The Beat
Subscribe to RSS FeedManaging money can be one of the toughest skills for young people to learn as they transition to adulthood. We spoke to Karen Chan, creator of All My Money, a hands-on curriculum emphasizing money management skills for people with limited financial resources. In this two-part series, we share Chan’s tips on teaching young people about spending, saving and making good money choices.
Learning to live on what they earn and not overspend is the most important money-management concept for youth, Chan says. It’s also the most challenging for them to learn. For one thing, she says, the cost of very basic living today is beyond the income that many young people can expect to earn, at least in the short-term.
And when young people just start out earning money, it’s easy for them to have unrealistic expectations of their income and what they can afford. Youth workers can help young people set a budget and figure out how to stick to it.
Six Steps to Making a Monthly Budget for Youth
- Have young people track their expenses for a month so they can see where their money goes. Include even small expenses. Be as complete and accurate as possible so you can help set a realistic budget.
- Ask young people to divide their expenses into needs (expenses that are unavoidable) and wants (expenses that could be cut if necessary). Help young people make a list of their regular, unavoidable expenses and the dates they must be paid. That way, they’ll never miss a payment.
- Help young people figure out their weekly or monthly income. Include full- or part-time jobs, odd jobs and other earnings.
- Explain the importance of savings, and help youth open a bank account. Talk about what they might want to save money for in the long term: a car, college, a home. Explain how checks work and how banks operate. Be sure to mention interest payments and possible service charges.
- Have young people also set some short-term spending goals. Help them figure out how much money needs to be set aside in the budget to meet their goals, like buying a new bike or cell phone or paying the deposit for a new apartment.
- Finally, help young people prioritize their expenses. Encourage them to put saving for their long- and short-term goals at the top of the list. Then have them list the rest of the expenses, in order of preference. If they run out of money before they run out of items on their list, the things at the bottom get cut.
Bean Counting Game
It might be hard for young people to wrap their minds around budgeting at first. Chan suggests playing a simple game with beans. Give young people a certain number of beans, which represents their budget for the week. Game cards represent different expenses. Young people must make decisions about budgeting and what they can afford to buy.
In the middle of the game, their budget is reduced, they lose some of their beans, and they have to create a new budget. They have to decide what to do next.
Chan says you can use this activity to start discussions about decision-making, the need for trade-offs, what’s important to each individual, and needs versus wants.
More Information
All My Money is a train-the-trainer program for staff and volunteers in community agencies and social service organizations. For more information, email Karen Chan at chank@illinois.edu.
For more financial education resources, check out the Jump$tart Coalition Clearinghouse.
What Do You Think?
How do you teach youth to live within their means? Email us and let us know.
"The Protective Effect of Family Strengths in Childhood against Adolescent Pregnancy and Its Long-Term Psychosocial Consequences" (PDF, 885 KB). The Permanente Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, Fall 2010.
What it's about: This study examines how family strengths, such as closeness, support, loyalty, protection, love, and responsiveness to healthcare needs, may protect teens from getting pregnant, having risky sex and dealing with other psychological and social problems. The researchers surveyed over 4,000 young women about childhood abuse, substance abuse in the home, domestic violence, mental illness and other family problems during the first 18 years of their lives.
Why read it: Previous research suggests that positive childhood experiences protect young women from becoming pregnant as teens. However, not many studies have considered how these strengths may buffer against the problems teens may face, such as family money problems or divorce. This study looks at the interplay between the positive and the negative factors that affect teen girls.
Biggest take away for youth workers: The more family strengths girls had, the less likely they were to become pregnant or have long-term psychosocial problems. Girls who had problems at home especially benefited from having family strengths. Other findings include:
- Teen girls with communicative families and supportive parents started having sex at a later age, had fewer sex partners, and were more likely to use condoms than their peers.
- Some of the same benefits teen girls receive from family strengths can also be achieved by attending youth programs that build competence and confidence through supportive relationships not only with parents but also with peers and mentors. These relationships may fulfill a need for closeness otherwise sought through sex.
- Youth development program efforts that build family strengths in childhood are likely to promote teens' positive choices related to women's health that last many years.
