Beyond Strengths to Flourishing: Listening to Youth Voices

Communities across the nation are increasingly concerned about the toxic effects of violence in the mental health of youth. Adults are responding by creating prevention programs to keep youth out of harm’s way. These programs have the best of intentions but often fall short of success. For too long violence prevention has focused on reducing risks and has been designed for young people by adults. Today, a growing number of prevention scientists and practitioners are focusing their work on strengths to build well-being rather than just remove risks. They are also placing youth experiences and voices at the center of the work. So, what does a strengths and youth voice centered approach to prevention looks like?

We need to start first with understanding what we mean by strengths. Our research shows that people benefit from what we call strength portfolios to thrive--an array of resources including quality connections with others, a sense of optimism, emotional awareness, and engagement in practices that promote a sense of purpose and meaning in life. According to Melissa Institute Scientific Board members Vicky Banyard and Sherry Hamby (2021) strengths portfolios include regulatory strengths, helping people manage strong feelings and emotions, interpersonal strengths such as social support and connections to others, and meaning making strengths that help people rise above their situation by connecting to community, nature, the universe (e.g., volunteer work, spiritual practices, cultural traditions). Strengths then, help us cope with stress and build a strong and flourishing life.

JAIA’s Mindful Leaders Institute is a youth-led and adult-guided personal development and leadership training. It was designed with input from youth ages 13-24 from diverse communities, to improve the quality of life, mental health, and emotional wellbeing of underserved youth, whether college-bound or disconnected from educational or supportive programs. The institute aims is to nurture conscious, effective leaders by offering training in ethical decision-making, mindfulness techniques, suicide and violence prevention tools, and experiential learning opportunities to prepare youth to make informed choices. This training is critical for youth of color, LGBTQ and immigrant youth, and other youth who live each day viewing life from the frame of marginalized systems as evidenced by founder Rev. Gena Jefferson, LCSW in her 22+ year career in the NYC Public Schools. JAIA acknowledges the impact of culture and trauma in youth. As a matter of fact, youth can incorporate both even as they flourish, once they feel a sense of agency, meaning making and self-efficacy.

JAIA offers young people creative and practical platforms for cultivating meaning, coping with real-life challenges, and visioning for success. Our participatory action mentorship model begins with youth envisioning a project where they get to be their most authentic selves. They use research and project management tools in order to set goals, add universal guiding principles, mindful tools, and social support of their own choosing, to design their “Living Vision Plan”. Throughout each year, they are exposed to professionals through guest speakers, life coaches and volunteers, as well as JAIA’s organizational affiliates. Youth look within and outside of this pool to match up with mentors that will serve as a support for their Living Vision Project. With this vital preparation, JAIA youth come to know themselves and experience being and flourishing in their strengths. They learn to seek growth opportunities, explore career directions, while finding ways to serve their communities.

Here is a testimony shared by former JAIA youth participant and current community leaders, Joe-Ann: “As a JAIAnt, if there is one lesson that I constantly remind myself, and the youth we work with is to always remember that we have choices. A lot of times due to the impact of marginalization and oppressive systems, it can be very challenging for our communities to believe that you have options to begin with. JAIA has a commitment to helping youth discover and build on their strengths, follow their curiosity, and intuitive voices, and create supportive systems around them. We remind them that as long as you are breathing you have choices. Awareness of their choices allow youth to realign themselves with the experience they truly want to have. Youth, without the awareness of their strengths and their choices, are likely to succumb to marginalized thinking and trauma responses. Sometimes when we remind them, they have choices they are surprised as if it isn't their birthright. JAIA incorporates the practice of these concepts in every experience we have. After a while youth begin to understand and correct themselves and make new choices without us having to coach them. That's how I know that the work we do here at JAIA is so intentional, that it can last forever with practice and patience with oneself.”

A focus on strengths and flourishing and designing prevention with young people at the center is supported by recent evaluation research. Research on mentoring and violence prevention demonstrate the value of involving youth as prevention partners--that these programs help prevent forms of interpersonal violence like bullying, harassment, relationship abuse. For example, Dr. Banyard was recently part of an evaluation of a program where youth who attended violence prevention leadership camps showed reduced rates of violence perpetration and higher amounts of bystander intervention over time. These youth in partnership with adults learned prevention science and skills for knowledge diffusion. They then designed and implemented local strategies including murals in community art spaces, a photovoice project, and prevention workshops for youth. The lessons learned from these projects remind us to take the time to assess the strengths of young people and their communities as a key foundation for our work.

Banyard, V., & Hamby, S. (2021). Strengths-based prevention: Reducing violence and other public health problems. American Psychological Association.