Listen to this
In one of the programs I’m involved in, we focus on the idea of opening doors. Creating safer, more connected communities by equipping adults to engage young people with care, curiosity, and compassion, especially when substance use or behavioral health challenges are part of the picture.
One simple and powerful way we do this when facilitating groups is by wearing a shirt with a photo of ourselves as a youth and a single word we needed to hear at that time in our lives. Both the youth and adult facilitators do this.
The shirts become a visible reminder to us and other participants of our own youthfulness. And it’s a visible invitation for others to reflect on their own experiences as a young person. With questions like:
The idea is borrowed (with permission) from social impact consultant Jesse Leon. Jesse grew up in a Mexican immigrant family in San Diego in the 1970s. Sharing his experiences of street life, sex trafficking, and substance use (Leon, 2022) remind us that change doesn’t start with policies or programs - it starts with seeing each other as human.
The shirts reconnect us to things easily lost in professional roles. Memory. Vulnerability. Empathy. Working well with young people requires both connecting with our inner youth and remembering what it felt like to be one (Krueger, 2007).
Young people move through systems shaped by inequity, bias, and policies that often make it harder for them to feel safe or connected. Relational practice doesn’t replace the need for structural change, but it reminds us that every system is carried out by people and how we show up matters (Linklater, 2014).
Stories Create Stronger Community
One thing I’ve experienced and seen in others, is that when we work alongside people who have faced profound trauma and adversity, many of us feel an internal pull to compare and minimize our own stories. We tell ourselves that our experiences don’t belong in the same room.
But our experiences don’t need to compete to be real. Looking honestly at our own stories doesn’t diminish the reality of anyone else’s. It strengthens our capacity to be present.
When we validate our own lived experience, we can show up with more self-awareness and empathy. Our stories are all different in shape, depth, and context. Together, they help us form a stronger, more compassionate community. One where we don’t rank pain but recognize it.
Rupture without Repair
On my shirt, above my picture, is the word “belonging”.
When I was growing up, my family moved several times around town. Each move was to an exciting, new neighborhood. But every move meant starting over. I was the new kid again and eventually that feeling stuck. School became the place where I learned to see myself as an outsider.
One moment in that process occurred in the principal’s office early in elementary school. I remember sitting there while she yelled at me. So loudly I could hear her as she walked in and out of other rooms. And the truth is, I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong.
I remember confusion, shame, and the feeling of being small in a little chair. I remember the sound of her voice and the certainty that I didn’t belong there, or anywhere in that building.
No one slowed down to help me understand what was happening with me instead of to me. No one said, “You still belong here.” It was a rupture of relationship without repair.
What I needed at that moment was not blame or to be fixed. Just being seen as someone who mattered enough to be spoken with, not at. I needed a trusted adult who could’ve said, “You’re okay. You belong here.” I didn’t get it at the time, but the absence taught me how powerful it is.
This singular experience wasn’t the only one for me, and it was mild compared to what many young people live through. The point here is to recognize how even small ruptures can stay with us, shaping a young person’s sense of safety and identity. This moment became the lens through which I learned to notice those ruptures in others.
Standing In
This lesson has stayed with me. Less now as a wound and more as a guide. I realize how much it shapes how I move through the world and how I show up with others.
I still feel echoes of that moment in small ways: I tend to step back rather than take the center, I tense at raised voices, and I shut down when correction comes without understanding.
Which is why, today, I try to be especially mindful in the moments when a young person is having a hard moment. Those are often the times when they most need to hear, through our tone, our presence, and our response, “You still belong”.
I try to be the person who offers grounding instead of judgment, clarity instead of confusion, connection instead of distance.
My aim is to create spaces where people feel safe and know they belong before they’re asked to prove anything. Because when a young person is already feeling like an outsider, how we respond matters far more than whatever happened.
In practice, this often looks this simple: Slowing down before responding, checking our tone, offering a moment of clarity when things feel chaotic, or naming what’s happening so a young person isn’t left alone with confusion. These small moves begin to create the conditions where trust can grow.
Because belonging isn’t something youth earn after they get it right. It’s part of the conditions that make growth possible in the first place.
In our work with young people, we are often standing in for the adults we once needed ourselves. The words we choose, the tone we carry, the way we respond in moments of uncertainty can either reinforce painful exclusion or quietly open a door of possibility.
Sometimes the most important thing we offer a young person isn’t a strategy or a solution. It’s the experience of being seen. And sometimes, just the right word is enough.
References
Krueger. M. (2007). Sketching youth, self, and youth work. Sense Publishers
Leon, J. (2022). I’m not broken. Vintage.
Linklater, R. (2014). Decolonizing trauma work: Indigenous stories and strategies. Fernwood Publishing.
