As I mentioned last Friday (April 27), an article written in 1963 not only had a significant impact on my development as a youth advocate, but it remains surprisingly relevant today. The article; The Impact of Professional Dishonesty on Behavior of Disturbed Adolescents by S. L. Halleck; begins by pointing out that when dishonesty in a professional relationship is usually discussed, the focus is on dishonesty from the client to the professional. When the paper was written Halleck was responding to a lack of information concerning dishonesty in the opposite direction. I’d like to report that there has been significant expansion on his work since the ‘60’s but – since we’re being honest – I really haven’t found much.
Perhaps the reason is that there has been an increased emphasis on professional ethics. We really don’t need to focus on the impact of professional dishonesty if we agree that such behavior is unethical and work to keep dishonesty out of our behavior toward clients. But, in my opinion, this is where Halleck makes his greatest contribution. The professional dishonesty he is referring to is not the blatant, malicious form of manipulating the truth that we all should be able to agree is unethical behavior. Instead, Halleck describes more subtle forms of dishonesty; simple representations that we make to young people that may not be entirely true. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Mark Twain: “It’s not what people don’t know that scares me; it’s what they know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Halleck highlights seven specific areas where adult professionals are not always entirely honest when dealing with adolescents. His seven areas may not be an exhaustive list, but reviewing them helps develop an awareness of how dishonesty can sometimes enter into our approach unless we remain scrupulously on guard. Tomorrow I’ll share a few of the areas Halleck identified.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Another Old Resource
Way back on March 7th I told you about a book that contributed to the development of my approach to services for young people, and mentioned that I’d periodically share other resources that have had a significant impact on my beliefs and perspectives. Today I’d like to tell you about an article that is over 44 years old -- yet it is as relevant today as it was when it was written back in 1963.
It was already “old” when I discovered it in the early ‘70’s, but it impressed me as information that was 100% applicable to my work. Today I have a tattered, overly copied and barely readable version of the paper which still serves as a reminder of important things to keep in mind when I work with young people. Forty-four years old, and it is still helping me be a better advocate for youth.
The paper is called “The Impact of Professional Dishonesty on Behavior of Disturbed Adolescents” and was written by S. L. Halleck. Unfortunately, it seems to have been lost to time, as I am not able to find it on the web (though there are a few resources that reference the article). As a result I can’t refer you to a place where you can read it, and I’m sure that some form of copyright prevents me from simply typing it up and posting it on my website. So, instead, I will do two things. First, I will strongly recommend that if you can find a copy somewhere, you do so. Second, I’m going to dedicate next week’s blog entries to a review of sorts, giving you my perspective on what Halleck discussed in the paper.
It was already “old” when I discovered it in the early ‘70’s, but it impressed me as information that was 100% applicable to my work. Today I have a tattered, overly copied and barely readable version of the paper which still serves as a reminder of important things to keep in mind when I work with young people. Forty-four years old, and it is still helping me be a better advocate for youth.
The paper is called “The Impact of Professional Dishonesty on Behavior of Disturbed Adolescents” and was written by S. L. Halleck. Unfortunately, it seems to have been lost to time, as I am not able to find it on the web (though there are a few resources that reference the article). As a result I can’t refer you to a place where you can read it, and I’m sure that some form of copyright prevents me from simply typing it up and posting it on my website. So, instead, I will do two things. First, I will strongly recommend that if you can find a copy somewhere, you do so. Second, I’m going to dedicate next week’s blog entries to a review of sorts, giving you my perspective on what Halleck discussed in the paper.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Less Global, More Local
I have to admit that I didn’t see the news story myself, but a friend called it to my attention. My friend is one of those unsung heroes in the world of youth advocacy; someone who adopts young people out of the foster care system. If my count is correct, she’s working on number four right now. That’s four young people getting a real chance at a loving, stable home, and four young people those of us in the runaway and homeless youth field don’t need to worry about aging out of the foster care system and ending up on the streets.
My friend was a little upset about an article she saw in the Oregonian (Portland’s main newspaper), and I have to say I second her emotion. The article was a front page story lamenting how international adoptions take “too long”. International adoptions. The article mentioned not one word about the estimated ½ million young people in foster care right here in this country waiting for adoption, nor did it mention that for a large percentage of these kids the wait will be in vain as many will age out of the system without ever being adopted. Nor did it reference the Casey study that revealed that as many as one in four will end up homeless on our streets, adding more numbers to an already overwhelmed and under-funded system of services for runaway and homeless youth. In fact, some estimates are that 40% of the homeless youth on our streets are young people who have aged out of the foster care system.
Nope. Not a word about any of that. Instead, the article lamented the length of time it takes to travel (as my friend put it) “across the world to adopt needy kids in other countries, often spending thousands and at times participating in corrupt systems, when children who need homes languish here”.
I understand her frustration, don’t you?
My friend was a little upset about an article she saw in the Oregonian (Portland’s main newspaper), and I have to say I second her emotion. The article was a front page story lamenting how international adoptions take “too long”. International adoptions. The article mentioned not one word about the estimated ½ million young people in foster care right here in this country waiting for adoption, nor did it mention that for a large percentage of these kids the wait will be in vain as many will age out of the system without ever being adopted. Nor did it reference the Casey study that revealed that as many as one in four will end up homeless on our streets, adding more numbers to an already overwhelmed and under-funded system of services for runaway and homeless youth. In fact, some estimates are that 40% of the homeless youth on our streets are young people who have aged out of the foster care system.
Nope. Not a word about any of that. Instead, the article lamented the length of time it takes to travel (as my friend put it) “across the world to adopt needy kids in other countries, often spending thousands and at times participating in corrupt systems, when children who need homes languish here”.
I understand her frustration, don’t you?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Humiliation as Discipline
Yesterday I talked about an abusive phone call made by Alec Baldwin to his 11-year-old daughter, and I mentioned how it had become a media feeding frenzy. In all the debates by media personalities, a focus was on the humiliation suffered by the daughter due to this call being released to the media. I give no credit for their failure to mention that they were contributing to the humiliation, but I do give some credit for the media realizing that public humiliation of a child is a bad thing.
Yet, at the same time, a local talk-show host was discussing an incident here in Oregon. Apparently a 10-year-old boy in Grants Pass was lying about whether or not he was doing his homework. When caught in the lie, the boy was punished by being forced to stand in front of a Wal-Mart with a sign around his neck that read “I’m a triple-L -- Lazy Liar Loser”. Said one of the adults who came up with this punishment: “I call it humiliation. Little kids, sometimes you have to humiliate them to get them in line.”
Two different cases, two different reactions. In the Baldwin case, people seem to agree that humiliation is a bad thing. In the second case, the consensus on the talk show was that this was creative punishment and public humiliation would help the young man. The jury is still out at DHS (Oregon’s State services for children), they have not leveled charges but have stated they consider the punishment emotional abuse.
Whether or not hanging a sign around a child’s neck and making him stand in public with a self-deprecating message is abusive, most experts agree that criticism, sarcasm, and humiliation are the least effective forms of discipline. While they sometimes result in immediate compliance, they rarely produce long-term cooperation and behavioral change -- at least, not positive change. Oppositional, abusive, defiant, and anti-social behaviors are the more likely outcome, and those of us who work with street-youth have seen more than our fair share of young people who have experience with criticism, sarcasm, and humiliation as discipline in their backgrounds.
So, for my two cents, I don’t care whether it’s Alec Baldwin losing control and berating his daughter, or a Grants Pass couple attempting to get their 10-year-old to do his homework, let’s leave the humiliation to Simon Cowell and American Idol and keep it out of our child-rearing practices.
Yet, at the same time, a local talk-show host was discussing an incident here in Oregon. Apparently a 10-year-old boy in Grants Pass was lying about whether or not he was doing his homework. When caught in the lie, the boy was punished by being forced to stand in front of a Wal-Mart with a sign around his neck that read “I’m a triple-L -- Lazy Liar Loser”. Said one of the adults who came up with this punishment: “I call it humiliation. Little kids, sometimes you have to humiliate them to get them in line.”
Two different cases, two different reactions. In the Baldwin case, people seem to agree that humiliation is a bad thing. In the second case, the consensus on the talk show was that this was creative punishment and public humiliation would help the young man. The jury is still out at DHS (Oregon’s State services for children), they have not leveled charges but have stated they consider the punishment emotional abuse.
Whether or not hanging a sign around a child’s neck and making him stand in public with a self-deprecating message is abusive, most experts agree that criticism, sarcasm, and humiliation are the least effective forms of discipline. While they sometimes result in immediate compliance, they rarely produce long-term cooperation and behavioral change -- at least, not positive change. Oppositional, abusive, defiant, and anti-social behaviors are the more likely outcome, and those of us who work with street-youth have seen more than our fair share of young people who have experience with criticism, sarcasm, and humiliation as discipline in their backgrounds.
So, for my two cents, I don’t care whether it’s Alec Baldwin losing control and berating his daughter, or a Grants Pass couple attempting to get their 10-year-old to do his homework, let’s leave the humiliation to Simon Cowell and American Idol and keep it out of our child-rearing practices.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
A Hat Trick of Abuse
Unless you live on another planet, you’ve no doubt heard the phone message that Alec Baldwin left for his 11-year-old daughter. For all you extra-terrestrials out there, let me briefly recap.
Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are involved in a very messy divorce. He recently called his daughter and left a phone message for her that was nothing short of berating. How do we know this? We know this because someone released the message to the media, where it’s been played ad nauseam.
