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

2. Defining Key Concepts

It is important to have a clear understanding of the key concepts guiding this project before examining the experiences of the different project sites. Some confusion may arise, however, since the participating sites were at different stages of development when the CD-OOMY project activities got under way. In particular, it is important to recognize that some sites were interested in working directly with youth-at-risk to undertake community development activities in order to better meet their needs. In these cases, the activities usually involved implementing some form of youth-centred project, such as a stay-in-school initiative or developing a youth drop-in centre. In other communities, however, much of the focus of the CD-OOMY project activities was on establishing relationships between agencies working with youth-at-risk. In these sites, community development activities consisted of network building, including youth empowerment, or enhancing the ability of youth-serving agencies to work better together. Through enhanced collaboration in the latter approach, these agencies would be able to work more effectively together in meeting the needs of youth-at-risk in their communities and foster greater youth participation.

While these different approaches can be defined as community development, they require fundamentally different strategies and approaches. The former approach involves community representatives and young people working on a specific project. The latter approach focuses primarily on the relationships that exist among youth-serving agencies in a community. It addresses interagency collaboration and the need for agencies to establish appropriate strategies that will allow them to work together more effectively.

2.1 Community Development

"Community Development is the process which involves reaching out into the community, identifying key groups and leaders, working with them on problems of mutual concern, helping to empower the community and thus strengthening its own inherent organization and its support systems, and to take the initiative in coping with its own concerns." (City of Toronto Health Department, 1991)

In this definition, the ideas of community and development are front and centre. Community development is identified as a process whereby individuals, defined as the community, either support themselves or are supported by others in a variety of activities, such as problem identification, planning and decision making. These activities are intended to develop the ability of these communities to address their own problems and meet their own needs.

2.2 The Idea of a "Community"

First, what do we mean by a community? In general, people who are members of a community belong to an identifiable social group, often sharing common goals, values and interests. More commonly, when we refer to a community, we think of a particular place or location. There is no guarantee, however, that people living in a particular geographical location either see themselves as members of the same community or share values, beliefs or common interests. This second point reflects one of the challenges we face in modern society. That is, although many people live near one another, they do not necessarily have common bonds or the types of relationships we would commonly associate with people living in an ideal community.

Some young people, however, do not feel that they belong to a community and this is a source of real problems for them. For example, Malidoma Somé argues that young people have to be welcomed formally into their community through initiation rituals or other rites of passage in order to acquire a sense that they are accepted members of the community. Somé notes that this rarely happens in our society. As a result, many of our youth have no sense of the values of our society or of their place in it. This sense of place he argues, "fuels a continued sense of belonging which is so much lacking in the heart of modern youth. Until that day, gangs will remain an understandable alternative to the failure of community to relate to youth. A criminal youth is only trying to send the word across that he is entitled to the support of the community. When initiation is restored and granted to its demanding youth, this culture will stop worrying about crime, abuse, suicide, and depression." (Somé, 1994, p. 68)

Some young people may have trouble because they feel marginal or that they do not belong. As a result, they may find it difficult to develop a sense of community. Many youth feel that mainstream society has not embraced them but has cast them off. Unable to be part of a mainstream community, they create their own groups and develop a sense of belonging by "hanging out" with peers or by joining gangs.

Even more troubling is the possibility that we in "mainstream" society do not know what values and beliefs represent the glue that binds us together. We have abandoned many of the trappings associated with traditional expressions of community idealized in the images of life in smaller rural towns and villages. How, then, can we expect our youth to know these things? The hesitancy of adults to embrace and work with youth in some of our projects may very well be a demonstration that we need to reconsider what is required for building safe and healthy communities.

Somé stresses the importance of initiation, a welcoming of our youth into the culture, through "a recognizable, wholehearted embrace and valuing of the initiates' power to contribute to the community . . . this last stage must make the returning men and women want to maintain the pride of their community." (Somé, 1994, p. 68)

But perhaps the reason we do not practise traditional initiation rights of our youth in our society is because we have no sense within ourselves of what it is that we are initiating them into. There are no clear markers of when a young person is old enough or mature enough to begin playing an adult role. Young people remind us that we lack a definition of ourselves as a society -- as a community.

2.3 The Idea of "Development"

Just as we see with the notion of community, the meaning of development has many dimensions. In general terms, we refer to development in relation to creating or expanding the capacity to do something -- to act. When we compare a community that is more developed with one that is less so, we assume that the more developed community has a greater capacity to act on its own behalf. Evidence of this would be that the more developed community has active leadership and organizational resources that can be used to meet various community needs. Stated simply, a more developed community is better able to identify and meet the needs of its members. Seen in this way, development is tied directly to increasing a community's ability to act on its own behalf.

Translating this to the youth-at-risk situation, a developed community is one where all members are working together to create a healthier situation for themselves and their youth. Presumably, the community is being influenced by interested adults and by youth who have the capacity to act in their own interest and for the benefit of the broader community. Personal and group capacity building is therefore an important part of community development.

