Take-Home Skill: Teens and Adults Collaborating to Uplift the Community

Instructions

Overview: connected and supported in their communities, which in turn, can create important opportunities for them to take action to pursue justice for a community cause that matters to them. Teens who see that their communities are places where younger and older people collaborate respectfully on solving community challenges can nurture a strong commitment to social responsibility in teens early on.

Activity:

Find, create, and/or actively participate in activities in your community that bring together teens and adults across generations as partners to solve community challenges. Help your teen explore opportunities to become involved in building or participating in community intergenerational partnerships. 

• For example, you and your teen could participate in activities like cleaning up trash in a neighborhood, pitching an afterschool activity that involves retirees, volunteering in a soup kitchen, or planning a party to celebrate a community member. 
• You can also help your teen to explore more longer-term opportunities within your community, like in youth advisory committees or councils within your city, county or state. 
• Help your teen be aware of other ways to participate in collaborations across generations within interagency advisory boards, prevention councils, nonprofit boards, school boards, and community foundations. 

Talk with your teen about these five important ways that intergenerational partnerships work best.

1. Encourage your teen to engage with several adults.
   • Help your teen to initially explore opportunities that go beyond a traditional model of only one adult mentor working with one teen as an “apprentice.” 
   • Explore with your teen how they can benefit from nurturing a variety of relationships with several adults–some of which will be closer than others. 
   • Talk with your teen about staying open to a mentorship developing organically based on their and another adult’s choice rather than being pre-assigned a mentor.
2.  Talk with your teen about being assertive–actively participating, speaking up from their point of view, taking initiative–rather than passive because everyone involved will be expected to take part.
   • Teach your teen to “roll up their sleeves” because they and other teens as well as adults will be expected to take on roles in the group not based on their ages, but based on individual strengths, skills, and interests. 
   • Discuss with your teen how teen-adult partnerships work best when all voices are heard and leadership roles are shared so that decisions are made together. 
   • Help your teen to expect that adults will delegate and share the power of decision-making.
3.  Encourage your teen to keep their commitment to the partnership ongoing over time.
   • Discuss with your teen how they will gain most from partnerships that involve regular touchpoints and ideally extend beyond a one-off semester or time-limited project. 
   • Explore with your teen how staying active in groups over time can help them to gain confidence, empowerment, and develop leadership skills.
4. Support your teen to work “shoulder-to-shoulder” with adults so that they are a part of all aspects of the partnership.
   • Talk with your teen about how a shared purpose is built by sharing the work of carefully thinking, planning, acting, and reflecting together, which can happen when teens and adults share power and responsibility throughout the entire process. 
   • Encourage your teen to advocate for learning and creating together across generations where both teens and adults are sharing information and interrogating assumptions.
5.  Help your teen to move from intention to action to address a community issue that is important to them with adults who also care about the same issue.
   • Talk with your teen about what types of challenges–mental health, environment, healthcare, for example–mean a lot to them and what kind of opportunity they are looking for to help create positive change with other teens and adults.
   • Encourage your teen to have a mindset that goes beyond exclusively learning about a shared community challenge to collaborating to collectively solve it.

Evidence That It Works

Research finds that youth-adult partnerships can nurture healthy development, civic engagement, and positive changes in communities. Studies have found that these partnerships are defined by multiple relationships between teens and adults, a democratic approach to group deliberation and action, an ongoing time period, and shared work. What’s more, researchers explain authentic decision-making, natural mentors, reciprocal activity, and community connectedness are essential characteristics in these partnerships.

Why Does It Matter?

As teens are growing in their sense of independence, being active members in their communities to promote positive changes can help them identify their sense of purpose in life. Teens want their voices heard and to contribute to something bigger than themselves. They can be uplifted by collaborating with adults who help them look to the future and connect them to the broader community.

Researchers have questioned an approach in our society that has aimed to “protect” teens, but has led to young people being cut off from opportunities to make decisions and take collective action within their communities. “The cost of not doing so [involving young people in shared decision-making] will likely come back to haunt us as a civil society and a golden opportunity to move toward a fuller and more inclusive wisdom will have been missed,” explained Mary McAlesse, president of UNESCO.

Youth-adult partnerships can be an effective tool in preventing teens from being excluded from being important contributing members of society. Nurturing these types of intergenerational relationships can give teens opportunities to grow their social connections, promote civic development and engagement, and learn important community-building and problem-solving skills.

References

Zeldin, S., Christens, B. D., & Powers, J. L. (2013). The psychology and practice of youth-adult partnership: Bridging generations for youth development and community change. American Journal of Community Psychology, 51, 385-397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-012-9558-y