It is suspected that Ms. Basinger released the message in order to hurt Mr. Baldwin, as they seem to be bent on destroying each other as well as their marriage. Unfortunately, neither is protecting the daughter in this battle. In fact, the daughter is more of a weapon to be used by either side as they seek opportunities to hurt each other.
Alec Baldwin is being vilified as a result of the phone message -- as well he should be. In my opinion, the way he spoke to his daughter is firmly in the realm of abuse. But his abuse is only the first goal in a hat trick of abuse. Releasing the message to the media was also abusive to the daughter, as was the media’s airing of the message. Have we so drifted so far from recognition of abusive behavior toward children that we actually use abuse to expose abuse? Clearly, in this instance, the answer is yes.
Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are involved in a very messy divorce. He recently called his daughter and left a phone message for her that was nothing short of berating. How do we know this? We know this because someone released the message to the media, where it’s been played ad nauseam.
It is suspected that Ms. Basinger released the message in order to hurt Mr. Baldwin, as they seem to be bent on destroying each other as well as their marriage. Unfortunately, neither is protecting the daughter in this battle. In fact, the daughter is more of a weapon to be used by either side as they seek opportunities to hurt each other.
Alec Baldwin is being vilified as a result of the phone message -- as well he should be. In my opinion, the way he spoke to his daughter is firmly in the realm of abuse. But his abuse is only the first goal in a hat trick of abuse. Releasing the message to the media was also abusive to the daughter, as was the media’s airing of the message. Have we so drifted so far from recognition of abusive behavior toward children that we actually use abuse to expose abuse? Clearly, in this instance, the answer is yes.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Homeless Youth Summit - Part Four
NOTE: This is Part Four of a continuing entry. See Monday 4/16, Thursday 4/19, and Friday 4/20 for Part’s One, Two, and Three.
The final point of my three point plan has to do with greater agency transparency and a higher level of community involvement. I don’t want to place blame, and I’m not sure who is at fault if I wanted to place blame, but the reality is that most runaway and homeless youth (RHY) agencies operate in relative isolation, and there is often an adversarial relationship between agencies and the community. It is not uncommon for community leaders to be suspicious of the work that RHY agencies do, if not to outright accuse them of enabling behaviors that contribute to the problem. Conversely, it is not unusual for agencies to develop somewhat of a siege mentality, viewing elements of the community as reactionary forces who just don’t understand, or care.
But this is a community problem, and it will only be properly addressed by community solutions. Agencies and their communities need to communicate and work together, and anything less is a disservice to the young people on our streets. When we fail to work together and instead develop adversarial relationships, we simply re-create the dysfunctional dynamics that contributed to young people being on the streets in the first place. The truly dangerous aspect of agency isolation is that we can develop tunnel vision and lose perspective on the effects of the work that we do. In my experience, the saddest thing about accusations that agencies “enable” is that sometimes these accusations are true. This is what results when we examine our practice only through our own eyes – we need community perspective in order to reflect critically on the work we do.
In order to seek lasting solutions to the issues faced by runaway and homeless youth we need to begin to view our communities as partners. We should make as great an effort to outreach to, build trust with, and involve the dominant culture as we do the street culture. When we fail to do that, we are failing to make every effort and motivate every resource for the benefit of the young people we are seeking to assist, and the last thing we want to become is another group of adults that has failed them.
The final point of my three point plan has to do with greater agency transparency and a higher level of community involvement. I don’t want to place blame, and I’m not sure who is at fault if I wanted to place blame, but the reality is that most runaway and homeless youth (RHY) agencies operate in relative isolation, and there is often an adversarial relationship between agencies and the community. It is not uncommon for community leaders to be suspicious of the work that RHY agencies do, if not to outright accuse them of enabling behaviors that contribute to the problem. Conversely, it is not unusual for agencies to develop somewhat of a siege mentality, viewing elements of the community as reactionary forces who just don’t understand, or care.
But this is a community problem, and it will only be properly addressed by community solutions. Agencies and their communities need to communicate and work together, and anything less is a disservice to the young people on our streets. When we fail to work together and instead develop adversarial relationships, we simply re-create the dysfunctional dynamics that contributed to young people being on the streets in the first place. The truly dangerous aspect of agency isolation is that we can develop tunnel vision and lose perspective on the effects of the work that we do. In my experience, the saddest thing about accusations that agencies “enable” is that sometimes these accusations are true. This is what results when we examine our practice only through our own eyes – we need community perspective in order to reflect critically on the work we do.
In order to seek lasting solutions to the issues faced by runaway and homeless youth we need to begin to view our communities as partners. We should make as great an effort to outreach to, build trust with, and involve the dominant culture as we do the street culture. When we fail to do that, we are failing to make every effort and motivate every resource for the benefit of the young people we are seeking to assist, and the last thing we want to become is another group of adults that has failed them.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Homeless Youth Summit - Part Three
NOTE: This is Part Three of a continuing entry. See Monday 4/16 and Thursday 4/19 for Part’s One and Two.
Point two of my three point plan is for runaway and homeless youth (RHY) agencies and systems to implement a higher level of training and accountability to Youth Development as a practice. Youth Development is a proven, research-based best practice that has a demonstrated history as a successful approach to services for this population, which is why most funding for RHY services requires an agency commitment to Youth Development. This funding requirement is the reason why most agencies use the language of Youth Development and make at least token nods toward implementation. However, while there are some notable exceptions to this rule, Youth Development remains a misunderstood, under-utilized, and under-supported approach to RHY services.
The best example I can give of this is the over-reliance on Youth Advisory Boards as a demonstration of an agency’s Youth Development focus. An empowered and functioning Youth Advisory Board is an excellent Youth Development structure, but the truth is that many of the Youth Advisory Boards I’ve seen are neither empowered nor functioning. Support and assistance to the Board are often delegated to lower level staff who are themselves without much power or authority, there is often little training for or organization of the Board, and the Board’s authority is either unclear or extremely limited (if not both). But even in cases where the Board is empowered and functioning well, Youth Development is not about giving young people a voice in your organization. An Advisory Board is simply one option for a structure that gives young people an opportunity for Meaningful Participation -- which is one of multiple “Protective Factors” that fosters innate resilience and promotes development. Therefore, an Advisory Board is only really promoting development for the handful of young people who serve on the Board. What about the developmental needs of the hundreds of other young people served by the agency?
True utilization of the Youth Development approach requires an agency-wide commitment supported by intention and dollars. Staff from the most entry-level position up to the President of the Board of Directors must be committed to full implementation of Youth Development in all aspects of practice, and support in terms of quality assurance, accountability, and on-going training and supervision must be in place. As a Youth Development trainer, this last point may be a bit self-serving, but the truth is that you cannot expect Youth Development to be realized in practice if some of your staff have attended a Youth Development presentation once in their career. The sad truth is I have visited many organizations that are required by funding and claim to be using a Youth Development approach, but the level of staff training is even less than I just described.
In fact, the level of training period in many youth-serving organizations is pitiful. Few organizations have any line item in their budget for on-going training, and most rely on sporadic community training opportunities. Group trainings for agency personnel and a regular schedule of attention to training is definitely the exception in youth services. Not too long ago I read a book about sales and learned that sales teams often dedicate 20% of their time to training. That means we live in a world where a man or woman who wants to sell you something spends 20% of their time learning new strategies and techniques for sales, or practicing already known skills. Yet a man or woman who wants to reach an abused, alienated, distrustful young person who is acculturated to a criminal world of violence and exploitation receives training as an afterthought or occasional opportunity.
Anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
On Monday, the final point in my three point plan.
Point two of my three point plan is for runaway and homeless youth (RHY) agencies and systems to implement a higher level of training and accountability to Youth Development as a practice. Youth Development is a proven, research-based best practice that has a demonstrated history as a successful approach to services for this population, which is why most funding for RHY services requires an agency commitment to Youth Development. This funding requirement is the reason why most agencies use the language of Youth Development and make at least token nods toward implementation. However, while there are some notable exceptions to this rule, Youth Development remains a misunderstood, under-utilized, and under-supported approach to RHY services.
The best example I can give of this is the over-reliance on Youth Advisory Boards as a demonstration of an agency’s Youth Development focus. An empowered and functioning Youth Advisory Board is an excellent Youth Development structure, but the truth is that many of the Youth Advisory Boards I’ve seen are neither empowered nor functioning. Support and assistance to the Board are often delegated to lower level staff who are themselves without much power or authority, there is often little training for or organization of the Board, and the Board’s authority is either unclear or extremely limited (if not both). But even in cases where the Board is empowered and functioning well, Youth Development is not about giving young people a voice in your organization. An Advisory Board is simply one option for a structure that gives young people an opportunity for Meaningful Participation -- which is one of multiple “Protective Factors” that fosters innate resilience and promotes development. Therefore, an Advisory Board is only really promoting development for the handful of young people who serve on the Board. What about the developmental needs of the hundreds of other young people served by the agency?
True utilization of the Youth Development approach requires an agency-wide commitment supported by intention and dollars. Staff from the most entry-level position up to the President of the Board of Directors must be committed to full implementation of Youth Development in all aspects of practice, and support in terms of quality assurance, accountability, and on-going training and supervision must be in place. As a Youth Development trainer, this last point may be a bit self-serving, but the truth is that you cannot expect Youth Development to be realized in practice if some of your staff have attended a Youth Development presentation once in their career. The sad truth is I have visited many organizations that are required by funding and claim to be using a Youth Development approach, but the level of staff training is even less than I just described.
