1990s AD - Decade

The 1990s have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of elected officials' interest in issues involving youth. During the late 1980s and early '90s, a series of events -- drive-by shootings; increases in gang membership; and rising teenage-pregnancy, school-dropout, single-parent family, and drug-use rates -- coalesced to force teen issues to the forefront of the political agenda.

Because of park and recreation's access to youth, city officials quickly turned to our field in the late 1980s for solutions (Witt & Crompton, 1996). Innovators such as Reco Bembry in Seattle; Jim Colley in Phoenix; Jesus Olivares in Austin, Texas; Nathaniel Wilkins in Kansas City, Mo. (now in Cincinnati); and Richard Zavala in Fort Worth, Texas, led efforts to revitalize and pioneer approaches that would effectively serve youth from high-risk environments.

A series of events is indicative of the momentum that emerged, commencing with a major national conference in early 1995 on youth in high-risk environments, which was initiated by the American Academy of Park and Recreation Administration. Case studies from this conference were published in 1996 (Wilt & Crompton, 1996). In late 1995 and '96, 10 regional conferences were held across North America.

During the mid-'90s, many cities followed the leadership of Phoenix and created special units within their recreation and park departments to serve the needs of youth. Attention to youth issues had become a central theme at most national, regional, and state park and recreation conferences by mid-decade.

The momentum continued in 1997 with the launching of the National Recreation and Park Association's National Prevention through Recreation Services School. Relying upon funding from the National Recreation Foundation, NRPA responded to the surging interest in youth issues by appointing a special advisor to association Executive Director R. Dean Tice.

Recently the field's work was recognized by the Sequor Foundation, which contributed funds leading to the establishment of the Elda K. Bradberry Chair in At-Risk Youth Programming, a $1 million endowed chair in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University.

During the 1990s, attention from the academic community has grown concomitantly. For example, several universities have added or are advertising openings for faculty positions focused upon youth issues. In addition, the number of articles concerned with youth issues has multiplied. For example, in 1996 the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration published a special issue focused on the evaluation of youth programs, and plans to release another in early 2000.

As part of NRPA's commitment to the Benefits movement, the National Youth Recreation Consortium was formed by seven universities and 14 cities, with a mission to document outcomes associated with recreation programs for youth (Witt & Crompton, 1996). Evaluations have been completed or are under way dealing with after-school programs, teen centers, weekend-night programs, teen clubs, arts programming, roving leader programs, and summer day camps (see Web site at http://wwwrpts.tamu.edu/witt/consort. htm). Another NRPA-funded project has tested the efficacy of Benefits-Based Management in recreation programs for youth in four cities (Allen & McGovern, 1997).

A rich conceptual underpinning of programming for youth from high-risk environments has emerged in the 1990s. The protective factors/resilience model pioneered by Jessor (1991), and the similar assets model developed by the Search Institute (Leffert et al., 1998) offer meaningful guidelines for programming. These models are shifting attention from a problem orientation to an orientation based on developing protective factors, assets, and resiliency. Other significant conceptual contributions include the TRICS (trust, respect, integrity, consistency, and self-esteem) model, which Bembry (1998) brought to national attention, and Henderson's (1998) identification of the distinctive needs of female adolescents in the context of youth issues.

As the end of the decade draws near, debate continues regarding appropriate terminology. Are these kids at risk? Are they youth from high-risk environments? Are all youth at risk? Some more than others?

Whatever the definition or model driving service, the approach to serving youth is clearly dynamic and transitional. In this article, we review the characteristics of service delivery that prevailed at the beginning of the 1990s and project the likely direction of current transitions over the coming decade. Fig. 1 summarizes the shifts we both perceive and project over this 20-year period. Reviewing the situation in one's own agency in each of the identified areas may help managers establish benchmarks and stimulate discussion on future service conceptualization, design, funding, and evaluation of the agency's youth programs.

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Evolving the Mission

In the 1990s, the positioning of parks and recreation's service mission in the minds of elected officials as something more than "fun and games" or "keeping kids off the streets and out of trouble" was advanced (NRPA, 1994). While admirable goals, these traditional missions are prohibitive because they fail to identify outcomes, such as reducing drug use, school-dropout rates, gang membership, and juvenile crime, in which society is willing to invest resources.

Park and recreation departments that still cling to the more limited fun-and-games mission fail to recognize that funding priority is guided by the contribution that programs make to alleviating community problems. Moving beyond play to demonstrate the value of recreation programs to the community is part of NRPA's Benefits movement, which seeks to reshape the way professionals perceive their mission and present their case to decision-makers.

