Great Transitions: Preparing Adolescents for a New Century

Chapter Eight: Toward a Shared Responsibility for Young Adolescents

As a nation, we Americans must change our view of adolescence as an inevitably problematic phase of life that should be left to run its course. We must recognize the strong need of those just emerging from childhood for supportive adults and settings in which young people can develop a secure identity, explore the world beyond the self, and learn the skills for responsible, productive, and fulfilling adulthood. This means that a substantial measure of responsibility will have to be taken by all the institutions of society that influence young lives and that have a stake in their future: not just families but the schools, the health care sector, community-based organizations, including religious ones, and the media. Working together, they can meet the essential requirements for effective child and adolescent development in a world still in relentless transformation.

The Carnegie Council's findings and recommendations challenge not only key institutions but other powerful sectors of society as well--business and government, universities, and scientific and professional organizations--to help those on the front line to foster every child's chance for a rewarding adult life.

WHAT BUSINESS CAN DO
The business sector can help schools and community organizations for youth in several ways: directly, by providing money, people, or both to implement the recommendations of this report; and indirectly, by using its considerable influence through community leadership on behalf of youth and through its impact on government at all levels. In addition, within the workplace, businesses can make their own policies and practices as family-friendly as possible. Businesses can also have a powerful influence by choosing not to devote their advertising dollars to films and videos that serve to promote violent solutions to human conflict, that are sexually explicit or demeaning to groups, or that tacitly promote smoking, drinking, and other drug taking.

WHAT GOVERNMENT CAN DO
Local, state, and federal governments can recognize the critical adolescent years in their policies and programs. They can ensure that the health of adolescents is protected and that public expenditures are effective in meeting the needs of children and youth. Activities can range from the federal funding of biomedical and behavioral research, to the health services of Medicaid, to the disease-prevention activities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The recent creation of a federal Office of Adolescent Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is a welcome step. That effort, though still rudimentary, could become a vital focus for healthy adolescent development.

At all levels, governments can remove the obstacles communities face as they attempt to provide effective services and to open up opportunities for young adolescents.

That states are increasingly supporting significant reforms of middle and junior high schools to make them more developmentally appropriate is heartening. Fifteen states are currently receiving Corporation grants to implement comprehensive middle grade policies that reflect Turning Points' recommendations. In several of these states, schools are already showing impressive gains in student achievement. But more states need to join this movement.

Cities and counties can also organize effectively for youth development by fostering community councils that draw upon all sectors to develop and implement strategies to meet the needs of young people.

WHAT HIGHER EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC, AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS CAN DO
Universities and other "science-rich" institutions and organizations can illuminate the problems and opportunities of adolescent development. They can get the facts straight, foster objective analysis, and consider the implications of their findings for practice, policy, and social action, bringing the results before the public. Universities can vigorously stimulate interdisciplinary research and education on topics of child and adolescent development. They can promote periodic syntheses of knowledge--not only for technical and professional audiences but also for the broader educated public. Professional organizations, composed of large numbers of respected and dedicated specialists, can have a strong impact on adolescents' development and on their health and education. They can facilitate useful services and actively link independent experts with leaders in government, business, and the media.

There are encouraging signs of interest by professional organizations, facilitated by the Carnegie Council's work and, in some cases, by grants from Carnegie Corporation. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, for example, has given high priority to the development of sophisticated assessment procedures for teachers who work in early adolescent education, an effort that may greatly strengthen middle grade schools. The American Medical Association has undertaken to improve adolescent health through its publications and convening function.

MOBILIZING COMMUNITIES FOR YOUTH
With a combination of informed leadership and vigorous grass-roots organizing, communities can be mobilized to engage in a strategic planning process on behalf of adolescents and their families. Such councils carefully assess local needs, formulate useful interventions, and work with the entire community to address the needs of adolescents.

As a practical matter, it will be necessary to achieve cooperation among several institutions in a particular community. Any such multi-institutional community strategy could serve certain valuable functions:

• Stimulate interest and hope in the possibility of useful interventions.
• Help families meet their fundamental responsibilities.
• Facilitate the delivery of appropriate services.
• Provide resources--not only money but people, organizations, and technical skills.
• Organize a steady flow of reliable and up-to-date information about what works and for whom in fostering adolescent development.

The past decade has seen the rapid growth of links among schools and the nation's colleges, business organizations, and a great variety of community organizations. Such partnerships show what can be done by pooling strengths for mutual benefit. Through these initiatives, we can learn how to put these components together in ways that can provide young adolescents with the full range of developmental opportunities permitted by existing knowledge and emerging research findings.

Collaboration is key. One kind of partnership, established by the state legislature of North Carolina and called Smart Start, demonstrates how local energy can be rallied on behalf of children or young adolescents. Organized by counties, Smart Start aims to provide high-quality child care, health care, and other critical services to every child in the state under the age of six. Each county has a local board made up of nineteen community members who draw up plans for serving the specific needs of their community. The level of cooperation across each sector has been impressive. Another model at the city level is Kansas City's Metropolitan Task Force on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, an anti-drug coalition of powerful local businesses, churches, universities, and foundations that receives financial and technical support and training from a community drug-prevention program called STAR.

A more recent effort is the Chicago Mayor's Youth Development Task Force, consisting of twenty community, corporate, academic, and civic leaders, which is concentrating on expanding opportunities for school-age youth in the nonschool hours in the spirit of the Carnegie Council's report A Matter of Time. This citywide youth development approach, among other developments, has led to the creation of a Chicago for Youth office to promote coordinated neighborhood efforts on behalf of youth and their families.

While innovations such as these are not easily accomplished, and they will require monitoring, assessment, learning from experience, and upgrading in the years to come, they are nonetheless suggestive of what might be done by members of communities, working together across sectors and disciplines.

INVESTING IN OUR FUTURE
Providing a constructive sequence of developmental opportunities for children and youth, based on scientific evidence, professional experience, and democratic, humane values, will certainly require a substantial level of investment. Both family investments and investments by a wider social support system involving other adults in schools, health care institutions, community organizations, and the media will be necessary. Looking back over the range of evidence and experience presented in this report, it is hard not to conclude that the nation could be doing better by its young people, even with existing resources.

The United States now devotes substantial resources toward adolescents but mainly for categorical programs aimed at treating discrete problems. Much of this spending could achieve better results if it were redirected toward early generic approaches aimed at preventing the damage now occurring. Such an investment would have greater social and economic impact, resulting in higher productivity, lowered health costs, decreased prison costs, and improved human welfare.

In an era when there is much well-founded concern about losing a vital sense of community, such initiatives on behalf of all our children and adolescents could also have the profound collateral benefits of building solidarity, mutual aid, civility, and a reasonable basis for hope. What could bring us together better than our children?

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