In fact, the level of training period in many youth-serving organizations is pitiful. Few organizations have any line item in their budget for on-going training, and most rely on sporadic community training opportunities. Group trainings for agency personnel and a regular schedule of attention to training is definitely the exception in youth services. Not too long ago I read a book about sales and learned that sales teams often dedicate 20% of their time to training. That means we live in a world where a man or woman who wants to sell you something spends 20% of their time learning new strategies and techniques for sales, or practicing already known skills. Yet a man or woman who wants to reach an abused, alienated, distrustful young person who is acculturated to a criminal world of violence and exploitation receives training as an afterthought or occasional opportunity.
Anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
On Monday, the final point in my three point plan.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Homeless Youth Summit - Part Two
If you remember, back on Monday -- before Virginia Tech and my trip to Salem -- I was relaying my comments at a Homeless Youth Summit here in Portland on the 13th. Let’s pick up where we left off …
Having answered the first of two questions (see last Monday’s entry), I moved on to the second: What is one action the current system can undertake to contribute to ending youth homelessness? The question specifically asks about the current system in Portland, but my answer, I believe, is applicable to any homeless youth agency or system; I wasn’t specifically singling out Portland services. There were two things that I wanted my answer to carefully avoid, however. First, I wanted to make sure that I was pointing out an action that was either not currently being taken, or not currently being taken with the level of intention that it deserves; and, second, I wanted to steer clear of an Occam’s Fazer-type answer (see yesterday’s entry). Unfortunately, when a question is designed to elicit the one thing that a system can do, we open the door for Occam’s Fazer. So, in order to close that door just a little, I responded that the one thing the system could do is to implement my three point plan. Today I’ll share point one.
Before the panel started answering the questions, the audience was provided with an overview of the system. It was made clear in that overview that the system was not focused on “weekend warriors” or kids just hanging out. The intent of the system is to serve “homeless” youth, and a specific definition was provided. I don’t have the definition in front of me as I write this, so I may be a bit off in my numbers, but part of the definition specified that a young person could not have spent more than 1 night at “home” in the past 30 days. In my national experience, I’ve noticed a similar focus in other agencies.
The first point of my three point plan defined this focus as a mistake. Anyone who has been working with this population for any length of time knows that a young person who is experiencing trauma or separation from family can get acculturated in an extremely short period of time. Less than two weeks of dabbling in the culture of the streets can take a runaway youth, or even a “weekend warrior” (a youth still living at home, but spending much of their time hanging out on the streets) from a youth with a viable option to reunite with family and either destroy that option, or make it much more difficult. If a young person has only spent 1 night at home in the past two days, we should be paying attention to them.
A large part of the burden for this attention falls on street outreach programs. In my opinion, far too often outreach programs are missing this critical element of the services they provide. They often do an excellent job of engaging with the “hardcore” street-dependent youth, and do an admirable job of streetwork providing services geared toward both harm reduction and encouragement to transition off of the streets. What they often don’t do well enough (in my opinion) is act a “first responders”. Who is in a better position to notice the new faces on the streets? Why should we wait until they are entrenched in a street family before they become eligible for our attention? So, the first part of my three point plan is early intervention with youth new to the streets. If we did a better job at that, maybe we could cut down a bit on the numbers of young people we need to serve later.
Tomorrow, point two.
Having answered the first of two questions (see last Monday’s entry), I moved on to the second: What is one action the current system can undertake to contribute to ending youth homelessness? The question specifically asks about the current system in Portland, but my answer, I believe, is applicable to any homeless youth agency or system; I wasn’t specifically singling out Portland services. There were two things that I wanted my answer to carefully avoid, however. First, I wanted to make sure that I was pointing out an action that was either not currently being taken, or not currently being taken with the level of intention that it deserves; and, second, I wanted to steer clear of an Occam’s Fazer-type answer (see yesterday’s entry). Unfortunately, when a question is designed to elicit the one thing that a system can do, we open the door for Occam’s Fazer. So, in order to close that door just a little, I responded that the one thing the system could do is to implement my three point plan. Today I’ll share point one.
Before the panel started answering the questions, the audience was provided with an overview of the system. It was made clear in that overview that the system was not focused on “weekend warriors” or kids just hanging out. The intent of the system is to serve “homeless” youth, and a specific definition was provided. I don’t have the definition in front of me as I write this, so I may be a bit off in my numbers, but part of the definition specified that a young person could not have spent more than 1 night at “home” in the past 30 days. In my national experience, I’ve noticed a similar focus in other agencies.
The first point of my three point plan defined this focus as a mistake. Anyone who has been working with this population for any length of time knows that a young person who is experiencing trauma or separation from family can get acculturated in an extremely short period of time. Less than two weeks of dabbling in the culture of the streets can take a runaway youth, or even a “weekend warrior” (a youth still living at home, but spending much of their time hanging out on the streets) from a youth with a viable option to reunite with family and either destroy that option, or make it much more difficult. If a young person has only spent 1 night at home in the past two days, we should be paying attention to them.
A large part of the burden for this attention falls on street outreach programs. In my opinion, far too often outreach programs are missing this critical element of the services they provide. They often do an excellent job of engaging with the “hardcore” street-dependent youth, and do an admirable job of streetwork providing services geared toward both harm reduction and encouragement to transition off of the streets. What they often don’t do well enough (in my opinion) is act a “first responders”. Who is in a better position to notice the new faces on the streets? Why should we wait until they are entrenched in a street family before they become eligible for our attention? So, the first part of my three point plan is early intervention with youth new to the streets. If we did a better job at that, maybe we could cut down a bit on the numbers of young people we need to serve later.
Tomorrow, point two.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Occam's Fazer
Forgive the lateness of today’s entry, but I spent the morning down in Salem (Oregon’s Capital) testifying before a committee considering a report recommending a state-wide system of care for runaway and homeless youth. It was there that I encountered another example of Occam’s Fazer.
I can’t say with certainty, but I’m pretty sure I coined the term “Occam’s Fazer”. You’ve probably guessed that it’s a play on Occam’s Razor, a physics postulate that when presented with multiple explanations, the simplest is probably the correct one. However, far too often people try to apply this physics postulate to human behavior, offering simplistic solutions to complex problems. When they do, they tend to fluster and compound (faze, if you will) the entire debate. Thus, Occam’s Fazer: a simplistic solution that disconcerts an issue related to human behavior.
For example, at today’s hearing in our state capitol, four professional panelists presented a report based on 30 years of study related to issues of runaway and homeless youth. Statistics were cited, recommendations were made, and the panelists built a strong case for the establishment of a state-wide system of care for the estimated 24,000 runaway and homeless youth in Oregon each year. At the end of their testimony, when the committee was able to ask questions, the first question asked -- the first question -- was: “What do you think of the idea of a daytime curfew to force kids back into school?”
Occam’s Fazer.
Of course, the question had nothing to do with the recommendation of a state-wide system of care, and the reason why runaway and homeless youth aren’t in school is because the schools don’t meet their needs, so forcing them back into school wouldn’t really accomplish much in terms of their growth and development. And a daytime curfew wouldn’t force them back into school, anyway. It would simply drive them underground during school hours making them even more difficult to reach. These are all reasons why advocates for runaway and homeless youth don’t “think of the idea” of things like daytime curfews -- because the complex issues of runaway and homeless youth will not be addressed with simplistic responses, nor will any other issue that involves human behavior.
Remember this as you listen to and participate in the debates taking place in the aftermath of Virginia Tech. Such events are a Petri Dish for Occam’s Fazer. If the solution seems simple, be disconcerted.
I can’t say with certainty, but I’m pretty sure I coined the term “Occam’s Fazer”. You’ve probably guessed that it’s a play on Occam’s Razor, a physics postulate that when presented with multiple explanations, the simplest is probably the correct one. However, far too often people try to apply this physics postulate to human behavior, offering simplistic solutions to complex problems. When they do, they tend to fluster and compound (faze, if you will) the entire debate. Thus, Occam’s Fazer: a simplistic solution that disconcerts an issue related to human behavior.
For example, at today’s hearing in our state capitol, four professional panelists presented a report based on 30 years of study related to issues of runaway and homeless youth. Statistics were cited, recommendations were made, and the panelists built a strong case for the establishment of a state-wide system of care for the estimated 24,000 runaway and homeless youth in Oregon each year. At the end of their testimony, when the committee was able to ask questions, the first question asked -- the first question -- was: “What do you think of the idea of a daytime curfew to force kids back into school?”
Occam’s Fazer.
Of course, the question had nothing to do with the recommendation of a state-wide system of care, and the reason why runaway and homeless youth aren’t in school is because the schools don’t meet their needs, so forcing them back into school wouldn’t really accomplish much in terms of their growth and development. And a daytime curfew wouldn’t force them back into school, anyway. It would simply drive them underground during school hours making them even more difficult to reach. These are all reasons why advocates for runaway and homeless youth don’t “think of the idea” of things like daytime curfews -- because the complex issues of runaway and homeless youth will not be addressed with simplistic responses, nor will any other issue that involves human behavior.
Remember this as you listen to and participate in the debates taking place in the aftermath of Virginia Tech. Such events are a Petri Dish for Occam’s Fazer. If the solution seems simple, be disconcerted.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Virginia Tech
I will continue discussing last Friday’s Homeless Youth Summit here in Portland in the days ahead, but today there is only one comment that is appropriate. My deepest sympathies and condolences go out to all those affected by the shootings yesterday at Virginia Tech.
This incident once again brings our on-going struggle to understand and prevent school/campus shootings to the front of the news line. Personally, I feel that standing in the shadow of a horrific event is the worst place to consider solutions. I will be offering my perspective on this and other similar events in the near future, but after we all have had a chance to grief, and after all the facts are known.