2.4 Community Development: Processes and Projects

When we combine the terms "community and development" and return to the formal definitions we began with, we can think about community development as a process. This process involves such things as identifying individuals and groups in a community with common interests, defining a problem or objective that the community wishes to address, and establishing the organizational means of achieving this objective, and so on. As this list suggests, there are many ways for communities to approach community development. These can include both processes, such as those aimed at enhancing interagency communication, and projects, such as building a coalition to establish a youth drop-in centre or a youth training program. These differences are described in greater detail in the following examples.

In some cases, the focus of community development is on the relationships between youth-serving agencies. In such a circumstance, community development refers to the efforts of these agencies to establish better interagency collaboration. This may include such things as creating better communication systems and referral procedures, or making better use of each other's services. By working on establishing better interagency relationships, the capacity of these agencies to serve their clients is increased. The result is a community that is more developed since the ability of its members to meet community needs is enhanced. The focus of community development activities in these examples is on group processes, such as collaboration and communication. They usually do not result in a specific project as such, but involve agencies working better together. In this project, examples of such a process come from Halifax and Montreal.

An alternative example of community development is found in the efforts of individuals -- both adults and youth -- in a community to address common concerns. This may involve responding to a problem such as youth violence or the lack of a place for young people to "hang out." In this example, the focus of community development activities is on developing specific projects to address common concerns. For example, a community may decide to pursue a project in order to establish a youth drop-in centre. Similarly, a project can be started to address the problem of violence in schools. In these examples, community development is much more concrete and goal-oriented than it was in the previous example, where the emphasis was on enhancing relations between youth-serving agencies.

In both examples, the objectives of the community development activities are the same. Both seek to increase the capacity of the community to meet its own needs. The difference rests in the way this objective is approached. It is important here to recognize that both types of activities -- interagency relations and community projects -- can be considered community development. However, it is equally important to recognize that each approach has its own unique characteristics and demands. For example, working on interagency relations requires a knowledge of the agencies involved and their previous history of working together. Community development is more likely in this example if the participants set attainable goals and are realistic about the potential roles each agency can play. While agency knowledge is important in the other approach, it is less important to the success of the community development group than factors such as involving broad target group participation and building group capacity.

Understanding the focus of the community development activities you are interested in will help you to get the most out of the information contained in this report. The lessons and insights presented address various aspects of community development which include both process- and project-oriented activities.

2.5 Community Development and Youth Participation

The importance of youth participation is becoming increasingly clear to governments, youth-serving agencies and community representatives. As the quote from Somé pointed out, young people have to be welcomed into our communities. We have to ensure that youth have a legitimate place and role to play in our society. We can begin by making sure that young people are included in the decisions that affect their daily lives. Our failure to include youth has resulted in many of them feeling marginal, alienated and with a feeling that they do not belong. According to the definition of community development, youth have to be a part of the development process. They have much to offer and much to gain as equal contributors in our communities.

To do this, however, two ingredients are necessary. First, youth have to be given an opportunity to learn the specific skills they will need to be equal contributors. Second, their legitimacy in the process of community development and planning has to be recognized by the adults involved. Their legitimacy is founded on their ability to speak to the wider community on youth-related issues. These connections are also the basis of their legitimacy with government and non-government agencies which work with young people. Many communities are interested in developing youth participation in decision making simply because they perceive that they themselves do not understand youth issues very well. They are also unsure of how they should respond.

To date, our experiences in the national CD-OOMY project indicate that youth participation in community development is more the ideal than the reality. While support for increased youth participation is increasing, there is little to suggest that this support has been translated into concrete action. Very few of the sites/projects had youth involved from the outset in the planning of the community development process. Few had developed a systematic way of ensuring that youth could participate in an ongoing manner. This is an important lesson with serious implications for community development projects.

What seems to be at issue here is the legitimacy of the youth who are trying to participate in community development activities. Generally speaking, the youth in the project described themselves as being disenfranchised. They do not see themselves as playing an integral part in community life or in the decision-making process. This is particularly troublesome for them in matters related to the delivery of services regarding youth themselves. Both youth, and the literature, suggest that much of the peer association and gang involvement is related to the need for a sense of belonging. They report that they have not been welcomed into conventional society; they see themselves as "outsiders" with neither the power nor the "mainstream" communication skills to negotiate entry. This is particularly the case with youth-at-risk.

With this in mind, the community development process must be designed with and for youth, in such a way as to provide for themselves many of the things that are otherwise missing in their lives. What we will see in this report are ways in which group formation can occur so as to meet the needs of the youth who often feel separated and distanced from adult decision makers. The design of group process must also include opportunities for training and development, enhancement of communication skills, as well as basic skills in organization and leadership. Many of the high-risk youth will also need a group which is able to provide some healing resources so that they can stabilize their lives while engaging in larger community activities. This challenges the project group and its members.