Recreation services are now beginning to embrace intervention, including providing outreach to youth already engaged' in risky behaviors. Transition periods that require young people to navigate new social structures and expectations, such as entering middle or high school, are being targeted (Seidman et al., 1994).

While programs initially focused on individual limitations and lack of community amenities and services, there is now an emphasis on building individual protective factors and community assets and strengths. These approaches, which emphasize building the capacity of communities to support the healthy development of youth as assets, are being widely accepted.

Defining Needs/ Planning Services

Youth, parents, and other community members are being recognized as full partners in identifying the needs of youth and planning the activities through which these needs should be met. The shift from top-down to local decision-making enables those who are affected by the outputs to participate in making critical decisions about their lives. Front-line staff is increasingly empowered to make decisions about the design and implementation of programs. The role of youth councils and advisory committees is also becoming more prominent. These shifts will hopefully allow all stakeholders to recognize the value of empowerment and consultation as well as the important role of process as a concomitant to action.

Building Relationship

The goal of serving youth is shifting from the simple provision of activities to using activities as a setting or means through which relationships between leaders and youth can be established. In the future, the focus is likely to shift to mentoring and establishing long-term, consistent relationships as the essential catalyst for behavioral development and change.

Successful mentoring is dependent upon maintaining positive long-term programs. A one-day-per-week basketball league or a one-week camping/outdoor recreation adventure will have little or no long-term impact on behavior -- unless they are elements of a comprehensive effort. The range of offerings must also expand to embrace components such as community service, continuing education, and job-training.

Break It Down

In many communities, teens have become more adamant about the need for "places of their own," essentially adolescent versions of senior and daycare centers. The emergence of teen centers, run for and by youth, is testament to the awareness that process and involvement are important outcomes. For teens, a feeling of empowerment can defeat helplessness, alienation, and disconnectedness from society's expectations and standards.

Oftentimes, a teen is pushed into growing up very quickly by assuming a number of child-rearing responsibilities in single-parent families. Teens need the time and space to "just be kids" and deal with their own development. In the next decade, companion programming for younger siblings is likely to gain popularity.

For a variety of reasons, young girls also require separate services. Books such as Reviving Ophelia have distinguished between the developmental needs of girls and boys. At the same time, Real Boys and other volumes continue to help us understand the special challenges faced by boys.

Beyond the walls

Outreach services are extending the impact of recreation services to those who feel uncomfortable with institutional involvement. Roving-leader programs, which operated in a few park and recreation departments in the 1960s, were victims of funding cutbacks in the '70s and '80s. Recently these programs have experienced a renaissance.

For example, San Antonio resurrected its RL program in the late 1980s; Austin, Texas, followed suit in 1998. While the "personalized" nature of these programs tends to drive up cost, communities are realizing that spending the extra money is preferable to the consequences of deviant behavior and the juvenile justice system.

Part of the System

Park and recreation departments are becoming a more integral part of communities' youth development systems. Rather than limiting themselves to a recreation component, many departments are responding to their role as part of a holistic service system. They have convinced other system contributors that their "fun and games" services are crucial for developing interest and are an important vehicle for delivering instrumental benefits.

But the role of recreation can extend beyond hooking participants. For example, Fort Worth, Texas, integrated its departments of parks, recreation and community services to form a united department of parks and community services. In Austin, the department of parks and recreation is central to the city's Social Fabric initiative, operating alongside the library, health, and police departments.

Activity offerings now include the visual and performing arts and outdoor/adventure activities. Park and recreation departments are offering leadership development opportunities, after-school tutoring, community service involvement, and job-training, activities that allow parks and recreation to be considered a central component of positive youth development. Concentrating simply on fun and games will likely position departments as peripheral elements in the overall system, thus reducing their potential for meaningful contribution.

In many cases park and recreation departments have assumed leadership in coordinating community youth services. In this role, departments identify a need to provide a service, but leave service delivery to better-equipped providers. The department, instead, will supply services on a residual basis, filling niches not otherwise available.

Thanks to their extensive networks, park personnel are often able to bring youth development agencies together. For example, in Fort Worth, the park department channels funding to the Boys Clubs for gang intervention. However, political reality means that participating agencies must have their "names above the door" in order to sustain financial support.

Financing Program Efforts

Much of the early funding for youth programs came from state, federal, and foundation grants; community development block grants; and short-term crisis-oriented city funding, Relatively unstable, these sources often restrict their services to narrowly defined programs. Because they are subject to. the vagaries of politics and may quickly disappear when youth issues are reclassified to other issues on the agenda, such funds should be regarded only as seed money to launch new initiatives. Although its political visibility may wax and wane, youth is ever-present, and its needs for service are long-term and pervasive. Funding, therefore, must be ongoing and stable in order to support programs beyond the start-up and demonstration stages.