This incident once again brings our on-going struggle to understand and prevent school/campus shootings to the front of the news line. Personally, I feel that standing in the shadow of a horrific event is the worst place to consider solutions. I will be offering my perspective on this and other similar events in the near future, but after we all have had a chance to grief, and after all the facts are known.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Homeless Youth Summit - Part One
One of the reasons for the briefness of last Friday’s blog entry is because I was speaking as a panelist at a County-sponsored “Homeless Youth Summit” here in Portland. The panelists were each supposed to answer two questions. The first question was; what will it take to end youth homelessness in our community; followed by; what is one action the current system can undertake to contribute to ending youth homelessness. I thought I’d take some time this week to share my answers to these questions.
In answer to the first question, I told the audience that of all the questions I’m asked on this topic this is the question I hate the most. I hate it because I hate my answer, which is -- we’re not going to end youth homelessness. And one reason we’re not going to end youth homelessness is because we’re asking the wrong questions. The fact is, when we look at young people on our streets, we are not looking at an issue of homelessness, we are looking at something much more complex.
I really wish we had never attached the “homeless” label to youth on the streets. I understand how it happened; it made it easier to represent the issue to an uninformed public, and cashed in on funding streams for homeless populations. But it has also yielded mistaken approaches based on an assumption that we are dealing with a socio-economic issue. This has resulted in a focus on “roof-based” services (if they’re homeless, the obvious answer is to put a roof over their heads) and achievement-based outcomes (if this is a socio-economic issue, then we just need to get these kids jobs). Of course, anyone who has provided direct services to this population for more than a few minutes can attest to the fact that putting a roof over their heads does mean they are “off the streets” -- at least not in terms of their behaviors, belief systems and the issues they have yet to resolve.
To quote somebody I deeply respect (myself, from my Street Culture manual) the streets aren’t under your feet, they’re under your scalp, and being “on the streets” is psycho-emotional, not socio-economic. In other words, for some young people, being “homeless” on the streets meets certain developmental needs that are not met by alternatives to the streets. This leads us to the real question, which is not what will it take to end youth homelessness, but rather, how do we respond to the fact that there is a segment of young people in our community whose needs are not able to be met by traditional social structures such as family, school, and existing safety nets (foster care, etc.). To answer that question, we need to understand why these structures are failing them, and this is where you open up a Pandora’s box.
The reasons why an individual young person ends up on the streets are as numerous as the number of young people out there, but there are some common themes. We know that 20-40% are out there because traditional structures don’t accept their sexual orientation. We know that a majority have abuse, neglect, and abandonment in their backgrounds, often exasperated by the complete failure of existing social services to adequately intervene and provide appropriate support and guidance. We know that many have undiagnosed mental health issues and learning disabilities, and that there may have been inadequate recognition of the effects of childhood traumas resulting in needs beyond the capacity of even caring, attentive families to deal with. The bottom line in all of these factors is that we have young people whose developmental needs are not being met by family, school, and state systems, either due to malice or inadequacy, and the only alternatives available to them are incarceration, or the streets. It’s not that they’re homeless, it’s that the alternatives to the streets that seem viable to them do not meet their developmental needs.
So, the first thing it will take to end youth homelessness is for us to stop dealing with the issue as one of homelessness. It is an issue of youth development, or, more specifically, a lack of appropriate community options for young people who are having a difficult journey through adolescence.
In answer to the first question, I told the audience that of all the questions I’m asked on this topic this is the question I hate the most. I hate it because I hate my answer, which is -- we’re not going to end youth homelessness. And one reason we’re not going to end youth homelessness is because we’re asking the wrong questions. The fact is, when we look at young people on our streets, we are not looking at an issue of homelessness, we are looking at something much more complex.
I really wish we had never attached the “homeless” label to youth on the streets. I understand how it happened; it made it easier to represent the issue to an uninformed public, and cashed in on funding streams for homeless populations. But it has also yielded mistaken approaches based on an assumption that we are dealing with a socio-economic issue. This has resulted in a focus on “roof-based” services (if they’re homeless, the obvious answer is to put a roof over their heads) and achievement-based outcomes (if this is a socio-economic issue, then we just need to get these kids jobs). Of course, anyone who has provided direct services to this population for more than a few minutes can attest to the fact that putting a roof over their heads does mean they are “off the streets” -- at least not in terms of their behaviors, belief systems and the issues they have yet to resolve.
To quote somebody I deeply respect (myself, from my Street Culture manual) the streets aren’t under your feet, they’re under your scalp, and being “on the streets” is psycho-emotional, not socio-economic. In other words, for some young people, being “homeless” on the streets meets certain developmental needs that are not met by alternatives to the streets. This leads us to the real question, which is not what will it take to end youth homelessness, but rather, how do we respond to the fact that there is a segment of young people in our community whose needs are not able to be met by traditional social structures such as family, school, and existing safety nets (foster care, etc.). To answer that question, we need to understand why these structures are failing them, and this is where you open up a Pandora’s box.
The reasons why an individual young person ends up on the streets are as numerous as the number of young people out there, but there are some common themes. We know that 20-40% are out there because traditional structures don’t accept their sexual orientation. We know that a majority have abuse, neglect, and abandonment in their backgrounds, often exasperated by the complete failure of existing social services to adequately intervene and provide appropriate support and guidance. We know that many have undiagnosed mental health issues and learning disabilities, and that there may have been inadequate recognition of the effects of childhood traumas resulting in needs beyond the capacity of even caring, attentive families to deal with. The bottom line in all of these factors is that we have young people whose developmental needs are not being met by family, school, and state systems, either due to malice or inadequacy, and the only alternatives available to them are incarceration, or the streets. It’s not that they’re homeless, it’s that the alternatives to the streets that seem viable to them do not meet their developmental needs.
So, the first thing it will take to end youth homelessness is for us to stop dealing with the issue as one of homelessness. It is an issue of youth development, or, more specifically, a lack of appropriate community options for young people who are having a difficult journey through adolescence.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Another Outlook on Outcomes - Part Five
NOTE: This is the final part of a five part series that began on Monday 4/9.
In closing, I’d like to comment on his idea for measuring outcomes in the long-term. If you recall from Part Three on Wednesday, April 11th, his concept was that real outcomes should be based on where a young person ends up, not necessarily on what they accomplish in programs. I’m paraphrasing here, of course, but the concept is; does a young person break out of the cycle of street-dependency and end up with a lifestyle that is, as he put it; mundane, predictable, productive, and all of those wonderful things that one might reasonably hope for life to be.
Unfortunately, it is not realistic to fund programs today and figure out 10 years down the road whether or not they worked, but that doesn’t mean the idea is without merit. If it were possible to find a neutral institution such as a university (as he suggests) to conduct such long term outcome research, one of the things that could be determined is what approach (or approaches) to services yields the desired outcomes in the long run. Once that is know, it would then be possible to determine short term accountability for programs based on consistency with the approaches that we know lead to the outcomes we are seeking.
I think further exploration of this idea is worth some investment. Anybody know a good university looking for something to do?
In closing, I’d like to comment on his idea for measuring outcomes in the long-term. If you recall from Part Three on Wednesday, April 11th, his concept was that real outcomes should be based on where a young person ends up, not necessarily on what they accomplish in programs. I’m paraphrasing here, of course, but the concept is; does a young person break out of the cycle of street-dependency and end up with a lifestyle that is, as he put it; mundane, predictable, productive, and all of those wonderful things that one might reasonably hope for life to be.
Unfortunately, it is not realistic to fund programs today and figure out 10 years down the road whether or not they worked, but that doesn’t mean the idea is without merit. If it were possible to find a neutral institution such as a university (as he suggests) to conduct such long term outcome research, one of the things that could be determined is what approach (or approaches) to services yields the desired outcomes in the long run. Once that is know, it would then be possible to determine short term accountability for programs based on consistency with the approaches that we know lead to the outcomes we are seeking.
I think further exploration of this idea is worth some investment. Anybody know a good university looking for something to do?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Another Outlook on Outcomes - Part Four
NOTE: This is Part Four of a continuing entry. See Monday 4/9, Tuesday 4/10, and Wednesday 4/11 for Part’s One, Two, and Three.
One of the things that really caught my attention was the following:
I put the bit about failing in bold, because that might be the most relevant factor to my ascendancy from the streets. I spent about two years failing. Two years of draining the income of Portland homeless youth serving organizations without producing any measurable outcome. A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment. No matter how many times I failed, or how spectacularly, I was never written off as a lost cause.
This is not the first time I’ve had similar perspectives pointed out to me. While it is rare to receive feedback from youth 10 or more years down the road, it is not unheard of. I know this is anecdotal at best, but when I hear from a youth who is doing well many years later and giving credit to the programs that existed for them, they are almost without exception the young people who did little more than fail and screw up while they were in the program. This was particularly true with our Transitional Living Program, Bridge House. Even in the short run, a year or so after exiting the program, our most successful residents were generally the residents who weren’t successful while they were there -- often having been in the program more than once and “failing” both times.
I’m not sure, however, if failure within a program necessarily precipitates long term success. I have had enough contact with other programs around the nation to see that program failure often can be the beginning (or continuation) of a downward spiral. The difference may be in the program’s attitude toward failure.
At Bridge House, both failure and success were normalized aspects of the transition process. Failing was not a problem, as long as the young person learned from the failure and kept trying. The program would neither penalize them for failure, nor protect them from the consequences of failure. We simply offered them mentorship and guidance as they went through whatever process they needed to go through. This is a different philosophy from other programs where failure is to be avoided. Emphasis is placed on success, and young people who are not succeeding are a “problem”. Could this be the difference between failure leading to success and failure leading to more failure? I don’t know, but it may be worth exploring.
