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Assets In Action
Moving Toward an Asset and Resiliency Approach
to Promoting Positive Youth Development in Vermont

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BACKGROUND

For several years, Vermont has embraced an asset and resiliency based approach to promoting positive youth development. The Vermont Resiliency Network gave people training and research about positive development. And we looked for an effective and easy to remember approach for assuring that children and youth have what they need to be successful. Results from the Search Institute Developmental Assets Survey, administered in schools across Vermont, have helped us to establish asset baseline information.

There are several ways of looking at the components of healthy development. The "Circle of Courage"™ developed by the Native Americans and promoted by Larry Brendtro in his work on Reclaiming Youth At Risk resonates across a variety of settings and disciplines. Schools in Vermont have effectively used Circle of Courage™ framework (Generosity, Mastery, Belonging, Independence) as the value system for creating positive school climates.

The Social and Rehabilitation Services District Office in Newport, VT has incorporated this thinking in their casework supporting foster children. Pediatricians and other primary care providers are exploring the use of the Circle of Courage™ as a positive way to explain behavior to young people and their parents.

We hope you will learn more about this research and consider using this, or a similar approach, in creating a positive values framework to guide your own work.

Basic Human Needs
Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, and Steve Van Bockern (1990)

Belonging:
     feeling attached, cooperative, trusting

Mastery:
     feeling successful, motivated, competent

Independence:
     demonstrating inner control,
     responsibility, self-discipline, appropriate
     risk-taking

Generosity:
     demonstrating care, altruism, support,
     service, purpose

  

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Preliminary Analysis Shows Results in Vermont

In 2001, four assets questions were added to the Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey, administered every other year to nearly all students in grades 8 - 12. These four questions joined two other assets-related questions already on the Survey, making a total of six.

   1.  BELONGING
  • Talking with parents about school
  • Participation in youth programs (not including sports)
  • Agree/disagree that "I matter to people in my community".


   2.  MASTERY
  • Grades in school
Risk
   3.  INDEPENDENCE
  • Agree/disagree that students help decide what goes on in school (this also fits "belonging")


   4.  GENEROSITY
  • Volunteering in the community
Asset

Preliminary analysis of these data shows that the more of these six assets a student reports, the more likely he or she is to wear a seat belt, use a bike helmet, and exercise regularly; and the less likely he or she is to use cigarettes, alcohol, or marijuana, get into fights, or have sex.

Would you like to see the entire Youth Risk Behavior Survey?
VT Youth Risk Behavior Survey


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Outcome 6: Youth Choose Healthy Behaviors
Excerpt from VT State Team Outcome-Based Planning Document

Recommendations for 2002

   All Vermont communities support positive youth development by providing:
   Actions/Strategies for 2002

   1.  BELONGING
  • Promote opportunities for adults to have time to mentor
  • Develop opportunities for youth to mentor younger people
  • Support development of mentoring networks
Belonging
   2.  GENEROSITY
  • Require social, emotional, and civil compentence education in schools
  • Support youth initiated grant opportunities
  • Promote service learning
Generosity
   3.  INDEPENDENCE
  • Increase youth membership on school boards and community teams
  • Provide healthy options during out-of-school time
  • Use TV/ratio to focus on healthy adolescent development

Independence
   4.  MASTERY
  • Redesign school and community approaches to utilize all youth's unique talents
  • Value and celebrate unique contributions of young people
  • Develop safe and supportive community opportunities that engage and challenge all youth
Mastery
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Attributes of School Staff Resiliency
Robert Garmstron and Bruce Wellman (1995)

Efficacy:

believing one can achieve and being willing to exert the effort.

Flexibility: exercising multiple perspectives.


Craftspersonship: striving for mastery and improvement.


Consciousness: being aware of your thoughts, feelings, intentions and behaviors and that you direct their course.

Interdependence: recognizing conflict and divergent views as opportunities to learn.
Practicing altruism and seeing the potential in groups.


12 Norms of Healthy School Culture
Jon Saphier and Mathew King (1985)


  1. Collegiality:  Demonstrated through 5 behaviors of educators:
  • talking frequently about one's practice in precise terms
  • observing each other
  • working on tasks by planning, designing, researching, evaluation
  • teaching each other about teaching and learning
  • taking the iniative to meet with colleagues to talk about children, teaching and learning
  1. Experimentation:  Reflecting a community of learners where people are willing to take risks.

  2. High Expectations:  Educators are held accountable for high performance.

  3. Tangible support:  Providing time and resources to accomplish tasks.

  4. Trust and Confidence:  People are trusted in the capacity to conduct themselves as professionals.

  5. Reaching out to the Knowledge Bases:  Continually broadening repertoire of knowledge bases about skills, how students learn, about teaching methods in particular areas.
 
  1. Appreciation and Recognition:  honoring good work and thanking people for what they do.


  2. Caring, Celebration and Humor:  being aware of significant events in each others' lives as well as celebrating benchmarks in the life of the organization.


  3. Traditions:  building a sense of community and people's associations to the institution.


  4. Protecting What is Important:  protecting the core values of the organization.


  5. Involvment in Decision-making:  involving staff in any decision that impacts their work.


  6. Honest, Open Communication:  encouraging civil communication among people and asking for valid information in order to have the organization run effectively.

Circle of Courage logo used with permission from:
Circle of Courage, Inc., PO Box 57, Lennox, SD 57039

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