The authors suggest that youth workers talk to young women to find out their family strengths as well as the bad experiences or circumstances they may have had at home. Knowing a young woman's background can help youth workers understand why girls make certain decisions or take risks when it comes to sex.
Additional reference: The Child Welfare Administration Gateway’s resource page on protective factors explains what individual and family strengths are and provides tools youth workers can use to measure young people's strengths.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of this and other publications.)
This winter, runaway and homeless youth programs funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau were given the chance to win the materials to paint a mural in their facilities. Here are the essay and artwork submitted by the first place winner, the Colorado Rural Collaborative Youth Leadership Team.
What is the Colorado Mural Project?
Each year the month of November is "National Homeless Youth Awareness Month." Agencies across the nation hold events and host rallies to raise awareness in their communities about this ongoing problem. The month's events include proclamations signed by local government officials, youth-driven projects seeking to bring the public's attention to this issue, and the Green Light Project (in which green lights are used to light up front porches and bring attention to this problem).
Colorado has a special committee consisting of many youth-serving agencies across the state that congregate once a month to plan for the month of November. Each year one of the priorities is choosing a youth project to impact the public and help raise awareness. This year the Colorado Rural Collaborative Youth Leadership Team led the project. The theme for November 2011 was "Making the Connection." The project would highlight "Making the Connection" symbolically by combining tiles from nine different youth-serving agencies in one large and powerful composition. The Mural Project invited youth-serving agencies from across the state to participate. Two of the nine selected were our own Youth Leadership Teams from the Supportive Services for Runaway and Homeless Youth Demonstration Project: Garfield and Montrose Counties.
Agencies as far as the Western-slope, Denver and Pueblo in the south participated in this statewide collaboration. Each agency was given a digitally sketched portion of a larger composition which they had to enlarge to a 3'x3' tile. The youth groups across the state chose any medium and article style to render their tile, while keeping the original composition in mind. The completed three-foot squares were then submitted to the SSRHY Project Specialist, Amanda Cleveland of Urban Peak Denver and the Colorado Rural Collaborative. Amanda facilitates monthly meetings via conference call with the six Rural Youth Leadership Teams of the Colorado Rural Collaborative to coordinate projects like the mural contest. The final work was displayed during the Denver Kickoff Event, November 4, 2011, on the Santa Fe Art District First Friday Artwalk, which was attended by thousands of people. Youth leaders from both Montezuma and Garfield County were there to promote awareness of homeless and runaway youth, pass out literature and green lights, and talk about the mural project's symbolic meaning. The mural then moved to the Colorado State Capitol building for nine days.
The mural represents several important things:
- Positive Youth Development, because youth led the project
- November being National Homeless Youth Awareness Month
- The Green Light Project
- Imagery of homeless youth
- Colorado (a map of the state is faded into the very background layer of the composition)
- The theme of Making the Connection, because youth from across Colorado created the tiles in their communities, and once the tiles came together the whole composition created a resonating message of collaboration being a key element of success
Additional 2012 Winners:
Mural Contest Second Place Winner: A Lifeline to Those in Need, Sea Haven Transitional Living Program Junior Advisory Team, in Horry County, SC
Mural Contest Third Place Winner: Tree of Life, Growth and Change, Sasha Bruce YouthWork in Washington, DC
"A Family Intervention to Reduce Sexual Behavior, Substance Use, and Delinquency Among Newly Homeless Youth." Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol. 50, No. 4, April 2012.
What it’s about: Support to Reunite, Involve and Value Each Other, or STRIVE, is a five-session, in-home program that aims to repair homeless youths’ relationships with their families. Researchers wanted to see how well the intervention worked at keeping homeless 12- to 17-year-olds from having risky sex, using drugs and getting in trouble with the law. Each STRIVE session uses cognitive-behavioral theories, which help families learn better problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills.
Why read it: Researchers have found a number of programs, curricula and practices that improve the education, employment, family relationships and health of at-risk youth in general. But few studies have specifically investigated the effectiveness of these interventions when used with homeless youth. This study adds to the small but growing list of “evidence-based” interventions proven to work well with homeless youth.