Programmatically, however, the concern is obvious. Let’s say for a moment that it is true that experiencing failure while in a program is a key to long term success. What that means is that when outcome measurements are taken during program services or upon completion, it’s going to look like the program is failing. To quote from the email “A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment.” Yes it would have, but he obviously was not a poor investment, he was just an investment that didn’t pay off right away. I identified this problem in the Operations Manual I wrote for Bridge House when I said “If you have a program that allows young people to grow and learn from their mistakes, it means that you have a program where young people are screwing up all the time.” It may be that this is a necessary prerequisite to long term success, but it doesn’t give you much to hang your hat on when funding sources ask you about your 90 and 180 day outcomes.
Tomorrow I’ll conclude this series with one more observation on his outcome perspectives.
One of the things that really caught my attention was the following:
I put the bit about failing in bold, because that might be the most relevant factor to my ascendancy from the streets. I spent about two years failing. Two years of draining the income of Portland homeless youth serving organizations without producing any measurable outcome. A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment. No matter how many times I failed, or how spectacularly, I was never written off as a lost cause.
This is not the first time I’ve had similar perspectives pointed out to me. While it is rare to receive feedback from youth 10 or more years down the road, it is not unheard of. I know this is anecdotal at best, but when I hear from a youth who is doing well many years later and giving credit to the programs that existed for them, they are almost without exception the young people who did little more than fail and screw up while they were in the program. This was particularly true with our Transitional Living Program, Bridge House. Even in the short run, a year or so after exiting the program, our most successful residents were generally the residents who weren’t successful while they were there -- often having been in the program more than once and “failing” both times.
I’m not sure, however, if failure within a program necessarily precipitates long term success. I have had enough contact with other programs around the nation to see that program failure often can be the beginning (or continuation) of a downward spiral. The difference may be in the program’s attitude toward failure.
At Bridge House, both failure and success were normalized aspects of the transition process. Failing was not a problem, as long as the young person learned from the failure and kept trying. The program would neither penalize them for failure, nor protect them from the consequences of failure. We simply offered them mentorship and guidance as they went through whatever process they needed to go through. This is a different philosophy from other programs where failure is to be avoided. Emphasis is placed on success, and young people who are not succeeding are a “problem”. Could this be the difference between failure leading to success and failure leading to more failure? I don’t know, but it may be worth exploring.
Programmatically, however, the concern is obvious. Let’s say for a moment that it is true that experiencing failure while in a program is a key to long term success. What that means is that when outcome measurements are taken during program services or upon completion, it’s going to look like the program is failing. To quote from the email “A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment.” Yes it would have, but he obviously was not a poor investment, he was just an investment that didn’t pay off right away. I identified this problem in the Operations Manual I wrote for Bridge House when I said “If you have a program that allows young people to grow and learn from their mistakes, it means that you have a program where young people are screwing up all the time.” It may be that this is a necessary prerequisite to long term success, but it doesn’t give you much to hang your hat on when funding sources ask you about your 90 and 180 day outcomes.
Tomorrow I’ll conclude this series with one more observation on his outcome perspectives.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Another Outlook on Outcomes - Part Three
NOTE: This is Part Three of a continuing entry. See Monday 4/9 and Tuesday 4/10 for Part’s One and Two.
As it turns out, my April JTFest Online Library article, An Outlook on Outcomes, actually played a role in prompting the initial email to me. In today’s entry, I present his thoughts on outcomes and program evaluation. All the bold emphasis is his …
Outlook on Outcomes caught my eye because there is no metric in place by which to measure the desired outcomes - and very little has been done to define what the desired outcomes actually are.
Too much focus on immediate outcomes seems to be a common theme lately. Perhaps it's a side effect of all the attention deficit medication people are taking. A recent education reform act (which shall remain nameless for the sake of political neutrality) managed to transform the public school system into an institution dedicated to training children to master standardized tests irrespective of actual knowledge retention or educational value.
Because of the emphasis placed on the metric (and funding disincentives to not fail), the standardized tests are irrelevant to the root of what people really wanted to know in the first place: Is the education system preparing our children for success? Worse still, the outcome was altered by measuring it.
Just as the metric used to evaluate public schools fails to address the fundamental questions, and degrades the quality of service students receive, the measures by which youth services are judged both fail to provide answers to rudimentary questions, and erode the level of services that homeless youth receive. We are left with more questions than answers, and I don't think everyone is on the same page (or the same book) about which questions are the relevant ones.
It seems to me that the most important questions are the questions behind the questions. I believe that the questions that need answers are the long term questions. Transitional housing can get someone off of the streets, but does it help a person to succeed in the long run? What percentage of youths who have worked with street outreach programs find their way off of the streets (or conversely, into prisons) - how does this percentage compare to youths who have not had interaction with street outreach? What does the success curve look like over time; is it linear, logarithmic, or irregular? Do resource providers funnel the kids who are ready to the right resources - or just put tax dollars to work making young 'sluts' and 'junkies' comfortable (you know, the 'worthless kids')? Is there an approach which is demonstrably 'better', or does having a wide variety of resources from a wide variety of providers serving a wide variety of ethical viewpoints ensure that a broader cross section of kids is reached? Statistically speaking, how do shelters and drop in centers and street outreach programs effect the lives of homeless youths (versus homeless youth without access to these resources) 5, 10, and 20 years down the road? How do programs that heavily restrict personal freedom fare against those that strive to protect personal freedom in the long run? How many of these cases don't mutually exclude in the long run? How many do?
As far as I can tell, the most fundamental definition of success in this case is the long-term, permanent transition from homelessness to a state of self-sufficient, sustainable "un-homelessness". In other words, everyone wants results that 'stick'. If success is marked by long term cessation of the vagrant lifestyle, then the only way to measure and compare the effectiveness of different programs is to develop a metric based on long term statistics.
Of course, this would mean developing a method to track statistics in the long term. The ACLU would probably get all uppity if we were to try and radio tag these kids. Even if one could get homeless youth to voluntarily agree (without incentive or disincentive) to agencies using their government tracking numbers (id number / SSN) to monitor their long term progress 'from the shadows', the attempt to do so would likely be seen as exploitative and possibly even more evil than the radio collars.
Maybe agencies could nicely ask their clients to check in after 5 and 10 years.
I guess the hard part would be getting all of the homeless and displaced youth services around the country to remember to ask nicely for the call backs, develop a brief standardized battery of questions, secure permissions to collect criminal and employment records, perform the interviews, and not 'amplify' results to protect funding. You'd still need a central data compilation location.
For long term research, you need an entity that will still be around in 10 years. Youth services aren't well suited to the task. If you want any uniformity of data, persistence of location and the verisimilitude that comes with independent research, your best bet is finding a university to perform the study. That way the data would be handled and collected by an organization with no personal investment in the outcomes; an organization with people who know a lot more about data collection than the average bear; and an organization that will be around long enough to compile intensive long term information.
Tomorrow I’ll offer some of my thoughts on the ideas he has presented.
As it turns out, my April JTFest Online Library article, An Outlook on Outcomes, actually played a role in prompting the initial email to me. In today’s entry, I present his thoughts on outcomes and program evaluation. All the bold emphasis is his …
Outlook on Outcomes caught my eye because there is no metric in place by which to measure the desired outcomes - and very little has been done to define what the desired outcomes actually are.
Too much focus on immediate outcomes seems to be a common theme lately. Perhaps it's a side effect of all the attention deficit medication people are taking. A recent education reform act (which shall remain nameless for the sake of political neutrality) managed to transform the public school system into an institution dedicated to training children to master standardized tests irrespective of actual knowledge retention or educational value.
Because of the emphasis placed on the metric (and funding disincentives to not fail), the standardized tests are irrelevant to the root of what people really wanted to know in the first place: Is the education system preparing our children for success? Worse still, the outcome was altered by measuring it.
Just as the metric used to evaluate public schools fails to address the fundamental questions, and degrades the quality of service students receive, the measures by which youth services are judged both fail to provide answers to rudimentary questions, and erode the level of services that homeless youth receive. We are left with more questions than answers, and I don't think everyone is on the same page (or the same book) about which questions are the relevant ones.
It seems to me that the most important questions are the questions behind the questions. I believe that the questions that need answers are the long term questions. Transitional housing can get someone off of the streets, but does it help a person to succeed in the long run? What percentage of youths who have worked with street outreach programs find their way off of the streets (or conversely, into prisons) - how does this percentage compare to youths who have not had interaction with street outreach? What does the success curve look like over time; is it linear, logarithmic, or irregular? Do resource providers funnel the kids who are ready to the right resources - or just put tax dollars to work making young 'sluts' and 'junkies' comfortable (you know, the 'worthless kids')? Is there an approach which is demonstrably 'better', or does having a wide variety of resources from a wide variety of providers serving a wide variety of ethical viewpoints ensure that a broader cross section of kids is reached? Statistically speaking, how do shelters and drop in centers and street outreach programs effect the lives of homeless youths (versus homeless youth without access to these resources) 5, 10, and 20 years down the road? How do programs that heavily restrict personal freedom fare against those that strive to protect personal freedom in the long run? How many of these cases don't mutually exclude in the long run? How many do?
As far as I can tell, the most fundamental definition of success in this case is the long-term, permanent transition from homelessness to a state of self-sufficient, sustainable "un-homelessness". In other words, everyone wants results that 'stick'. If success is marked by long term cessation of the vagrant lifestyle, then the only way to measure and compare the effectiveness of different programs is to develop a metric based on long term statistics.
