Youth Enrichment for Success

I am currently employed as a Family Navigator for a relatively new program designed for at risk youth between the ages of 16 and 21. This program was developed with the purpose of diverting at risk youth from the juvenile probation system as well as reducing the risk of becoming dependent upon public assistance. This program was developed in collaboration with the Juvenile Probation Office, Children and Youth Services, and the Criminal Justice Advisory Board in order to resolve barriers that would otherwise inhibit the chance for these youth to lead successful lives. I believe the program exemplifies one of the many purposes of community psychology.

Through this program I am able to either keep youth who are at risk of withdrawing from school enrolled and successful in obtaining their Highschool diploma or assist youth who have already withdrawn themselves from school in successfully obtaining their high school equivalency. I am also able to connect these youth with resources that can address any issues that may contribute to mental health, challenging behaviors, or any additional barriers.

One thing that I have discovered is that many of the youth that I am currently working with exhibited externalizing behaviors and/or have been in high needs situations since birth, pre-school, or primary age. My ultimate goal is to develop an intervention to reduce the likelihood or prevent children, like those that I previously worked with at the primary age, from needing a program like the one I currently work in.

 

2 comments

  1. Working as a Family Navigator for a youth enrichment program is difficult work! One important thing that I noticed when I was going to school in the city of Coatesville (A relatively small city in Chester County), was that the students involved in music, art, sports and other extracurricular activities were often the ones who were successful in their high school careers, while many of the idle students with large amounts of free-time were often caught up in drugs/crime. My blog post touched on this a little bit, but I think an important step the government needs to take is to offer alternatives to crime rather than simply education on how drugs are bad.

  2. Caroline Williams

    Hi! The program that you are working with sounds incredibly interesting—the work you are doing is very important! I do see how community psychology could have a roll in diverting at risk youth from the probation system and keeping them focussed on their educations. It is great that you want to work on intervention development to address these issue. If this is your topic for your policy paper, I think that you could absolutely reference the community psychology unit. Based on our reading, I would hypothesize that the more at risk youth are involved with their community (and the greater sense of community they have), they less likely they would be to engage in crime within that community; and, the more likely they would be to want to receive an education that will allow them to give back to their community! To increase this sense of community, at risk youth should be shown from a young age the difference they can make in their community.

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