing very quickly for some of them at the very time the national project was getting started. In one project, six members of the community development group who worked for different youth-serving agencies had either left or found new jobs. Others reported that the current economic climate has forced those in youth-serving agencies to focus their energies on surviving the next round of budget cuts. It is not surprising given these "times" to find limited responses to community development projects.

Still, we did find considerable support for encouraging community development for at-risk youth. Both young people and those who work with at-risk youth voiced the potential benefits of establishing community-based networks. Many saw these networks as a viable way of improving the services, especially with shrinking budgets and the disappearance of resources at the community level. Our surprise was finding natural supporters outside the traditional health and social service networks.

A key finding of this project is recognizing the role that a community development group plays. In the more successful projects, the group realized that its main strength -- what it had to offer -- was contact with at-risk youth. Community agencies wishing to make contact with this target population could do so by working with the community development group. The groups were able to gain a degree of legitimacy and credibility by acting as honest brokers between the young people and those in the wider community wishing to address at-risk youth-related issues. This role as broker helped clarify both the internal operations of the community development group and its relationship to the broader community. Internally, playing the role of broker helps to remind the community development group of why it has come together and to express this unifying force in its vision and mission statements. Externally, the community development group is reminded that its role as broker serves to legitimize its activities in the eyes of the wider community. This, in turn, forms the basis of its power. Having something of value to offer makes identifying partners easier. It also keeps the group focused on what it is trying to accomplish.

It is easy for community development groups to become overwhelmed with their new roles. Their focus on group goals and objectives can be quickly diverted by the agendas and interests of other, more powerful community actors. The danger here is that the group can lose sight of its reason for being and begin to ignore the very thing that brings it success -- its contact with the target group. If the group does not pay enough attention to nurturing these contacts or in maintaining legitimacy with the target group, then one of its major assets is at risk of being lost. This makes the role of "broker" a delicate one for community development groups to play. Handled properly, it can be the source of strength and the means of achieving community goals and objectives.