Of course, this would mean developing a method to track statistics in the long term. The ACLU would probably get all uppity if we were to try and radio tag these kids. Even if one could get homeless youth to voluntarily agree (without incentive or disincentive) to agencies using their government tracking numbers (id number / SSN) to monitor their long term progress 'from the shadows', the attempt to do so would likely be seen as exploitative and possibly even more evil than the radio collars.
Maybe agencies could nicely ask their clients to check in after 5 and 10 years.
I guess the hard part would be getting all of the homeless and displaced youth services around the country to remember to ask nicely for the call backs, develop a brief standardized battery of questions, secure permissions to collect criminal and employment records, perform the interviews, and not 'amplify' results to protect funding. You'd still need a central data compilation location.
For long term research, you need an entity that will still be around in 10 years. Youth services aren't well suited to the task. If you want any uniformity of data, persistence of location and the verisimilitude that comes with independent research, your best bet is finding a university to perform the study. That way the data would be handled and collected by an organization with no personal investment in the outcomes; an organization with people who know a lot more about data collection than the average bear; and an organization that will be around long enough to compile intensive long term information.
Tomorrow I’ll offer some of my thoughts on the ideas he has presented.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Another Outlook on Outcomes - Part Two
NOTE: Today’s blog is a continuation of yesterday’s entry, so, it is recommended that you read yesterday’s entry before reading today’s.
Every single one of us in the youth work field knows how rare it is to receive a note like the one I received from this former program participant -- and how good it feels to do so. We often don’t really know how things turn out for people in the long run and it’s a good feeling when you hear that something you’re doing is actually paying off in terms of long-term results. Still, I have always tried to design programs in such a way as to guarantee that whatever success a young person has, it will be their success, not mine. I want success to be something they own, not something they owe. So, when he wrote; there is no question that a large part of my success as an adult owes to your work; I felt a need to address that. Part of the response I gave him included one of my infamously lame analogies (which I so identified):
First, let me say that yes, I remember you, and I'm really happy to hear that you are doing well. I appreciate you throwing some of the credit for that my way, but don't for a minute believe that it wasn't your doing -- the services you became involved with may have given you a recipe, but you had to bake the cake (yeah, I know, I stink at analogies ;-)
I didn’t know that I was opening the door for some rather creative musing on his part, but I’m glad I did. His musing makes some very interesting points. All the bold emphasis is his …
That's a pretty good analogy, actually. Imagine trying to make a cake without any knowledge of how to do so. One might be able to guess that flour, milk, a binding agent, a leavening agent, a sweetener, and some sort of flavoring is involved, but they would likely be completely unaware that the flour needs to be sifted 3 times, the eggs need to be room temperature and the butter softened to avoid clumping, or that the batter needs to sit different amounts of time based on whether baking soda or yeast is used. The ingredients need to be added in a certain order, and at certain ratios to each other. Even with a complete knowledge of the ingredients and their proportions, and with a fully stocked kitchen our hypothetical cake maker might still fail several times. There are a million ways to make a cake, but with each recipe certain protocols must be adhered to. Stomp around too much while baking and your cake will fall flat. Bake the cake for too long and you've cooked a nice charcoal loaf; Too little cooking time and you've sweet egg and flour soup. With encouragement, mentorship, and the chance to fail as many times as it takes to succeed, they will learn to make cake if they want to.
I put the bit about failing in bold, because that might be the most relevant factor to my ascendancy from the streets. I spent about two years failing. Two years of draining the income of Portland homeless youth serving organizations without producing any measurable outcome. A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment. No matter how many times I failed, or how spectacularly, I was never written off as a lost cause.
Of course, as you already know, 'failure' can actually be a developmental success as long as the person in question doesn't give up on themselves. Real success isn't easy, and an easy success has little value as an accomplishment. True growth comes from facing a task which is perceived to be impossible, and persevering through adversity until the task is complete. With impossible under one's belt, the concept of difficulty is no longer a bar to achievement. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and the guy will be stuck eating fish for the rest of his life. But teach him to aspire to the loftiest of his goals, to test and strive for the full depth of his potential - and steak's back on the menu.
Our dialog continued after this, and he went on to share some additional insights on outcomes which I will share with you … tomorrow.
Every single one of us in the youth work field knows how rare it is to receive a note like the one I received from this former program participant -- and how good it feels to do so. We often don’t really know how things turn out for people in the long run and it’s a good feeling when you hear that something you’re doing is actually paying off in terms of long-term results. Still, I have always tried to design programs in such a way as to guarantee that whatever success a young person has, it will be their success, not mine. I want success to be something they own, not something they owe. So, when he wrote; there is no question that a large part of my success as an adult owes to your work; I felt a need to address that. Part of the response I gave him included one of my infamously lame analogies (which I so identified):
First, let me say that yes, I remember you, and I'm really happy to hear that you are doing well. I appreciate you throwing some of the credit for that my way, but don't for a minute believe that it wasn't your doing -- the services you became involved with may have given you a recipe, but you had to bake the cake (yeah, I know, I stink at analogies ;-)
I didn’t know that I was opening the door for some rather creative musing on his part, but I’m glad I did. His musing makes some very interesting points. All the bold emphasis is his …
That's a pretty good analogy, actually. Imagine trying to make a cake without any knowledge of how to do so. One might be able to guess that flour, milk, a binding agent, a leavening agent, a sweetener, and some sort of flavoring is involved, but they would likely be completely unaware that the flour needs to be sifted 3 times, the eggs need to be room temperature and the butter softened to avoid clumping, or that the batter needs to sit different amounts of time based on whether baking soda or yeast is used. The ingredients need to be added in a certain order, and at certain ratios to each other. Even with a complete knowledge of the ingredients and their proportions, and with a fully stocked kitchen our hypothetical cake maker might still fail several times. There are a million ways to make a cake, but with each recipe certain protocols must be adhered to. Stomp around too much while baking and your cake will fall flat. Bake the cake for too long and you've cooked a nice charcoal loaf; Too little cooking time and you've sweet egg and flour soup. With encouragement, mentorship, and the chance to fail as many times as it takes to succeed, they will learn to make cake if they want to.
I put the bit about failing in bold, because that might be the most relevant factor to my ascendancy from the streets. I spent about two years failing. Two years of draining the income of Portland homeless youth serving organizations without producing any measurable outcome. A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment. No matter how many times I failed, or how spectacularly, I was never written off as a lost cause.
Of course, as you already know, 'failure' can actually be a developmental success as long as the person in question doesn't give up on themselves. Real success isn't easy, and an easy success has little value as an accomplishment. True growth comes from facing a task which is perceived to be impossible, and persevering through adversity until the task is complete. With impossible under one's belt, the concept of difficulty is no longer a bar to achievement. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and the guy will be stuck eating fish for the rest of his life. But teach him to aspire to the loftiest of his goals, to test and strive for the full depth of his potential - and steak's back on the menu.
Our dialog continued after this, and he went on to share some additional insights on outcomes which I will share with you … tomorrow.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Another Outlook on Outcomes
Back in the mid-90’s I was program director for Willamette Bridge Programs (WBP), the runaway and homeless youth services component of Janus Youth Programs in Portland, Oregon. WBP had a range of programs including street outreach, crisis shelter, emergency shelter, transitional living, independent living, case management, and an entrepreneurial program. During this time we were experimenting with a new approach. Instead of simply creating programs for young people, we started hiring young people to work in the programs. Initially, we weren’t even sure why we were hiring them, but we thought it was a good idea, so we found ways for them to be involved -- including Youth/Adult Liaison Teams (whatever they were), a pizza business, and peer counseling opportunities.
The young people we hired weren’t the “successful” graduates of our programs. We were hiring young people right off the streets, often young people who were staying at Street Light, our 30 bed overnight emergency shelter program. The reason I’m bringing this up today is because last week I heard from one of those young people.
Well, at least he was a young person back then. Today he’s pushing 30, and I hadn’t heard from him in well over a decade. Like so many of the young people we work with, he disappeared one day and we had no idea how things eventually turned out for him. Thanks to him emailing me out of the blue, now I know.
He and I have been exchanging a few emails back and forth and, for the next few days I’m going to be sharing some of what we’ve been discussing (he has graciously given me permission). I do so because our discussion is so relevant to the topic I addressed in this month’s JTFest Online Library article; An Outlook on Outcomes. I think you’ll find his perspectives as interesting as I have.
So, to begin, today I’ll share the relevant parts of the initial email I received last week.
Hello there, Jerry.
We worked together at Willamette Bridge Programs about a decade ago. I was the youth member of the Youth Adult Liaison Team, which in turn was mostly a front for E.A.T.P.Y.E.*, as I recall. When I first started working for Willamette Bridge Programs, I was still staying at the Streetlight Youth Shelter.
It doesn't really matter if you remember me specifically. Because of the programs that were in place in Portland all those years ago, and because of the chance I was given to work directly for WBP, I was able to remove myself from the cycle of homelessness. The unique opportunities presented to me as a youth taught me the skills I needed to take control of my life and leave the day to day existence of the streets behind. It takes bold conviction to even consider hiring a homeless youth.
It seems to me that you have worked a great deal on the “problem end” of things, but likely have little indication of the long term effects these programs and opportunities can have. There's not really an “exit poll” with which to gather statistics on the transition from homelessness to... um... Home-ed-ness. Does it really work? Or is it simply a temporary fix?
My thanks to you is the report that all these years later, all is well. I am now married, with children, and composing orchestral music. My life is now mundane, predictable, productive, and all of those wonderful things that one might reasonably hope for life to be. There is no question that a large part of my success as an adult owes to your work, and the chance you gave me to be more just than some ‘street scoundrel’. By providing a path of “do’s” I was given a foundation upon which to build my life. After that, the don’ts came naturally enough.
