Society's conventional response to problems of young people--such as teenage pregnancy, school dropout, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and violence--is to target a specific problem and develop intervention or prevention programs for individuals who manifest the problem or are at high risk of it. Research shows that overlapping risk and protective factors affect the occurrence of all of these problems and that prevention strategies aimed at enhancing youths' development, reducing communities' specific risks, and strengthening protective factors are likely to be more successful than programs addressing the problem behaviors themselves. Among such strategies deserving wider consideration are "comprehensive community initiatives" that create collaborative partnerships among public officials, service providers, primary institutions, and citizens to promote the well-being of children, youths, and families.
As the demographics of the United States change, it is important for youth workers to be able to adapt. Most established forms of youth services model the norms and values of the dominant Western culture. To best engage with a complete spectrum of youth, it is vital to take their backgrounds into account. This means being trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and mindful of serving the whole community. This article demonstrates how these salient frameworks informed a partnership between service-learning university students and Puerto Rican youth who were displaced by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Racial, ethnic, and cultural context impacts how communities perceive problems, and ultimately their perception of what is deemed helpful. Thus, a lack of awareness of these particularities can render service-learning efforts ineffective. This chapter highlights a 12-year service-learning partnership between a predominantly White, comprehensive, liberal arts college and the local Haudenosaunee community. Pedagogical strategies utilizing the Six Requirements (6Rs) of service-learning and informed by cultural humility act as a transformative way to facilitate student readiness to engage with the said community. Cultural humility is positioned as a process that transforms service-learning into critical service-learning, as it enhances students' ability to engage in critical self-reflection, mitigating the toxic elements and empathic failures of uninformed service-learning efforts. This chapter contributes to more mindful service-learning efforts, challenging all to work with service-learning partners in a manner that keeps community voice and choice at the core of service.
Racial, ethnic, and cultural context impacts how communities perceive problems, and ultimately their perception of what is deemed helpful. Thus, a lack of awareness of these particularities can render service-learning efforts ineffective. This chapter highlights a 12-year service-learning partnership between a predominantly White, comprehensive, liberal arts college and the local Haudenosaunee community. Pedagogical strategies utilizing the Six Requirements (6Rs) of service-learning and informed by cultural humility act as a transformative way to facilitate student readiness to engage with the said community. Cultural humility is positioned as a process that transforms service-learning into critical service-learning, as it enhances students' ability to engage in critical self-reflection, mitigating the toxic elements and empathic failures of uninformed service-learning efforts. This chapter contributes to more mindful service-learning efforts, challenging all to work with service-learning partners in a manner that keeps community voice and choice at the core of service.
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