Working with Young People: Kids are the program
Yesterday sitting in one of Sydney’s lush green parks, I spoke with my friend about meeting the needs of young people. A short distance from where we sat, his youth centre exists to give teens a place to be- and because he is who he is- they are allowed to just be.
“The kids are the program” he said. I nodded. In an earlier meeting that day, we’d been discussing how too often the work we do has become about the funding that drives the programs that is then the schedule that dictates what the kids receive from us. Sadly, we’ve both seen economic needs for funding get priority over going with the flow of meeting young people’s needs where they are.
In discussing why the youth can lose out, he put it this way:
“This week the girls that are here want to talk about what’s happening with boyfriends- so we talk about relationships. It’s what they’re interested in now. It’s the right time to listen and ask questions like “so how are you being treated?” “Did what he said to you feel respectful?” etc. We go there when they’re ready because I run a youth centre so it’s about them. If I tried to schedule “Time to Talk About Your Relationships” on Thursdays from 2-3 pm because program funding said we have to a grant to justify so that’s when we’ll discuss this stuff- it would never work.”
His point hits home for me- as it does for a lot of us who work with teens who’ve disengaged, faced multiple difficult challenges, and who would opt out or self-harm, or stay medicated into their adult years for want of effective intervention strategies.
The thing is- reaching these young people means connecting with them. They’ve been assessed, treated, “therapised” - now what they need is a mentor who’s willing to get real and keep it real.
The young people who need it most will often reject programs delivered in schools and organisations because they aren’t living a program. They’re living what’s happening in the moment. So some spaces, and my friend figures his drop in centre is one of them- need to not run programs in order to be effective at helping young people navigate the crucial right of passage waters into adulthood. They need to be listened to by adults with no agenda.
We smiled at the dilemma- “how do you fund that?” It wouldn’t meet the grant criteria on most applications to simply say that the objective is to be available, to care, and to respond. It’s simple and it’s what we both know works.
Strangely enough- programs are programs. They aren’t relationships and relating is what teens are trying to figure out. Ask anyone who works with teens who are struggling- the moments that matter, the pivotal teachable moments, happen when young people let down their guard- which often happens because an adult has let theirs down first.
Covid certainly hasn’t made one human connecting to another any easier. It has perhaps hi lighted the need that when we are together, let’s be together. It’s enough. Especially for our kids- for whom it can be everything.