It's not much, but again, thanks.
I wrote back to him, which began a dialog concerning outcomes. I’ll share more of that discussion with you tomorrow.
*EAT PYE, or Entrepreneurial Action To Promote Youth Employment, was the name of the WBP’s youth-lead pizza business.
The young people we hired weren’t the “successful” graduates of our programs. We were hiring young people right off the streets, often young people who were staying at Street Light, our 30 bed overnight emergency shelter program. The reason I’m bringing this up today is because last week I heard from one of those young people.
Well, at least he was a young person back then. Today he’s pushing 30, and I hadn’t heard from him in well over a decade. Like so many of the young people we work with, he disappeared one day and we had no idea how things eventually turned out for him. Thanks to him emailing me out of the blue, now I know.
He and I have been exchanging a few emails back and forth and, for the next few days I’m going to be sharing some of what we’ve been discussing (he has graciously given me permission). I do so because our discussion is so relevant to the topic I addressed in this month’s JTFest Online Library article; An Outlook on Outcomes. I think you’ll find his perspectives as interesting as I have.
So, to begin, today I’ll share the relevant parts of the initial email I received last week.
Hello there, Jerry.
We worked together at Willamette Bridge Programs about a decade ago. I was the youth member of the Youth Adult Liaison Team, which in turn was mostly a front for E.A.T.P.Y.E.*, as I recall. When I first started working for Willamette Bridge Programs, I was still staying at the Streetlight Youth Shelter.
It doesn't really matter if you remember me specifically. Because of the programs that were in place in Portland all those years ago, and because of the chance I was given to work directly for WBP, I was able to remove myself from the cycle of homelessness. The unique opportunities presented to me as a youth taught me the skills I needed to take control of my life and leave the day to day existence of the streets behind. It takes bold conviction to even consider hiring a homeless youth.
It seems to me that you have worked a great deal on the “problem end” of things, but likely have little indication of the long term effects these programs and opportunities can have. There's not really an “exit poll” with which to gather statistics on the transition from homelessness to... um... Home-ed-ness. Does it really work? Or is it simply a temporary fix?
My thanks to you is the report that all these years later, all is well. I am now married, with children, and composing orchestral music. My life is now mundane, predictable, productive, and all of those wonderful things that one might reasonably hope for life to be. There is no question that a large part of my success as an adult owes to your work, and the chance you gave me to be more just than some ‘street scoundrel’. By providing a path of “do’s” I was given a foundation upon which to build my life. After that, the don’ts came naturally enough.
It's not much, but again, thanks.
I wrote back to him, which began a dialog concerning outcomes. I’ll share more of that discussion with you tomorrow.
*EAT PYE, or Entrepreneurial Action To Promote Youth Employment, was the name of the WBP’s youth-lead pizza business.
Friday, April 06, 2007
LGBT Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness
Last Tuesday I talked about the high percentage of GLBTQ young people in the runaway and homeless youth population. Continuing with this theme, I thought I’d draw your attention to a report issued by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in collaboration with the National Coalition for the Homeless, titled Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness. You can find a link to this report in the Web Resources section of the InterNetwork for Youth.
One of the perspectives that I found interesting was a concern about the impact on LGBT homeless youth from the federal government’s increased funding for faith-based service providers. The report points out that the level of federal funding for youth homelessness has not increased, but the percent of faith-based organizations (FBO’s) receiving federal funding has; concluding that there is no increase to services, but there is a change in who provides services. The report wonders if the opposition of a number of FBO’s to legal and social equity for LGBT people will result in a decrease of safe and effective services for the 20-40% of the homeless youth population that identifies as GLBTQ. It is an interesting question worthy of consideration.
NOTE: “GLBTQ”, or Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning, is considered the more “inclusive” descriptor for sexual minority youth. “LGBT”, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender”, is the descriptor used in the report. These descriptors are used interchangeably in this blog entry.
One of the perspectives that I found interesting was a concern about the impact on LGBT homeless youth from the federal government’s increased funding for faith-based service providers. The report points out that the level of federal funding for youth homelessness has not increased, but the percent of faith-based organizations (FBO’s) receiving federal funding has; concluding that there is no increase to services, but there is a change in who provides services. The report wonders if the opposition of a number of FBO’s to legal and social equity for LGBT people will result in a decrease of safe and effective services for the 20-40% of the homeless youth population that identifies as GLBTQ. It is an interesting question worthy of consideration.
NOTE: “GLBTQ”, or Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning, is considered the more “inclusive” descriptor for sexual minority youth. “LGBT”, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender”, is the descriptor used in the report. These descriptors are used interchangeably in this blog entry.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Another Motivating Thought
On March 5th I wrote a blog entry titled “A Motivating Thought”. When I recently came across a old question/answer writing from a few years back, it seemed relevant to republish:
Question:
“How do you motivate young people?”
Answer:
This is a difficult question -- not because motivating young people is particularly difficult, but because I generally don’t agree with the premise of the question. The premise is that young people come to us in a unique state of “non-motivation” and it’s our challenge to “gas ‘em up.” The truth is that young people are as motivated or as unmotivated as adults are. The real question is: what motivates people? The best place to find that answer is to ask: what motivates you?
The answer is that you are motivated by things to which you attach importance, or things that excite you. A person may find that they have to force themselves out of bed at 7:30 AM each morning in order to drag their weary body to their routine factory job. Yet, the very next day, they are able to leap out of bed at 4:00 AM with boundless energy in order to go on an anticipated fishing trip. Motivation is not a commodity, it’s a signal. If you’re dealing with unmotivated youth, consider that the problem may not be the person. When we label young people as not seeming to care, what we’re really saying is that they don’t seem to care about the things that we think they should care about -- and we’re probably right. The key to motivating young people, and people of any age, is to find things that are important, exciting, and relevant from their perspective.
This refers to internal motivation. It is possible to motivate people externally -- through mandate or coercion -- but external motivation tends to be short-lived, disappearing as the external pressure is removed and often resulting in a rejection of the externally motivated behaviors. If you are going to create lasting internal motivation, you have to consider the perspectives and desires of the individual.
In providing services to young people this is often a huge problem, considering that many of the things that we wish to see accomplished tend to be things that most young people do not identify as important, exciting, or relevant. The saving grace is that the motivation does not necessarily have to be attached to the outcome. For example, an individual may have little or no interest in completing their basic education, but may strongly desire leadership. By building leadership opportunities into the completion of educational goals you can increase motivation in an “unmotivated” area. This is only one idea, of course. The concept is to get young people invested in the outcome by involving them and making it relevant to something that they want. When you succeed at that, the young people you work with will show you just how motivated they can be.
Question:
“How do you motivate young people?”
Answer:
This is a difficult question -- not because motivating young people is particularly difficult, but because I generally don’t agree with the premise of the question. The premise is that young people come to us in a unique state of “non-motivation” and it’s our challenge to “gas ‘em up.” The truth is that young people are as motivated or as unmotivated as adults are. The real question is: what motivates people? The best place to find that answer is to ask: what motivates you?
The answer is that you are motivated by things to which you attach importance, or things that excite you. A person may find that they have to force themselves out of bed at 7:30 AM each morning in order to drag their weary body to their routine factory job. Yet, the very next day, they are able to leap out of bed at 4:00 AM with boundless energy in order to go on an anticipated fishing trip. Motivation is not a commodity, it’s a signal. If you’re dealing with unmotivated youth, consider that the problem may not be the person. When we label young people as not seeming to care, what we’re really saying is that they don’t seem to care about the things that we think they should care about -- and we’re probably right. The key to motivating young people, and people of any age, is to find things that are important, exciting, and relevant from their perspective.
This refers to internal motivation. It is possible to motivate people externally -- through mandate or coercion -- but external motivation tends to be short-lived, disappearing as the external pressure is removed and often resulting in a rejection of the externally motivated behaviors. If you are going to create lasting internal motivation, you have to consider the perspectives and desires of the individual.
In providing services to young people this is often a huge problem, considering that many of the things that we wish to see accomplished tend to be things that most young people do not identify as important, exciting, or relevant. The saving grace is that the motivation does not necessarily have to be attached to the outcome. For example, an individual may have little or no interest in completing their basic education, but may strongly desire leadership. By building leadership opportunities into the completion of educational goals you can increase motivation in an “unmotivated” area. This is only one idea, of course. The concept is to get young people invested in the outcome by involving them and making it relevant to something that they want. When you succeed at that, the young people you work with will show you just how motivated they can be.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Thinking About "Abuse"
Part of the reaction to All God’s Children by Rene Denfeld, this month’s in4y.com Readers Club selection, has been much discussion about the homes that street youth were raised in -- specifically, whether or not the majority of street youth were raised in abusive homes. One of the problems with this entire debate is the assumption that the term “abusive home” has any useful meaning.
The word “abuse” means to treat in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way. It does not indicate any specific type, degree, or (perhaps most important to understand) intent. Yet often you run into belief systems that minimize the impact care giver’s actions can have on young people. If you can’t concretely demonstrate evidence of a bloodied, sexually molested body, and a drooling maniac of a parent, then the home wasn’t “abusive” and there must be something wrong with the kid.
