All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents By Peter L. Benson ISBN: 0-7879-8518-X Paperback 448 pages October 2006 Dr Peter L. Benson is president of Search Institute, an independent non-profit organization based in Minneapolis, USA, whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. He is widely recognized as one of the leading contributors to the field of child and adolescent development. In his book, Dr. Benson recommends using the 40 Personal Assets developed by Search Institute as a framework for raising successful, caring, capable young people. In the following interview, Dr Benson talks about why he thinks society has failed to sufficiently nurture its youngest members and the roles educators can continue to play in helping young people become successful adults. How can educators use this book? All Kids Are Our Kids presents a comprehensive formula for what young people need to succeed in school and in life. The formula is based on the concept of 40 Developmental Assets - building blocks of development shown to enhance academic success, promote pro-social behaviour, and reduce risky behaviour. In order for young people to have the 40 assets (or most of them), families, neighbourhoods, youth organizations, schools, faith communities, and citizens all must play a role. Conceptually, most of the asset-building capacity in communities lies beyond schools. I like to say that schools need to provide one-fifth of the energy for asset-building, and community is responsible for four-fifths. What has been missing in the discussions about how to raise caring, responsible young adults? The chatter about young people in America is dominated by deficit language. The idea here is that many see youth as problems to be fixed (versus resources to be nourished). So part of the issue is the lack of a vision for their positive development. The asset model is designed to provide a vocabulary for positive child and adolescent development that applies to all young people regardless of family income, race, ethnicity, and gender. The asset model simultaneously fills another void. In all communities, we've lost ways to unite our citizens around concepts of 'the common good.' The asset model is designed to bring people together in common vision. This makes it so much more possible to re-create the kinds of communities that raise asset-rich youth. What is at the core of society's failure to nurture young people? The disengagement of citizens from being in relationships with young people is one factor. The most crucial energy needed to build assets is embedding young people in sustained relationships with multiple caring and principled adults. In the US, we know that most middle-school and high-school youth do not have sustained, multi-year relationships with adults who know, prize, and nurture them. An argument can be made that the US is an age-segregated society in which adults expect hired guns, including teachers, to raise their children. We've got to solve this problem. Educators sometimes feeltheymust almost take on the role of raising children. How should educators change their roles in shaping young people? Here's my advice to educators: * Choose to build meaningful relationships with students. * Advocate that schools examine their policies and culture to promote relationship-rich and asset-rich environments for all kids. * Join with others to call forth the asset-building power of the larger community. Young people receive different messagesfrom differentsources - the media, schools, parents. How are they to internalise what is right? One of the most powerful forces for healthy development is a harmony of voice. By this I mean that parents, schools, and other sectors share some common frame for what is in-bounds and out-of-bounds. This harmony-of-voice can be recreated even in very diverse communities. All Kids Are Our Kids provides some useful examples for generating this community dialogue. (Source: Education World)