Unstable funding can intensify young people's distrust of involvement with caring adults and programs. The withdrawal of funding when trust and a mentoring relationship have been established becomes another broken promise.

Inadequate remuneration of youth workers leads to high turnover and a disruption of mentoring relationships. Unfortunately, the national movement to raise teachers' salaries has not extended to other professions that involve working with youth. Instead of compensation relevant to a level of academic proficiency, a system must be developed to reward youth workers, many of whom did not attend college, for their talent, competency, and dedication.

Oftentimes, the best face-to-face workers have to be promoted to managerial positions in order to secure salary increases. Too many youth workers abandon the field when confronted with a choice between their idealism and the reality of earning a higher salary to support their own families.

Staffing

As the perception of the importance of the work being done within the recreation field improves, we will see funding shift to base budgets and the pay and benefits of youth workers fatten. There will also be an expansion of skilled professionals trained to work with youth. Funding cutbacks in the 1980s drastically slashed staff involved in direct, face-to-face leadership positions. Recognition of the need for more youth development workers is beginning to reverse this situation.

To request and justify increased funding, non-degreed young people will need to receive training in mentoring and group work, community and youth development principles, the broader youth development system, financing and acquiring resources, and marketing.

Evaluating Outcomes

At the beginning of the 1990s, evaluation efforts focused almost exclusively on measuring attendance, service quality, and user satisfaction. These are traditional -- although inadequate -- program measures. The forces driving the funding support from youth programs are concerned with outcomes. The critical questions are not, "How many were there?" or "How effectively was the program delivered?" The critical questions are, "What happened to Jose, Mary, Sam, and Juanita as a result of this experience?" and "What return did the community receive on its investment of resources in this program?"

In addition to meeting shareholders' expectations that both individual capacities are improved and risk behaviors are decreased, we will have to ensure that the community is receiving a return on its investment. Therefore, evaluations will also have to measure a program's impact on juvenile crime rates, drug usage, and school-dropout and teen-pregnancy rates, as well as protective factors and resiliency.

Recreation programs may help a young person to identify an adult who will be supportive and available when difficulties arise, interact with positive role models, develop positive attitudes toward school, and understand the consequences of involvement in "risky" situations.

As part of an overall community youth development strategy, more and more park and recreation departments will likely begin to document shifts in crime rates, dropout rates, and teen pregnancies. It may not be possible to identify the exact service component responsible for a drop, but it is vital to demonstrate to stakeholders that the youth development effort is positively affecting the community.

Benefit claims must be based on solid evidence of real program outcomes. Larger departments may have the luxury of hiring program evaluation specialists to supply this evidence, while smaller departments may address the issue by teaming with their youth development counterparts in other organizations.

From Here to There

The youth development movement is growing. Building on today's progress, park and recreation departments will likely turn to their members for support. The scope of the field's contributions must be broadcast to politicians and the public so that adequate funding can be secured. The time has come to move beyond fun and games.

THEME                    ISSUE

Evolving the mission     Mission

                         Prevention vs.
                         intervention focus

                         Focus of programs

Who defines needs        Control of decision-
and plans services?      making

                         Program planning

Building relationships   Program leadership

                         Length of programs

                         Types of recreation
                         activities

Segmenting               Segmentation of
markets                  services and
                         activities

                         Gender specificity

Moving beyond            Place-centered vs.
                         community-centered
                         programming

Becoming part            Integration of
of the system            services

                         Compartmentalized
                         to holistic service
                         model

                         Centrality of services
                         to youth development
                         agenda

                         Perception of program
                         provision role

Financing                Program funding

                         Personal remuneration
                         levels

Staffing                 Staff hiring and training

                         Professional expertise

Evaluating               Program evaluation
program
outcomes

THEME                    Phase I

Evolving the mission     Keep children safe, off the streets, and
                         out of trouble through fun activities

                         Focus on prevention and issues of
                         nonschool time use with little attention
                         to intervention

                         Focus on individual and community
                         liabilities/weaknesses

Who defines needs        Centralized/most decisions made
and plans services?      managers, directors

                         Programs initiated and planned by
                         professional leaders

Building relationships   Activity-based

                         Short-term, one-shot programming

                         Narrow range of activity choices

Segmenting               Distinguish the special needs of teens
markets                  for activities and spaces separate from
                         those of younger children

Moving beyond            Youth come to programs: Programs
                         and services are building- and center-
                         based

Becoming part            Recreation centers with main focus
of the system            on recreation services

                         Compartmentalized service units
                         operating as separate entities

