Morning Zen Guest Blog Post ~ Jammie Gardner Farish 

After listening to Martin Rafferty speak about youth leadership, mental health, school shootings, and adult allies on the Doin’ The Work: Frontline Stories of Social Change podcast, I took a moment to reflect on the world we live in and how it impacts the youth who are growing up in it. I asked myself, do youth today have it harder than my parents did growing up in the baby boomer generation? What about Gen X? It’s not uncommon for people to compare the challenges they’ve gone through and argue over which generation had it “worse.” My 100-year-old grandmother, a Scottish-Irish immigrant who experienced multiple wars, depression, and many other challenges, liked to remind me that when she was young, she had to walk for miles in the snow to get to school every day. She certainly had it rough. But the world is different now. I would be so bold as to say that life is harder and scarier for this generation than it was for any generation before it. I have dealt with my fair share of challenges, but I know one thing for sure; I never, not for one single second of my life experienced the kind of terror and worry that youth do in schools today. Now, children and youth are faced with the very real possibility that someone could come into their classroom armed with a gun and change their lives forever.  Because of the drastic changes happening in our country and the increasing challenges youth are facing, it is critical that we take a minute to stop and listen to what they have to say. Now is the time to rethink how we reach out and try to help the younger generation; it can’t wait any longer.

The podcast with Martin Rafferty highlights several ideas, including a reframing approach that many may want to consider. Martin was quoted as saying that our systemic approach to helping young people should move away from asking “how are you broken?” and instead, encourage helpers to ask “how are you strong?” If you stop and think about it, you’ll find that the keys to figuring out how to move through life’s obstacles have been within us all along. When I asked my grandmother how she made it through such a difficult life, she would tell me about the importance of family, faith, talent, and a strong work ethic. You see, the things that allowed her to thrive amidst all the chaos of her world and the hardships she faced were her strengths and the connections she built with others. It is just as true now as it was then that a person’s strengths and relationships are what help them find resiliency and the ability to push through whatever challenges they encounter in their daily lives.

The organization I work for, Youth ERA, “pushes the envelope,” meaning that they aren’t afraid to push new and sometimes radical ideas forward. This organization is made up of a diverse group of collaborative individuals (many of whom are millennials) who are committed to seeking out multiple perspectives, sharing their knowledge and ideas, embracing their creativity, and remaining willing to forge new paths. Youth Era’s founder and CEO, Martin Rafferty has chosen to pull all of this together because as a young adult himself, he knows that if you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done. He believes that when you pair the right leadership with youth voice and a dedicated team that is determined to do things differently, you just might find some magic.

As an adult ally, I get a front row seat to this magic every day at Youth ERA. When a youth walks into a Youth ERA drop-in center, they are met with an engaging and meaningful youth-focused environment. Quickly youth begin to feel valued by their communities as they start to engage with young adults who can relate to and support them through life’s challenges. At each drop-in center, youth have the opportunity to participate in groups, learn to code apps and design using 3D printers, perform their original work through Empowerment Studios, play games in the ESports arena, learn new job skills at the Youth Development Cafe, and so much more. This peer support model turns traditional systems upside down, by meeting young people where they are in stigma-aware environments that aren’t triggering and look nothing like the doctor’s offices and clinics they’ve been dragged to.

What fuels this model? All of Youth ERA’s programming has been built on a foundation of Positive Youth Development principles, the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets, and multiple evidence- and practice-based models such as; ASIST, Collaborative Problem Solving, Motivational Interviewing, Trauma Informed Care, and more. Youth ERA also brings their model to communities alongside professional partners and first responders when they’ve been affected by a tragic loss of life due to school violence, sudden death, or suicide. How is this all possible? It starts with adult allies who are willing first to acknowledge the mistakes that were made and then come alongside and listen to what youth have to say, before finally trying a new approach.

Each older adult reading this has an opportunity on both a micro and macro level to ask themselves and their communities how they can provide opportunities for youth voice to drive the decisions, services, systems and supports around them. Youth voice and peer support belong in every system; child welfare, juvenile justice, education, healthcare, emergency services, and so much more. Just imagine a youth-informed system where the services and supports are designed by and for the population they serve, fueled by adult allies and formal system partners, and truly meets the needs of current and future generations. I’ll end this piece with another Martin quote from the podcast, “take a look around in your community and ask, ‘How can I make a difference and bring youth voice into my community?’”

Listen to the podcast 

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Jammie Gardner Farish
Chief Operating Officer
Youth ERA