Biggest takeaways for youth workers: Compared to a control group, youth who participated in STRIVE had fewer sex partners, were less likely to use hard drugs, drank less and got into less trouble with the law for at least a year after the sessions ended. The study was limited to families that were only moderately dysfunctional, however. Youth in the study couldn’t be away from home for longer than six months and had to have the option of moving home. Young people in the study also couldn’t be under the influence of drugs, have an untreated mental health condition, or suffer from ongoing abuse or neglect. Nonetheless, the authors see their results as a good start and an indication that other ways of engaging the parents of homeless youth could have long-term benefits.
Additional reference: View this recent PowerPoint presentation from a webinar by the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Center for American Progress to learn about another family intervention specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth, the Family Therapy Intervention Pilot. The issue brief "Reconnecting At-Risk and Homeless LGBTQ Youth with Family" also describes this intervention, which is set to be evaluated in November of this year.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of these and other publications.)
In February, the Guttmacher Institute released “Facts on American Teens' Sexual and Reproductive Health,” a survey of over two-dozen recent studies and publications on the topic of adolescent sexual behavior. This is the first such survey from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that promotes sexual and reproductive health, since 2009.
Laura Lindberg, a senior research associate at Guttmacher, spoke with NCFY about the report’s implications for youth workers and organizations that aim to prevent teen preganancy.
NCFY: Can you summarize the general trends in teen pregnancy and contraception?
LINDBERG: The major trends are first, a decline in teen pregnancy over the last two decades. It’s been declining relatively steadily since a high in 1991. And second, there has been a slight delay in the onset of sexual activity—that is, teens are waiting longer to have sex. I use the word “slight” because, for example, 15 and 16 year olds tend to be waiting until they’re 17 to have sex, but by age 19 there’s been little change. They’re not waiting until they get married or even until they’re 25.
Even more dramatic is the increase in contraception use over the last twenty years. It’s an extraordinary social change [to see this many] adolescents using contraception. A large portion of that shift is a rise in condom use. So we need to remember that when we talk about teen pregnancy prevention, teenage boys are playing a large role in this. Over this same time, access to condoms and the social messaging around them have changed dramatically.
NCFY: What practices or policies seem to have created these trends?
LINDBERG: Certainly, HIV education. As a society, in the mid-80s and early-90s we started talking about HIV in a public way—a way that sex had never been discussed before. Teens in 2010 might not be concerned about AIDS, but the whole cultural environment had been changed. We had to talk with teens about sex. As a result, many topics of discussion—including condoms and safe sex—have been de-stigmatized.
As for the delay in sexual behavior, we’ve seen a greater emphasis on talking to teens about waiting until they’re ready. There’s a greater understanding that sex is part of developmentally appropriate maturity.
NCFY: According to the fact sheet, “Seventy percent of male teens and 79% of female teens report talking with a parent about at least one of six sex education topics.” What can youth workers take from this, assuming many of their clients won’t have these kinds of discussions at home?
LINDBERG: The research shows that when parents talk with teens about sex, what’s important is that they share their values, not just a specific piece of information. And the Adolescent Health Survey points to the importance of teens’ relationships with caring adults, which don’t necessarily have to be parents. When there’s some adult that a youth feels connected to, that’s someone they might take information and values from.
Youth workers have the potential to be that connected adult in teens’ lives, or to bring youth into contact with those people. Additionally, youth-serving programs provide an alternate forum—besides the family, besides school—to supplement and fill in gaps that teens aren’t getting in these other places. Some teens learn better in different environments. If they didn’t learn something in school, or didn’t learn it at home for whatever reason, maybe they will learn in a more youth-focused setting.
More From NCFY
We looked at ways to prevent teen pregnancy in "The Exchange: A New Push for Teen Pregnancy Prevention."
Q. A young person who was staying in our emergency shelter for homeless youth recently passed away. We’ve offered counseling and support to youth. But our staff is still reeling and having trouble coping. How can we help them deal with their grief?
A. First, please accept our condolences. No matter the circumstances, the death of a young person is shocking and tragic.