I once found myself in the position of advocating for an adolescent girl with her CSD caseworker (CSD, or Children’s Services Division, was the old name for our state child welfare agency here in Oregon). The CSD worker was insisting on returning the youth to her home based on the fact that the worker had met the parents and didn’t believe the allegations of abuse. My position was that I did believe the allegations, but it really didn’t matter -- the girl would simply run if returned home, so what was the point? Anyway, it got down to us debating the abuse allegations when the worker made an incredible statement to me. She actually said; “Oh, I believe there may have been some abuse, but I don’t think it was a bad as she says it was.”
What can one even say to a statement like that? I mean, really, just how “bad” does it have to be before it counts?
In fact, does it even have to be “bad” at all? One of the big mysteries in working with street youth (and, incidentally, one of the issues raised in Ms. Denfeld’s book) concerns young people on the streets who don’t have obvious abuse in their background. Granted, some of this can be explained by hidden abuse, but not all of it. Why would a kid who hasn’t fled an “abusive” home end up on the streets?
Personally, I think the reason we have such trouble understanding is because we have made “abuse” into a black and white boogie man. Either it is horrible things done to a child by evil people, or the kid had a “good” home. But things aren’t always black and white -- sometimes there’s a lot of gray. The fact is that young people develop to a large degree in response to their environment, and there are an awful lot of “little” things that may not qualify as “abuse” in our consciousness, but, particularly over time, may be received as harmful, injurious, or offensive.
Take, for example, just a few things I’ve heard over the past months. A mother drives her 11-year-old son in the car and allows him to ride without his seatbelt. A father pulls his 9-year-old daughter on an inner tube behind his truck in the snow. A mother allows her 5-year-old daughter to ride her bike unsupervised in the street with no helmet. A father takes his 6-member family to the beach in a 4-passenger car -- so two of the children (12 & 13 years of age) get to ride in the trunk.
A state services investigation of these 4 homes would likely not find them to be “abusive” even though the individual actions might be found to be illegal (riding without a seatbelt), inattentive (unsupervised bike riding), stupid (pulling an inner tube behind a truck), or ‘what were you thinking’ (putting the kids in the trunk). However, outside of these specific events, the homes would be considered “normal”. But if these events took place, how many other little “events” occur over the 18 years of the young person’s development within that family, and how does this culmination of events impact the child as they grow up?
Unfortunately, we sometimes don’t have to wait that long to see the impact, because 3 or the 5 children described above don’t get to grow up. The 11-year-old boy was killed when the mother wrecked the car. The 9-year-old died when the truck made a hard right and the inner tube slammed into a bench. The 5-year old died after she ran into a pickup that was traveling at 10 miles per hour -- she fell from her bike and hit her head on the pavement. Only the father of the children that lived was arrested. I’m not saying the other parents should be arrested; I’m just pointing out that “abuse” may not always be the easy black and white issue we'd like to think it is.
The word “abuse” means to treat in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way. It does not indicate any specific type, degree, or (perhaps most important to understand) intent. Yet often you run into belief systems that minimize the impact care giver’s actions can have on young people. If you can’t concretely demonstrate evidence of a bloodied, sexually molested body, and a drooling maniac of a parent, then the home wasn’t “abusive” and there must be something wrong with the kid.
I once found myself in the position of advocating for an adolescent girl with her CSD caseworker (CSD, or Children’s Services Division, was the old name for our state child welfare agency here in Oregon). The CSD worker was insisting on returning the youth to her home based on the fact that the worker had met the parents and didn’t believe the allegations of abuse. My position was that I did believe the allegations, but it really didn’t matter -- the girl would simply run if returned home, so what was the point? Anyway, it got down to us debating the abuse allegations when the worker made an incredible statement to me. She actually said; “Oh, I believe there may have been some abuse, but I don’t think it was a bad as she says it was.”
What can one even say to a statement like that? I mean, really, just how “bad” does it have to be before it counts?
In fact, does it even have to be “bad” at all? One of the big mysteries in working with street youth (and, incidentally, one of the issues raised in Ms. Denfeld’s book) concerns young people on the streets who don’t have obvious abuse in their background. Granted, some of this can be explained by hidden abuse, but not all of it. Why would a kid who hasn’t fled an “abusive” home end up on the streets?
Personally, I think the reason we have such trouble understanding is because we have made “abuse” into a black and white boogie man. Either it is horrible things done to a child by evil people, or the kid had a “good” home. But things aren’t always black and white -- sometimes there’s a lot of gray. The fact is that young people develop to a large degree in response to their environment, and there are an awful lot of “little” things that may not qualify as “abuse” in our consciousness, but, particularly over time, may be received as harmful, injurious, or offensive.
Take, for example, just a few things I’ve heard over the past months. A mother drives her 11-year-old son in the car and allows him to ride without his seatbelt. A father pulls his 9-year-old daughter on an inner tube behind his truck in the snow. A mother allows her 5-year-old daughter to ride her bike unsupervised in the street with no helmet. A father takes his 6-member family to the beach in a 4-passenger car -- so two of the children (12 & 13 years of age) get to ride in the trunk.
A state services investigation of these 4 homes would likely not find them to be “abusive” even though the individual actions might be found to be illegal (riding without a seatbelt), inattentive (unsupervised bike riding), stupid (pulling an inner tube behind a truck), or ‘what were you thinking’ (putting the kids in the trunk). However, outside of these specific events, the homes would be considered “normal”. But if these events took place, how many other little “events” occur over the 18 years of the young person’s development within that family, and how does this culmination of events impact the child as they grow up?
Unfortunately, we sometimes don’t have to wait that long to see the impact, because 3 or the 5 children described above don’t get to grow up. The 11-year-old boy was killed when the mother wrecked the car. The 9-year-old died when the truck made a hard right and the inner tube slammed into a bench. The 5-year old died after she ran into a pickup that was traveling at 10 miles per hour -- she fell from her bike and hit her head on the pavement. Only the father of the children that lived was arrested. I’m not saying the other parents should be arrested; I’m just pointing out that “abuse” may not always be the easy black and white issue we'd like to think it is.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Why the focus on GLBTQ?
If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that this month there is a trend here at the InterNetwork for Youth toward highlighting services for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and/or Questioning youth (GLBTQ). Our April Website of the Month is Out Youth, Inc, in Texas, and our PartnerswithYouth award recipient, Gail Loose, is currently involved in establishing a transitional home for GLBTQ young people in Arizona. You will also notice throughout the month that there will be an effort to add more GLBTQ program links in the Youth Program Directory.
Why all this focus?
While the InterNetwork for Youth advocates for all young people, a specific area of focus is runaway and homeless youth populations (RHY). It can be argued that this specific sub-population of young people is the most at-risk and the least ‘desirable’ population in the eyes of the public -- resulting in them often getting the short end of the stick when options for youth are being discussed. Yet to advocate for RHY populations requires that you advocate for GLBTQ youth. If you don’t, you are ignoring a significant percentage of the population you are attempting to serve.
How significant? As with all demographics related to RHY populations, exact numbers are difficult to obtain. However, there have been numerous studies and surveys completed over the years. I looked at 16 different resources including national reports and studies, as well as local studies from Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles, California; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Ottawa, Canada. On the low end, GLBTQ youth were estimated to be 20% of the RHY population -- that’s 1 in 5 young people on the streets. On the high end, the estimate was 42%; nearly half of all runaway and homeless youth. When you average all the various estimates, it becomes a safe bet to count on 31% of the young people accessing RHY services to self-identify as GLBTQ.
Out of every 10 young people you meet on the streets, at least 3 of them can be expected to identify as GLBTQ. That is too large of a percentage for any program serving RHY population to ignore, or to ‘delegate’ to specialized services.
Why all this focus?
While the InterNetwork for Youth advocates for all young people, a specific area of focus is runaway and homeless youth populations (RHY). It can be argued that this specific sub-population of young people is the most at-risk and the least ‘desirable’ population in the eyes of the public -- resulting in them often getting the short end of the stick when options for youth are being discussed. Yet to advocate for RHY populations requires that you advocate for GLBTQ youth. If you don’t, you are ignoring a significant percentage of the population you are attempting to serve.
How significant? As with all demographics related to RHY populations, exact numbers are difficult to obtain. However, there have been numerous studies and surveys completed over the years. I looked at 16 different resources including national reports and studies, as well as local studies from Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles, California; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Ottawa, Canada. On the low end, GLBTQ youth were estimated to be 20% of the RHY population -- that’s 1 in 5 young people on the streets. On the high end, the estimate was 42%; nearly half of all runaway and homeless youth. When you average all the various estimates, it becomes a safe bet to count on 31% of the young people accessing RHY services to self-identify as GLBTQ.
Out of every 10 young people you meet on the streets, at least 3 of them can be expected to identify as GLBTQ. That is too large of a percentage for any program serving RHY population to ignore, or to ‘delegate’ to specialized services.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Happy New Month!
It's April, and a new month means new content at the InterNetwork for Youth!Congratulations to Gail Loose of Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development in Phoenix, Arizona, our April 2007 PartnerswithYouth award recipient. You can read her profile in the Recipient's Gallery. Take time to visit our featured Website of the Month, Out Youth, Inc. You can find it on the Texas page of the Youth Program Directory. Learn about Kazoos and visit 3 new fun links in the Playground, and visit the JTFest Consulting Online Library to see the latest addition: An Outlook on Outcomes: the impact of what we measure. Our Readers Club selection this month is All God’s Children; Inside the dark and violent world of Street Families, by Rene Denfeld. A review is available under the Amazon link on the homepage of the InterNetwork for Youth.
Tomorrow, Youth Advocate Online returns to daily (Monday-Friday) comments related to issues affecting young people. Enjoy!
Tomorrow, Youth Advocate Online returns to daily (Monday-Friday) comments related to issues affecting young people. Enjoy!