Each year the Search Institute based in Minneapolis, MN, (the organization responsible for initiating the national movement known as the “Healthy Communities Healthy Youth Initiative”) sponsors and hosts a large national, inter-generational conference. This year’s conference, named the Big Tent conference, was held in Houston, TX from November 17-20th and attracted over 1500 people (1000 adults and 500 youth) from 46 states and eight countries. Attending from the Upper Bucks Healthy Communities Healthy Youth Coalition (UBHCHY) were Lynette Reed, UBHCHY Steering Committee Member, Karen Richter, Community Mobilizer from the Palisades community, Lee Rush, Executive Director of justCommunity, Inc and Ryan Stetler, health teacher from Quakertown High School. Also attending the conference and representing the Indian Valley Character Counts! Coalition (IVCCC) were James Brophy, North Penn YMCA Teen Program Director and Kristin Messina, IVCCC Community Mobilizer.
This is not your run-of-the-mill professional development conference. For one thing, it’s populated not with rank and file professional youth workers to the exclusion of all others, but rather, with people from all walks of life—parents, students, ministers, police officers, business owners, government policy makers and people who simply volunteer in their community to benefit young people.
“This event gives us a chance to see what is else is working throughout the country,” said Lee Rush who has attended than 10 Search Institute conferences. “I always come back to Upper Bucks with at least one or more new ideas we can put to work in our community.”
For Kristin Messina, the newly appointed Community Mobilizer for IVCCC, this was her first conference sponsored by the developer of the 40 Developmental Asset approach.
“I really loved the energy created by having both youth and adults under the same roof—or I guess I should say tent!”
Both the UBHCHY and the IVCCC use the Developmental Asset survey with their respective communities when they conduct youth surveys every two years. The results of the survey are shared in the form of the Student Support Card.
See the UBHCHY Coalition’s 2010 Support Card here