You’re right to worry about your staff. When a client of a social services agency dies, it’s normal for staff members to go through waves of hurt, anger, depression, shock, denial and guilt, says Brandon Hunt, a professor who teaches human services at Pennsylvania State University. “Any of the ‘stages of grief’ are all normal reactions,” he says.
Youth workers dealing with a client’s death may also have “reactive behaviors,” he says, like lashing out at their clients, feeling depressed and having difficulty getting through day-to-day tasks.
You can help by empathizing and encouraging your employees to take care of themselves, Hunt says. Advise them to keep living their lives and doing the hobbies that interest them. Tell them how important it is to eat breakfast each morning, get a good night’s rest and just generally stay in good health. Suggest that they might want to write their memories of the deceased youth in a journal.
You can take more formal steps, as well. Joey Lopez recalls the death 12 years ago of Ali Forney, a young client of what was then the Safe Space Center, a runaway and homeless youth program in New York. Lopez, an outreach worker who still works at the center (since renamed the Ali Forney Center), says the organization took a number of steps to help staff members cope with the devastating loss.
Youth workers learned of Forney’s murder at an emergency staff meeting, where they could lean on each other for support. Then the center arranged for grief counseling at an outside agency, so staff members, if they chose to visit, could work through their feelings about the death. Staff also was told they could take as much time off as they needed to grieve. And the center had an “open door policy,” which meant staff could discuss their feelings about Ali’s death at any time with anyone else on staff.
Lopez says the end goal is to “process it, go through the feelings, and not let it affect your job.” That may be easier for some staff members than for others, but the more you support your staff, the easier it will be for them to navigate this difficult time.
More Information
NCFY has written about how staff of youth-serving agencies can avoid burnout.
Wouldn't it be nice to have one central source to find what works in education? The U.S. Department of Education thought so and created the What Works Clearinghouse. Staff reviewed thousands of studies on hundreds of education programs, products, practices and policies. They identified as many reliable sources as possible. Then, they organized them in a searchable online database. When you visit the clearinghouse website you can
- Use the Find What Works tool to search for interventions (educational programs, practices, or policies) that address academic achievement, dropout prevention, personal and social development, language development, reading and writing, and math and science.
- Search by topic, such as career readiness and college access, school choice, student behavior and special needs students.
- Find research studies reviewed by the clearinghouse and original publications about education practices that have been studied.
This winter, runaway and homeless youth programs funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau were given the chance to win the materials to paint a mural in their facilities. In a series of Beat posts, we recognize the runners-up and the winner. Here are the essay and artwork submitted by the second-place winner, Sea Haven Transitional Living Program Junior Advisory Team, in Horry County, SC.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This is what the Junior Advisory team tried do when we discovered the mural contest. Create a piece of artwork that needed no explaining but speaks for itself. I think that our goal was achieved.
We are the Junior Advisory Team for Sea Haven’s transitional living program, an organization created to help teen runaways ages 16 to 21. This organization not only helps find a home for the teens but also plays a key role in helping them apply for college, or a job, and even helps supply them with clothing. The transitional living program plays a crucial role in supporting teens in their dreams and creating lifetime lasting bonds, giving the adolescents a new start at life. Currently the transitional living program office is a little bit dull. We are looking for something new and interesting to spice the office up, to make it more memorable and stand out. Having this mural would be just the thing.
There were many ideas discussed for this project. We wanted it to be perfect. We thought about what the transitional living program means to us and what it symbolizes to others. We discussed putting the Sea Haven symbol. Also, we discussed hands reaching up and grabbing the world, and so many more ideas. We eventually settled on hands reaching out for each other because Sea Haven reaches out to teens who might otherwise end up on the streets fighting for survival. Sea Haven gives them a second chance, a new beginning.
As you can see, the picture portrays two hands. The bleeding hand represents the people who join the transitional living program, battered and beaten but still reaching for something, someone, anything. The blood symbolizes the past tears shed and painful mistakes made. They have their differences from others but are just as hurt and need help just like everyone else. The unbeaten hand indicates the program as a whole reaching out to the lost, misunderstood souls. The hand is grabbing the beaten hand, which is depicted as though it’s going to give in. This demonstrates that the transitional living program is a lifeline to those in need.
