Through a combination of community assessment, needs assessment and development, William Byrd Community House (WBCH) is operating a teen-led, teen driven, provocative way to create pathways to success for youth in Highland Park, the North side and the City of Richmond. The concept of the methodology is to develop pathways to success containing components of community engagement, relationship building, exposing youth and community members to new ways of thinking, cultural competency, and activities that eventually lead to social change, social betterment and a shift in paradigms about how our youth are engaged.
Every program in the Greater Richmond Metro Area exists due to an identified need for services. The teens in Highland Park have a need that William Byrd Community House can fill. Working together with the community, the goals of this effort are:
- create and maintain a teen-led, teen-driven, provocative way to create pathways to success for the teens in Highland Park
- provide a place to go that is an alternative to what already exists - hanging out on the streets
- expose teens to other ways of seeing the world and shift their paradigm and world view
What We Envision
A teen center led by teens that is provocative - this means that teens have direct input into the development and maintenance of activities and happenings for the teen center. Most agencies working in the area of social services and program delivery maintain best practices and are guided by the decisions made solely by adults who believe that they have the answers. Programs fail because the adults designing and implementing the program make an assumption that they know what teens need and want from programs. Adults can use data such as the census and community assessments to determine a baseline for needs in a community. However, we must take the next step and ask the youth we are targeting what they want and need for any program to be successful.
The Highland Park teen center is provocative in the way we engage and encourage teens to give direct input into what activities occur and how the center constantly changes. The vision for this effort is to provide pathways to success that are determined by the teens, not by adults who are not ‘in their world'. William Byrd will provide guidance, management, process and structure to this effort. However, the teens will be responsible for doing the hard work - succeeding.
