Communities | Overview

CA Strategic Plan

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Youth Involvement
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Families

Communities

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Data

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Out of Home Youth –
Resources on Mental Health

Communities | Overview

Create communities that offer youth positive life options

This is Chapter 2, Recommendation 6 of California's adolescent health strategic plan. To view the full plan, click here.

Communities play a critical role in promoting adolescent health and well-being. As youth grow older, they spend more time in community settings outside of their immediate family environment. These settings must be safe and must provide youth with a wide range of opportunities to support their growth and development. These opportunities include recreation, work, skill development, and connections with caring adults.

Opportunities for skill development, recreation, and contribution
to the community

Participation in activities and part-time employment during non-school hours provides youth with the opportunity to engage in socially positive activities, contribute to their community, build new skills, and have fun. The benefits of these opportunities can last a lifetime. For example, high school employment has been shown to contribute to increased rates of employment and better wages up to a decade after high school completion. However, studies also show that working more than 20 hours per week can have a detrimental effect on youth.⁶⁰ Activities during the ‘critical’ non-school hours, particularly between 2:00 and 6:00 p.m., also keep youth safe and reduce risk behaviors. These hours are critical because juvenile violence and crime triple in the hour immediately after school.⁶¹ Unsupervised youth are at significantly higher risk for truancy, poor grades, accidents, and risk-taking behaviors, including sexual risk-taking and substance abuse.⁶²

Youth themselves recognize the importance of having opportunities outside of school. Approximately 89% of the teens responding to an informal survey voiced their support for legislation that would provide $25 million for youth projects in disadvantaged neighborhoods.⁶³ There is increasing evidence that California voters also support these programs. Seventy-seven percent of registered voters surveyed by the California Center for Health Improvement said they are “very or somewhat willing” to pay for more after-school enrichment programs.³³

Available data do not provide a clear picture of the proportion of California youth that participate in extracurricular activities or part-time employment. A survey of parents found that approximately 82% of California youth participated in at least one extracurricular activity (e.g., lessons, clubs, sports), comparable to a national average of 84%. Adolescents from low-income families were less likely to be involved in extracurricular activities—74% in California and 73% nationally.⁵⁰ On the other hand, a survey of San Francisco youth found that 60% reported that they never participated in after school activities; 25% participated sporadically; and only 15% participated once a week.³¹ Nationally, surveys find that approximately 80% of high school students say that they have held a job sometime during their high school years.

Safety

Youth are extremely concerned about violence in their communities. In addition to ranking safe neighborhoods as one of the most important elements of an ideal community, respondents to an informal survey conducted by teen participants in the Youth Summit on Healthy Communities identified violence, crime, and gangs as the second most important obstacle to making their communities a healthy place for teens.⁶³

There are a number of factors associated with violence in the community, including poor economic conditions. Among individuals living in households with incomes of less than $15,000 per year, the violent crime rate is significantly higher than it is among households with incomes over this level.⁶⁴ The availability of firearms is another community factor that affects the safety of teens. In too many communities, young people are able to obtain firearms illegally through a variety of channels including illegal markets, street sales, and older friends.⁶⁵

Connections with Adults

View Indicator

Even in the absence of a strong parental relationship, a supportive bond with a caring adult can provide emotional support, guidance, and the high expectations that may be critical in steering an adolescent toward a constructive, life-affirming path. Though several mentoring programs exist throughout the state, thousands of youth remain in need of a mentor. In 1998, at least 78,000 California youth were on waiting lists for a mentor through the California Mentor Initiative. Other mechanisms for connecting youth and adults, involving schools, faith organizations, businesses, etc., must be developed in communities by increasing the sense of shared responsibility for supporting youth.

Strategies

1. Expand community opportunities for teens.

Building upon the After School Learning and Safe Neighborhoods Act, fund and support expansion of programs/activities for youth during non-school hours with particular focus on: 1) developing strategies (e.g., outreach, transportation, incentives, stipends) based on local needs to attract teens who are least likely to participate, 2) improving the supply of programs in areas of greatest need, and 3) developing partnerships with the private sector—similar to those developed for childcare—to increase available resources so that parents may be assured of their teens’ safety and well-being while they are at work.
Provide incentives for employers to employ school-age youth in positions with opportunities for skill development, career exploration, and advancement.
Designate funding to expand programs that promote community service and service learning, such as the federal AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve programs.
Encourage foundations to make one time grants for capital expenditures to establish community youth centers.
Create internships for youth within city and county departments.
Require community service and/or service learning for high school graduation.

2. Create positive social connections for youth.

Expand mentoring programs and pilot new strategies to connect youth with adults, including senior citizens.
Develop peer-to-peer mentoring that fosters connections between older and younger teens.
Foster mutual understanding by building bridges between teens and other community sectors. Proactively create opportunities for dialogue and collaboration in joint activities (e.g., neighborhood cleanup), with an emphasis on involving specific populations of teens (e.g., ethnic minorities, gay/lesbian) and community sectors that tend to come into conflict with teens such as law enforcement or business.
Foster opportunities for marginalized youth, such as those who are homeless or have been incarcerated, to contribute positively to their community in a supportive environment.

3. Create community conditions that promote safe, healthy choices.

Increase funding and incentives for community initiatives that engage communities in asset mapping and planning, build social networks, create channels for information dissemination, and strengthen other community assets to support youth development.
Decrease youth access to firearms and alcohol.
Increase opportunities and support for healthy eating and physical activity.
Increase transportation and street safety.

4. Improve the ability of adults in the community to work with and support teens.

Provide professionals who work with teens, parents, and other adults with information, training, and referral protocols to help them identify and handle issues that affect adolescent health and development.
Create a “Youth Work” major within the University of California and California State University system that would prepare graduates to work with youth outside of classroom settings. A number of European countries have such training program/departments.

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