Is this a thousand words? Maybe not, but it's enough to give you a glimpse into our artwork. It always makes a difference to understand the theme of a piece. It deepens the meaning and emotional connection between the viewer and the artist. Maybe a thousand words are not enough to explain a true artist’s image, but I believe we captured the essence of his message.
Additional 2012 Winners:
Mural Contest First Place Winner: Colorado Teens Take a Stand Against Youth Homelessness, Colorado Rural Collaborative Youth Leadership Team
Mural Contest Third Place Winner: Tree of Life, Growth and Change, Sasha Bruce YouthWork in Washington, DC
“Classroom Goal Structures and HIV and Pregnancy Prevention Education in Rural High School Health Classrooms” (abstract). Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(4), 904–922 (December 2011).
What it’s about: Researchers surveyed 5,000 rural high school students to find out what kind of classroom environment helps students learn more about sexual health and then put that learning to use. Should teachers stress the material’s importance or emphasize getting good grades? Students answered the survey before the class began and then three months and one year after the class ended.
Why read it: We know there are a number of good curricula for teaching teens about sexual health. We also know that students do better in traditional subjects like English, math and science when teachers emphasize learning for learning’s sake. This study looks into whether that philosophy matters when it comes to health studies classes.
Biggest takeaways for youth workers: Learning for learning’s sake does indeed help young people master sexual health topics and retain their knowledge for a longer period of time, the researchers say. Students who thought their teacher emphasized the importance of what they were learning were more likely to say they knew how to use a condom and how to say no to sex, even a year after the class, compared to students who thought grades were stressed.
Young people who thought their teacher really wanted them to know the material also reported more positive attitudes about waiting to have sex and better communication with their parents. Fewer of them intended to have sex. Again, the effects remained a year after the class was over.
The key takeaway for teachers, the authors say, is to convey that they support students’ learning and truly want students to understand the material.
Additional reference: ANSWER, at Rutgers University, offers online and in-person training for sexual health educators.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of these and other publications.)
Hundreds of organizations around the country work hard every day to give shelter, food, counseling and support to young people who have run away or become homeless.
The Family and Youth Services Bureau funds many of those programs. It also provides a network of support services: a national hotline for runaway youth, a training and technical assistance center, and us—the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth.
Recently, FYSB’s network of support for runaway and homeless youth organizations worked together to help a young man cross borders and get back home. Read on to find out how.
Andy’s Story
“Andy” was a runaway youth, on his own in New York and yearning to reconnect with his family. Trouble was, they were in Mexico City, where Andy had grown up. He was undocumented and nervous that asking for help would lead to trouble with immigration officials.
Andy’s immigration status did not get in the way of him getting help from FYSB’s network of services for runaway and homeless youth. FYSB does not require youth served by the network to disclose their legal status in the United States.
The Network Steps In
Here’s how the FYSB network sprang into action:
- A FYSB-funded runaway and homeless youth program in New York gave Andy a place to stay.
- The Runaway and Homeless Youth Training and Technical Assistance Centers researched his various options for getting from New York to Texas, where he could reunite with his family.
- The National Runaway Switchboard helped Andy get a free bus ticket to Texas through “Home Free,” a partnership with Greyhound Lines.
- A FYSB-funded runaway and homeless youth program on the Texas-Mexico border welcomed Andy when he arrived on the Greyhound from New York.
Andy crossed the border and reunited with his family one day later.
Need Help?
If you need to help a young person in crisis, call 1-800-RUNAWAY, or go to the National Runaway Switchboard’s live chat.
If you’re a Runaway and Homeless Youth Program grantee in need of training or technical assistance, call RHYTTAC at 1 (800) 806-2711, or go to their website.
If you need general information about starting, running or funding a youth program, call NCFY at (301) 608-8098, or request a live chat.
If you need to find a runaway and homeless youth program near you (or somewhere else in the country), go to the FYSB grantee map.
