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At my church's educational hour for adults today, we had someone from the Search Institute come to speak to us about the work that they do. Search Institute is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. The heart of their mission is that they have identified 40 developmental assets which their research has shown helps children thrive. The more of these assets these children have, the healthier they are, the better they do at school, and the more leadership roles they take. Their research has clearly shown that the less assets children have, the more likely they are to get involved with violent confrontations, alcohol, drugs, and early sexual activity.
The Search Institute's research shows that children do best if they have at least 31 of the 40 assets, but that at best 9% of children do. They work to help families, schools and communities develop the assets so more children are supported. An example: one school in the St. Louis Park community (where the Search Institute is based) posted a computer printout with every student's name in the school, and they had the staff (other than teachers, i.e., cafeteria staff, custodians, librarians, teachers' aides) put a dot by every student's name that they knew well enough to know their name and start a conversation. About 25% of the student had 7 or 8 dots, about 25% had one or two dots, and all the rest had no dots. So they divided the students who had no dots and assigned them to the various staff people, who served as invisible mentors, going out of their way to strike up conversations and learn about them, to make them feel welcome at the school. They said that the improvement at the school was truly remarkable: less fights, more involvement in extracurricular activities, more school spirit and higher grades.
Take a look at the list of assets and tell me, what are you doing to mentor or look out for a child who is not your own kid? Lurkers, for once I would like you to speak up, too, for you, too, can make a difference in a kid's life!
[Note: I didn't have the survey to give her, but I did give the list of assets to Fiona. At a rough guess, she thought that she had 35 of the 40, so I was pleased.]
The Search Institute's research shows that children do best if they have at least 31 of the 40 assets, but that at best 9% of children do. They work to help families, schools and communities develop the assets so more children are supported. An example: one school in the St. Louis Park community (where the Search Institute is based) posted a computer printout with every student's name in the school, and they had the staff (other than teachers, i.e., cafeteria staff, custodians, librarians, teachers' aides) put a dot by every student's name that they knew well enough to know their name and start a conversation. About 25% of the student had 7 or 8 dots, about 25% had one or two dots, and all the rest had no dots. So they divided the students who had no dots and assigned them to the various staff people, who served as invisible mentors, going out of their way to strike up conversations and learn about them, to make them feel welcome at the school. They said that the improvement at the school was truly remarkable: less fights, more involvement in extracurricular activities, more school spirit and higher grades.
Take a look at the list of assets and tell me, what are you doing to mentor or look out for a child who is not your own kid? Lurkers, for once I would like you to speak up, too, for you, too, can make a difference in a kid's life!
[Note: I didn't have the survey to give her, but I did give the list of assets to Fiona. At a rough guess, she thought that she had 35 of the 40, so I was pleased.]
