Community-Based Support Programs

Price, Cioci, Penner, and Trautlein (1990) list the following types of community-based support programs for youth:

• Youth Organizations. "These organizations include career groups, such as Junior Achievement; groups aimed at character building, such as the Scouts; political groups, such as Young Democrats and Republicans; and ethnic groups, such as Indian Youth of America." (p. 38)

• Mentoring Programs. "The mentor role is one that can convey all three aspects of the supportive relationship: material aid, a sense of affirmation, and positive effect and emotional support." (p. 43)

• Outreach Support Programs. "These programs are focused on pregnant adolescents and, to some extent, on the partners of these adolescents. Program goals include prevention of school dropping out, child abuse, and unemployment on the part of the parent." (p. 46)

• Community Organizations. "The connections to family and to ethnic and cultural traditions that often exist in community organizations can offer a reservoir of caring and commitment that both offers aid and affirms ethnic identity." (p. 48) This category includes churches and religious institutions.

"The community--whether defined in terms of geographical space, as a political unit, or in terms of a network of associations--remains a critical locus in which the developmental tasks of adolescents are linked to the activities of everyday life. . . .The community provides the adolescent an arena between the institutions of family and school on the one hand and those of the wider world on the other. It is an arena in which adolescents can have an opportunity to learn and practice the skills useful in the wider world and to practice adult roles including those of worker and citizen. In addition, each of these sources of support in the community can call on a wide range of skills and may increase the likelihood and opportunity for supportive peer-adult relationships to develop." (p. 36-37)

Community-based support programs enhance the self-esteem of youth, provide guidance, improve academic skills, promote staying in school, and increase the likelihood of community participation. What these programs have in common is a sensitivity to the adolescent's own goals and aspirations, and a recognition of the complex interrelationship of adolescent needs and problems.

Systematic understanding of supportive programs for young adolescents may require more research on gender and ethnic differences, and the adolescent's own values and goals.