"It takes a village to raise a child" | Research Thanks to a five-year grant from the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a taxpayer-supported federal
agency, we can carry on our research at the Village Project much more
successfully. We are currently working on the Community Connections
study. Community Connections include relationships between friends,
family, neighbors, teachers, and others who may know each other and
cooperate to help a young person in their lives to succeed and to be
happy. For example, some parents talk to family, neighbors, and friends
about how their child is doing in school, and before long everyone is
asking that child about school and encouraging them to do well. This
is an illustration of the African proverb “It Takes a Village
to Raise a Child” When members of a child’s village work
together, this is a positive Community Connection, and we think that
the more a child has, the better. Our current study focuses on African
American families, because culture is an important part of a child’s
experiences, relationships, and well-being. The
Community Connections study has three phases. Our first phase of the
study will take a close look at the different kinds of Community Connections
that support youth and how they happen. Youth, their parents, and community
members will tell us about their Community Connections - people that
they know and the ways that they come together in support of each youth.
In the second phase of the study we will use what we’ve learned
to figure out how to accurately measure the amount and types of Community
Connections that kids have. In the third phase, we will measure Community
Connections in a large group of African American youth and their families
in order to test our theory that kids living in high risk areas will
feel better and act in more positive ways if they have more Community
Connections. In other words, although kids living in lower income areas
affected by high crime sometimes end up having emotional or behavioral
problems, we think that having lots of caring people who work together
to help them grow up can protect them from the risks of the streets.
In the long run, we want to help make sure that all kids in the community
have the Community Connections that they need. This goal is as important
to us as the challenge of making communities safer and making sure that
neighborhood residents have everything they need to live comfortably.In
the future, we plan to expand our research by including families from
other cultures. We also plan to study the importance of Community Connections
to youth who live in other settings, such as suburban communities. These
days all kids face risks and we would like to better understand ways
of helping them to have positive, happy lives. |
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