                         Park and recreation department as
                         peripheral component of youth
                         development system

                         Park and recreation department
                         as direct supplier of services

Financing                Short-term funding from grants,
                         special city funds

                         Low salaries without benefits for
                         many recreation workers

Staffing                 Hire recreation workers with minimal
                         training or background in youth
                         development practices

                         Disciplinary perspective
                         (traditional recreation)

Evaluating               Evaluation focus on attendance,
program                  service quality, and user
outcomes                 satisfaction

THEME                    Phase II

Evolving the mission     Expand to include instrumental outcomes
                         such as reduction in drug use, school
                         dropout rate, and gang membership

                         Focus on both prevention and intervention
                         along with key transition periods

                         Focus on building individual and
                         community assets and strengths; replace
                         risk factors with assets

Who defines needs        Decentralized/empowerment of front-line
and plans services?      staff

                         Programs planned and initiated by
                         involving youth, their families, and
                         program leaders; leaders act as mentors
                         and facilitators

Building relationships   Mentoring-based

                         Ongoing programs as part of a long-term,
                         integrated plan

                         Broad range of activity choices including
                         sports, arts, outdoor recreation,
                         leadership development, volunteer service,
                         job skills

Segmenting               Create age-appropriate settings and
markets                  activities for teens

Moving beyond            Services reach out to contact and attract
                         uninvolved youth

Becoming part            Integrated community centers with focus
of the system            on a variety of services

                         Holistic service units operating as part of
                         an integrated, unified system

                         Park and recreation department as central
                         component of youth development system

                         Park and recreation department as
                         "leverager" of resources-- facilitator,
                         coordinator, referrer, and residual
                         supplier when no viable delivery
                         alternative exists

Financing                Base funding from government, voluntary,
                         and private sectors

                         Higher salaries with full benefits to
                         enable field to attract and retain quality
                         personnel

Staffing                 Hire youth workers with knowledge of and
                         ability to undertake youth development
                         practices

                         Interdisciplinary perspective
                         (recreation/youth development/social
                         services)

Evaluating               Evaluation focus on outcomes (risk
program                  reduction, increase protective factors, or
outcomes                 developmental assets)

References

Allen, L.R., Stevens, B., and Harwell, R. 1996. Benefits-Based Management activity planning model for youth in at-risk environments. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 14 (3): 10-9.

Allen, L.R., and McGovern, T.D. 1997. BBM: It's Working. Parks & Recreation 32 (8): 48-55.

Bembry, R. 1998. A youth development strategy: principles to practice in re-creation for the 21st century. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 17 (2): 15-34.

Henderson, K.A., and King, K. 1998. Recreation programming for adolescent girls: Rationale and foundations. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 16 (2): 1-15.

Jessor, R. 1991. Risk behavior in adolescence: A Psychosocial framework for understanding and action. Journal of Adolescent Health 12: 597-605.

Leffert, N., Benson, EL., Scales, P.C., Sharma, A.R., Drake, D.R., and Blyth, D.A. 1998. Developmental assets: Measurement and prediction of rick behaviors among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science 2 (4): 209-30.

National Park and Recreation Association. 1994. Beyond Fun and Games: Emerging roles of public recreation. Ashburn, Va.: National Recreation and Park Association.

Pipher, M. 1997. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the selves of adolescent girls. New York: Putnam Publishing Group.

Pollack, W. 1999. Real boys. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Seidman, E., Lahue, A., Aber, S.L., Mitchell, C., and Feinman, J. 1994. The impact of school transition in early adolescence on the self-system and perceived social context of poor urban youth. Child Development 65: 507-22.

Witt, P.A., & Crompton, J.L. (1996). The at-risk youth recreation project. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 14 (3): 1-9. (Reprinted in Parks & Recreation, 32 (1): 54-61).

Witt, P.A., and Crompton, J.L. (Eds.) 1996. Recreation programs that work for at-risk youth: the challenge of shaping the future. State College, Pa.: Venture Publishing.

Witt, P.A., and Crompton, J.L. 1997. The protective factors framework: A key to programming for benefits and evaluating for results. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 15 (3): 1-18.

In the arena of at-risk youth, parks and recreation has made substantial progress in the 1990s positioning itself in the eyes of community leaders and the public as something more than "fun and games." Those park and recreation departments that allow themselves to be restricted by a limited fun-and-games agenda, say Peter A. Witt, professor and department head, and John L. Crompton, professor, both with the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University, fail to realize that "funding priority is guided by the contribution programs make to alleviating community problems." In the future, the emphasis in at-risk programming is likely to be placed on mentoring and the structuring of long-term relationships.

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