City, school leaders discuss building up city's youth

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MIDDLETOWN — School and city officials gathered Tuesday, May 11, to get guidance on successful ways to implement the 40 Developmental Assets for youths.

The collective group was coached by Rusty Clifford, superintendent of West Carrollton Schools, and Addie Weaver, Kettering’s youth development coordinator, who touted the positive results implementing the assets has had on their respective communities.

“It’s not about what they need to stop doing, it’s about what they need to start doing,” Clifford said. “It’s an opportunity for all of us to embrace the youth of our community. It’s not a program or curriculum, it’s a way to interact with youth.”

Clifford said it takes a combination of schools, city officials and area organizations working together to yield positive results. The push needs to start with the mayor and superintendent, he said.

“There has to be a champion, someone who says they’ll make it jell,” Clifford said. “You need to find a person who is going to keep excitement up and keep it going.”

The 40 Developmental Assets is a program introduced in 1990 by the Search Institute focusing on the building blocks to a child’s successful future.

“Middletown schools have been doing this for a while, but it has to be something shared throughout the whole community for it to work well,” said parent volunteer Glenna Fisher.

School board member Greg Tyus said the major stumbling block lies in “connecting the dots” between different organizations within the community already implementing the assets.

“It’s kind of like going to the doctor, but going to all different specialists instead of seeing one primary physician,” Tyus said. “Different organizations are doing the asset work, but we aren’t connecting the dots.”

“Most of us support the work, we just don’t know we do,” he said.

The Developmental Assets program focuses on support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies and positive identity. All of these areas are common for children ages 3 to 18, but their application is different depending on a child’s age.

For example, with the asset “service to others,” a young child begins with having “opportunities to perform simple and caring actions for others” and by the time he or she reaches ages 12 though 18, the child should perform at least one hour of community service each week.