Listen to thisIntroduction
This is a new column with CYC-Online developed with the aim of exploring youth work case studies from around the world. Certified youth worker Dr. Andy Munoz has traveled more than one million miles during the past decade to explore stories of professional development in our field and teaching strategies that work in practice. The Harvard-trained anthropologist and psychologist, leads the Master’s concentration at the University of Pittsburgh in Child and Youth Care Work.
Andy has offered guidance to youth work projects in neighborhoods as diverse as building after-school activities into youth development hubs in the backstreets of Detroit; with beach communities where youths and adults are reclaiming indigenous traditions by returning to traditional canoeing in Hawaii, Alaska, and Samoa; or Egyptian borderlands where community youth mapping has changed how a generation thinks about leadership.
Dr Munoz will be joined by his close associate Matt Fasano who entered the world of youth work two years ago as a residential counselor in the Pressley Ridge School for the Deaf in Pittsburgh, PA. Matt recently passed his youth work certification exam and was elected to the board of the Association of Child and Youth Care Practice, the national professional group for youth workers in the United States.Andy and Matt will each month explore a trend in the professional development of youth workers and discuss the emergent evidence-base that supports quality relationship building in our work as Child and Youth Care workers.
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It always surprised us. The youths with the largest file saying he or she was incapable of social relationships and were assessed as having low psychological functioning would all of a sudden blossom in our care. There would be sometimes as much as a year and a half to two years in tested school performance in just one academic year. Monitoring agencies would always want these tests performed again just to make sure.
I (Andy) have seen such gains amongst young people in residential treatment at many special education schools staffed by teachers and youth workers. Such successes have been noted at Norris Adolescent Center (Wisconsin), Bonnie Brae School (New Jersey), St. Joseph’s (Minnesota), Edgewood Children’s Center (California), amongst others. I used to think it could be explained away as puberty together with healthy everyday life. At a time of rapid growth, the youth was finally getting what was always needed —safe, secure, nurturing relationships, good food and basic care with enriched activity.It was, in fact, remarkable to watch an older youth who was thought not to have what it takes to achieve, unfold and move through a sequence of younger developmental steps to emerge as a whole thriving human being. Being a part of such a process and guiding social and emotional development in a youth, freed more from trauma than ever before, has always given us hope. It takes patience, but there is always hope.
First in the process comes finding that spark! Peter Benson who wrote All Our Kids always advocated that if we can find that one special strength in a youth and then guide the development of other assets, it changes how that youth sees him or herself and others, perhaps for a lifetime. Those interested can read about how to “help ignite the hidden strengths of teenagers” in Peter Benson’s last book Sparks and listen to him talk about how young people thrive on YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqzUHcW58Us
Still that’s not enough to explain significant growth in a young person who has sorely lacked the nutrients or the opportunities needed to succeed. It turns out that the brain plays a vital role! We used to think the brain was fully formed in infancy or certainly by the time a child reads at about the third grade. It turns out that the brain – like any muscle – is still developing in adolescence and beyond. At puberty the brain pairs down synapses that are not used frequently and bulks up and strengthens the synapses that are in common, everyday use. So a young person who is jogging and running, eating healthy and playing, doing art and enriched activities – all the things effectively provided in our youth work – is far more likely to have a brain that takes over biologically to structure social, emotional, and physical health.
So any policy maker who would load all of the attention and the funding into programs during the earliest years of life alone turns out to be wrong if they say our teens don’t have a chance. The power of the brain grows as much in adolescence as it does in infancy. For more details on this theme, see Brendtro, L, Mitchell, M. and McCall, H. (2009) Deep Brain Learning: Pathways To Potential With Challenging Youth. www.starr.org/deep-brain-learning.
For many years Marty Mitchell, who trained as a youth worker, has helped to establish a center of excellence with the Starr Commonwealth. Together with Larry Brendtro, another founder of youthwork, Marty and Larry pioneered some of the original techniques in the field around positive peer cultures. Today they balance the nurturing role of the ecology of relationships with the structuring influence of the brain. This leading work on “trauma informed care” encourages one to recognize how much the brain impacts on resilience and what steps can be taken to change one’s life course. www.cfssaskatoon.sk.ca/documents/lar ry-brendtro-workshop-6.pdf
As a team of seasoned youth workers and researchers dedicated for many years to the youth work field, these authors describe the importance of drawing together current research in neuroscience, resilience and positive youth development to arrive at new insights. At the same time, these authors suggest that research must be considered in conjunction with human values, practice expertise and the voices of youth if we are to discover how best to support young people at risk.
According to Brendtro, “The gold standard for truth is that an idea from one field fits with ideas drawn from other realms of experience.” (p. viii) Deep Brain Learning combines all of these components to derive practical, but powerful principles that empower youth workers and equip them with effective strategies for promoting healthy development at home and school for life.
Brendtro and Mitchell explain that the brain is primed for such growth. “... The human brain uses inbuilt maps to help [youth] learn what is most important for survival... [In order] to thrive, young people need to build relationships, explore their world, gain self-control, and contribute to others... The brain prepares [young people] for this learning through inbuilt maps for trust, challenge, power, and moral development.” (p. 42) It is the brain that cues and strengthens the need to be needed and as adolescents increasingly feel a sense of belonging to the daily life space that we create, the brain increasingly primes and structures the development of new healthy skills and social competencies.In my own work (Matt) with deaf youth I find that the quality of an interaction can change the more that the adult can fluently sign and hence communicate closely with that young person. Knowing the language a young person uses helps to create a comfort that the youth voice is heard thus preparing the way for caring. When a youth really feels accepted and heard, it’s almost visceral like a hug and the brain signals the body to be ready to develop new pro-social behaviors.
Caring relationships with adults built around trust can “... regulate emotions and turn off the stress response,” (p. 44) which is often overactive in at-risk youth. Once a youth’s stress levels have subsided, new learning can take place.
Through enriched activity, with the support of the adults in the environment, young people learn to “... master difficulties, [creating] new brain pathways, literally new intelligence.” (p. 57) Repeated interactions with caring, responsible adults also provide the groundwork for pro-social values and behavior. Brendtro, Mitchell and McCall describe how the brain possesses networks of cells called mirror neurons, which capitalize on these interactions creating moral frameworks for future actions and relationships.
You can read more about the brain and youth work in The Adolescent Brain: New Research and Its Implications For Young People Transitioning From Foster Care released October 2011 in Washington, D.C, by the professionals and foster youth at the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative www.jimcaseyyouth.org
Reference
Brendtro, L., Mitchell, M., & McCall, H. (2009). Deep brain learning: Pathways to potential with challenging youth. Albion, MI: Starr Commonwealth.
