LISTENING TO OUR TEENS
An Asheville City Schools Foundation Listening Project
Addressing Truancy, Gangs and Other Issues
Impacting Asheville, NC Middle School Kids
1. Project Description: This Listening Project which is begins in May 2008, will explore
the ways in which our schools, nonprofits, and other community agencies in Asheville
can better serve approximately 700 youth between the ages of 11-14, or who are in
grades 6-8, and their families.
Over the last year we have seen a shocking increase in youth violence. Because of the
recent increase in gang related activities, there is a ground swell of interest in trying to
understand how we can better engage young people in the life of our community. This
climate poses a strategic opportunity to mobilize the community in an effort to gather
information about the needs of our early teens. Listening Projects employ strategies
proven effective for gathering information about community problems, and identifying
potential solutions. The Asheville City Schools Foundation, in partnership with the City
of Asheville, the Asheville City Schools, and other community agencies, is inspired to
provide the support and infrastructure to a Listening Project so that we can understand
how to create attractive, engaging programs that will foster in young teens the best they
have to offer.
Window of Opportunity in Middle School
In 2006 in Buncombe County, 26,182 crimes were committed by young people between
the ages of six and fifteen (North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice, 2006). In
large part these crimes were after school and before parents returned home from work.
The statistics show that while juvenile crime can be attributed to overlapping factors, the
major contributing factors were associations with other delinquent peers and poor
performance in school. These contributing factors highlight the need for programs that
engage young people after school, support academic achievement, and capitalize on
their creative energy.
Furthermore, the research shows that children decide to drop out of high school during
their freshmen year and that an intervention must be made to engage them before they
make the transition to high school. Issues impacting 11-14 year olds in Asheville are no
less dramatic than the issues facing older teens. We know that those teens that do not
complete high school were “lost” in middle school, and likewise those who succeed
were nurtured and supported in those early adolescent years.
Although there is a scarcity of programs for young teens, this is not the only reason
youth crime and failure to complete high school are occurring. Each year attempts are
made and programs created to address these problems, but these programs are not as
successful as they could be. This is because of a lack of information about what kinds
of programs will reach this particular segment of youth in our community. We must
engage in a practice of listening to these young people, providing them with safe forums
to discuss their lives, as well as engage their parents, educators and community leaders
in exploring the ways that we can better serve them. We want young teens to engage
in the life of our community so that they will weather the transitions from elementary to
middle and middle to high school as individuals who are prepared to take on the
increasing challenge of becoming our community’s future.
2. Grant Activities
Phase I: A constituent group composed of a cross section of the Asheville community
will be formed to serve as the Listening Project Leadership Committee (LPLC). With
training provided by Rural Southern Voices for Peace (RSVP), and facilitation and
coordination provided by Chrysalis Consulting, the LPLC will participate in two
workshops focused on the tools and methods of successful listening projects. In six
project organizing meetings, the LPLC will clarify project specifics, enhance the
community coalition, and create survey questions about the needs of early teens. Also,
the Leadership Committee will secure funding for the remaining phases of the project.
Phase II: Volunteer interviewers will be trained to engage students, parents, teachers,
service providers and community representatives in thoughtful conversations about the
needs of early teens, to elicit participants’ suggestions, and to use their input as part of
the knowledge building process to serve youth better. 300 interviews will be held. The
data will be organized and synthesized.
Phase III: Based on the information gathered, the constituent group and community
leaders will articulate community goals and strategies to enhance services for youth in a
series of facilitated meetings.
3. Target population: Asheville Middle school is approximately 49% white, 44% African
American, 6% Hispanic and 2% Asian or Native American. Because this project will
seek to create a representative constituent group of surveyed students, it will directly
benefit all current Asheville Middle School students, and those rising from the Asheville
elementary schools, their families, and the schools and agencies that serve them.
Indirectly, the entire community of Asheville will be benefited by this project with more
effective programs, and more engaged youth.
4. Project Impact:
a) There are approximately 700 students at Asheville Middle or in the RLC program
who are between the ages of 11-14. During Phase I, a representative group of
these young teens will have the opportunity to act as leaders, participate in
training, and assist in designing the project and the survey questions. In phase II,
at least 100 teens will be heard in meaningful, thoughtful interviews. In Phase III,
student leaders will participate in the process of creating community goals and
recommendations for enhanced youth services. As a result of this entire
process, young teens will benefit from more engaging, supportive and
transformative services.
b) As previous Listening Projects have shown, we can expect these significant
outcomes:
1. The development of a Leadership Team that is trained, committed, and
competent in talking to, with, and about our community’s young teens.
2. A wealth of excellent data that will inform decisions and shape programs
to fund and execute effective programs and much needed reforms.
3. A published report of community goals, with recommendations and action
steps for serving our youth, made available to every youth serving agency
in Asheville City.
4.
c) One method to track our progress will be participation on the LPLC by diverse
community leaders, students, and service providers. The success of this project
will be determined in part by the ownership this group feels over the process.
The commitment of the 15 members will be one indicator of success. Because
the goal of this project is the collection of meaningful, in-depth information,
another indicator of success will be the creation of key questions to be used
during the interview process. These questions will be thought provoking,
accessible, and relevant to a wide variety of teens and adults. We will track our
progress by testing our questions on representative groups in the community.
d) We will know that we have succeeded in building community commitment to the
project when 50 community volunteers complete the training to serve as
interviewers. The completion of 300 interviews, that represent our community,
and the synthesis of that data, will demonstrate that we have succeeded in
capturing valuable information.