Thriving: What Adults Want for Youth

"Problem-free, fully prepared and fully engaged," borrowing this phrase from The Forum on Youth Development, sums up the highest expectation adults have for youth.  This is the end we want to achieve at Hopeworks ‘N Camden through youth identifying and developing their D.R.E.A.M.S.  Contained in those D.R.E.A.M.S. are opportunities to grow, develop, and flourish.  These are opportunities to be successful.  Youth development professional refer to this behavior as thriving. 

"Thriving" is the ultimate objective of positive youth development.  Youth development expert Richard Lerner theorizes in Liberty: Thriving and Civic Engagement Among America's Youth that young people will thrive if they develop certain behaviors, the "Five C's," over the course of their childhood and adolescence:

• Competence: positive view of social, academic, cognitive and vocational actions
• Confidence: sense of overall self-worth and self-efficacy, a global self-regard
• Connection: positive bonds with people and institutions
• Character: respect for rules, possession of standards, integrity and moral centeredness
• Caring/Compassion: human values, empathy and a sense of social justice

Lerner goes on to state that a youth with the five thriving behaviors is on the path to attaining a sixth C:

• Contribution: to self, family, community and civil society

It is the sixth C that leads to positive adulthood:

"Committed--behaviorally, morally and spiritually--to a better world beyond themselves, they will act to sustain for future generations a society marked by social justice, equity, and democracy and a world wherein all young people may thrive."

This concept is so important to Hopeworks because our mission is empowerment.  If youth can own a future such as the one Lerner sees possible through the Five C's, then our neighborhood and even our very country will be a better place.

Lerner created the visualization of his theory shown on the right (click on it to enlarge).  It shows thriving as a process by which once the Five C's are added to a youth's individual context, the result is a growing outward spiral of increased well-being (thriving), that ultimately leads to an idealized personhood or positive adulthood. 

To achieve thriving, Peter Benson, the founder of the Search Institute, articulates six principles that adults who work with youth should follow in order to nurture an environment in which the Five C's can take root:

• All youth have the inherent capacity for positive growth and development

• Positive growth is enabled when youth are embedded in nurturing relationships and environments

• Growth is further promoted when youth have the opportunities to participate in multiple, nutrient-rich contexts

• While support and empowerment is important in the lives of all youth, how that support needs to happen will vary according to the individual youth, and the social, ethnic, and cultural contexts within which that youth lives

• Communities have the potential to be powerful contexts for positive youth development to take place

• Youth are major actors in their own development.

These ideas inform the work that we do here and help us be sensitive to our role.  As our e-Mentors engage our youth, we hope that they can undertake similar actions which lead to thriving.

Lerner and several associates created for mentors a list of actions designed to stimulate the Six C's in mentoring relationships.  This appeared in the first issue in the Research in Action series of the Research and Policy Council created by MENTOR.  To view the list, click here.

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