Organizations Taking Action
Schools
Community Youth Organizations
Congregations
Other Organizations
Asset Building in Action...in Business
Equipping Organizations for Asset Building
Things Organizations Can Do to Build Assets
A key to mobilizing a community is inviting existing organizations and programs to be part of the band, sharing in the vision of building assets. This doesn't necessarily mean they need to collaborate on programming; rather, it calls on institutions to play to their own strengths, adding their own improvisations to the melody and taking a lead role when it's appropriate. In the Healthy Communities - Healthy Youth initiative, Search Institute is first concentrating on equipping three types of institutions to build assets: schools, community youth organizations, and congregations. Each of these sectors has extensive contact with young people and thus has tremendous potential for positive impact. In addition, Search Institute offers resources and services to help engage other sectors in a community as partners in a community-wide effort.
Schools (Back to Top)
Integrating asset building into a school's mission has tremendous potential for improving educational achievement and the overall effectiveness of schools. Furthermore, asset building can build important bridges between schools and communities, because both share important goals for young people. People who have begun using the asset-building framework have found that it helps them promote participation by community members in schools-as well as school involvement in the community.
Community Youth Organizations (Back to Top)
Community-based organizations-such as YMCA, YWCA, 4-H, Boys and Girls Clubs, Scouts, parks and recreation programs-can have a tremendous impact in young people's lives. Most offer structured, challenging opportunities to youth through which they also interact with caring, principled adults. Unfortunately, far too few young people participate in these programs. Asset building offers a new framework for strengthening their impact on youth and the community. The Healthy Communities - Healthy Youth initiative seeks to equip youth-serving organizations with the research, training, and tools needed to shape programs that effectively nurture young people's assets. In addition, the initiative seeks to heighten awareness among citizens and policy makers about the importance of community-based youth organizations. If successful, these efforts will increase both financial and volunteer commitments to these community resources.
Congregations (Back to Top)
Congregations have many qualities that can be significant resources for asset building, including an intergenerational community, programs that promote healthy values and choices, and a commitment to service. Yet too often congregations are unrecognized as resources for youth in their community. And they often have inadequate opportunities or resources to fully tap their potential. Through the Healthy Communities - Healthy Youth initiative-and based on the learning from the Uniting Congregations for Youth Development project-Search Institute seeks to foster a commitment to asset building in congregations and to equip congregations to develop asset-building approaches to youth work as well as all areas of congregational life.
Other Organizations (Back to Top)
While the Healthy Communities - Healthy Youth initiative focuses on three major youth-serving sectors in a community, other sectors also play significant roles on the asset-building team. These include business and industry, government, health care providers, social service agencies, philanthropic foundations, and the media. Each organization can approach asset building from at least three perspectives. First, they can become involved in supporting community-wide efforts on behalf of youth. Second, they can focus on how they support families and their other employees to be involved in asset building for youth at home and in the community. And, finally, organizations can explore the implications of the asset-building paradigm for their own internal dynamics and culture. Ultimately, every institution and organization in a community contributes to creating a healthy community-either through its specific mission or through its sense of community responsibility. The asset-building vision invites every institution to contribute its own creative energy and resources to strengthen communities for youth.
* Source: http://www.search-institute.org/archives/hchy/5a.htm
Asset Building in Action...in Business (Back to Top)
In Newark, Ohio, business involvement in developing the asset-building strategies is vital to the initiative's success, according to Al Ernest of Owens Corning. He has found that the asset-building framework has motivated his company to become more involved with youth in the community:
"At Owens Corning, we have a major stake in nurturing asset-rich kids. Currently, many job applicants do not have the skills and values we want in our employees: empathy, team skills, goals, and a sense of purpose. As a major employer in the community, we need to ensure the quality of our workforce down the road. "So we put together a Request for Volunteers program that lets employees take at least one hour a week out of their work schedule to be mentors to kids. Thirty-five employees already take advantage of this. They drive to school, spend an hour with their student, and drive back to the plant-all without clocking out."
Copyright (c) 1995 by Search Institute. This article may be printed for personal use only. Other uses require prior permission from Search Institute, 1-800-888-7828. All rights reserved.
* Source: http://www.search-institute.org/archives/hchy/5b.htm
Equipping Organizations for Asset Building (Back to Top)
Search Institute seeks to encourage asset building in all sectors of a community. We are working to provide in-depth knowledge and services in several sectors, including schools, youth organizations, family-serving organizations, and congregations. Here are two efforts under way:
Congregations--The first major sector-specific initiative is Uniting Congregations for Youth Development, a four-year pilot initiative begun in 1995 to tap the strengths of congregations for asset building. Funded by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, this effort focuses on providing congregations of all faiths with resources, training, peer support, and networking opportunities that strengthen their abilities to build assets for young people within the congregation and in the surrounding community. Pilot initiatives are under way in seven communities across the United States. For more information, see Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, Building Assets in Congregations: A Practical Guide for Helping Youth Grow Up Healthy (Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute, 1998).
Youth Organizations--Search Institute has also been working with the YMCA to understand the value of developmental assets within youth organizations. In Making the Case: Measuring the Impact of Youth Development Programs, researchers explore how the framework of developmental assets helps to identify commonly held goals and desired youth outcomes across local youth development programs. They also document youth outcomes from a variety of youth development programs. For more information, see Nancy Leffert et al., Making the Case: Measuring the Impact of Youth Development Programs (Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute, 1996).
Copyright (c) 1998 by Search Institute. This article may be printed for personal use only. Other uses require prior permission from Search Institute, 800-888-7828. All rights reserved.
* Source: http://www.search-institute.org/archives/hchy/5c.htm
Things Organizations Can Do to Build Assets (Back to Top)
- Present the asset-building concept to employees, constituents, or members in newsletters, workshops, and other forums. Share practical ideas for how they can build assets.
- Highlight, develop, expand, or support programs designed to build assets, such as mentoring, peer helping, service-learning, or parent education.
- Provide meaningful opportunities for young people to contribute to others in and through your organization.
- Develop employee policies that encourage asset building, including flexible work schedules for parents as well as other employees, so they can volunteer in youth development programs.
- Use organizational newsletters, press releases, or events to recognize employees, constituents, or members who make special efforts to build assets for children and adolescents in the community.
Copyright (c) 1995 by Search Institute. This article may be printed for personal use only. Other uses require prior permission from Search Institute, 1-800-888-7828. All rights reserved.