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Strategies for Working with High-Risk Youth: Building Bonds & Empowering Lives

Explore defining high-risk youth, importance of assets, and tangible strategies for addressing issues like immediate gratification and weak conscience. Learn how to create a safe, nurturing environment with supportive adult figures, distinctive rules, and trust-building tactics. Discover the significance of valuing youth and celebrating small victories in programming.

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Strategies for Working with High-Risk Youth: Building Bonds & Empowering Lives

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  1. Strategies for working with high risk youth Youth for Christ Juvenile Justice Ministries

  2. How do we define a “high risk” youth?

  3. Why are the 40 assets so important?

  4. So what does this look like in the teens I work with?

  5. Lives for immediate gratification, and postponement of rewards is unacceptable • Exhibits learned behaviors. Attitudes and behavior patterns are learned from others, a shocking and discouraging sign of the gratification, and postponement of rewards is unacceptable • Has a weak conscience and is less affected by guilt than the average person

  6. Uses people without becoming attached. People become “tools” in his quest for meaning • No respect for law, tradition, or persons in authority • Capable of loyalties and selfish love. The bases for his friendships are difficult for the average citizen to understand, but these are realistic relationships for troubled youth

  7. Believes that his behavior is all right. From his perspective his motives are justified and behavior reasonable. • Pleasure is guiding life principle. Self-centered, materialistic, and status-oriented values scream, “I want it, and I want it now • Is lonely — peer group does not meet needs for love and self worth.

  8. So what do I do in my programming to address this?

  9. Our teens need a safe encouraging environment • Our teens need strong bonds of connection with adult role models who take an invested interest in them • Our teens need to feel they are a part of a caring community that values them as persons of great worth regardless of their behavior

  10. Our teens need a distinctive set of rules and consequences which are taught to them within the context of relationship where they know that the person who both developed the rules and carries out the consequences has their best interest at heart and not just the common good • Our teens need to make their own decisions and their own choices, yet know that we will stand by them if those choices lead to bad consequences. However, they do not need us to change the severity of the consequence but to help them work through those consequences to a positive end. • Our teens need to know that their confidences will be kept with the exception where they indicate harm to themselves or others and that this exception is based on our care and concern for them.

  11. Take a genuine interest in something positive about the student. (Play up strengths) • Be respectful of cultural and economic differences. • Find ways to develop the student interest

  12. Demystify your role • Build trust through consistency • Be a good listener

  13. Believe that youth are valued and are worth the effort • Be available • Go the extra mile • Be consistent—“I will not give up”

  14. Be authentic • Be intentional in your interactions • Don’t make gaining trust the main goal • Celebrate small successes

  15. Definition of Poverty • Extent to which an individual does without resources

  16. Definition of Poverty—Extent to which an individual does without resources Financial: Having the money to purchase good and services Emotional: Being able to choose and control emotional responses, particularly to negative situations, without engaging in self-destructive behavior. This is an internal resource and shows itself through stamina, perseverance, and choices Mental: Having the mental abilities and acquired skills (reading, writing, computing) to deal with daily life Physical: Having physical health and mobility

  17. Definition of Poverty—Extent to which an individual does without resources Support Systems: Having friends, family, and backup resources available to access in times of need. Relationships/Role Models: Having frequent access to adult(s) who are appropriate, who are nurturing to the child, and who do not engage in self-destructive behavior Knowledge of Hidden Rules: Knowing the unspoken cues and habits of a group Coping Strategies: Being able to engage in procedural self-talk and the mindsets that allow issues to be moved from the concrete to the abstract. It is the ability to translate from the personal to the issue.

  18. Very Low - Enough ?

  19. Strategies for working with high risk youth Youth for Christ Juvenile Justice Ministries

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