Search Institute’s Healthy Communities – Healthy Youth initiative was officially launched in 1996, in an effort to inspire, support and mobilize multiple sectors to come together across their communities on behalf of young people. Since that time, over 600 communities have gained experience using the framework of Developmental Assets to focus local efforts. In some cases, they introduced the Developmental Assets into an existing network. In other cases, learning about the assets led to the formation of a new initiative. In this month’s issue of The Asset Champion, we have asked several veteran initiatives to share what they have learned along the way.
Next month we will begin a five part series looking into each of the Five Action Strategies community initiatives can use to strengthen their asset-building work. If you have an activity or approach you found effective in Engaging Adults or Mobilizing Young People and would be willing to share it, contact Callie PaStarr at calliep@search-institute.org.
Hampton, Va: A legacy of youth engagement
The City of Hampton in Virginia had a youth friendly atmosphere even before they were involved with the Developmental Assets and started their community initiative. Hampton was one of the first cities in the country to create a Department of Youth in the local government in which youth have a direct input into the city’s planning and decision making process. By integrating youth voice and energy into the governmental structure in the early 1990s, youth and youth serving agencies gained an influential role in the politics and environment of Hampton and have been sustained as the Hampton Coalition for Youth ever since.
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Read the article announcing the Hampton Coalition for Youth as a “Jostens Our Town award winner” in 2001.
The Challenge of Change
Ohio County Together We Care in Kentucky has gone through some ups and downs in the ten years since it 
first started – but you wouldn’t know it if you took a snapshot look at the initiative. In 2002 it was awarded a Jostens Our Town Award for being a youth-friendly community. They had six paid staff members and enough funds to do take on almost any project they wanted. But a couple of years ago they lost a key advocate when the superintendent of schools, a strong asset supporter, left. And last year they narrowly missed qualifying for a Drug-Free Communities grant that had been a staple for the past five years. The school district asked the initiative to move to a smaller space and they had limited funds to pay the smaller, two-person staff. But despite these struggles the initiative continues to be a strong presence in the community. “Sometimes change just happens and you have to deal with it,” is how coordinator and director Sheila Barnard sees it. And this is what Ohio County Together We Care (TWC) has done. In the process, they have found out that sometimes change is not all bad.
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Read the article announcing Ohio County Together We Care as a “Jostens Our Town award winner” from 2002.
Old Saybrook, CT: Thoughts on sustainability
There are two words to describe the members of Healthy Communities · Healthy Youth initiative in Old Saybrook, CT; passionate and committed. When the initiative was born in 1996, this small town in Connecticut had nothing special it could lay claim to for its kids. “Twelve years ago when we tried to start this program,” says Gretchen Bushnell, one of the original members of HC·HY, “Old Saybrook was not the happiest place. Kids felt alienated. Police didn’t have good rapport with the youth in the community and the government didn’t have good rapport with the kids.” To top it all off, the local youth center had closed its doors due to lack of funding. It seemed that the door had been closed on youth activities in the town. Then members of the community decided that something had to be done.
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Worthington, MN, engages youth in the community
The town of Worthington is located in an agriculture-based, rural area of southwestern Minnesota. Worthington is home to one of the Swift & Company meatpacking plants, the third largest beef and pork processor in the world and the largest employer in the area. For years the plant has drawn new families to the area.
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Creating an Asset-Based Community Initiative With a Zero Budget
Listen to “Creating an Asset-Based Community Initiative with a Zero Budget,” a presentation by members from the Amherst HC·HY Task Force at the 2007 HC·HY Conference.
Follow along with the presentation with the powerpoint printout from the Amherst initiative.
