Making It: What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World by Stephanie Malia Krauss

Author:Stephanie Malia Krauss [Krauss, Stephanie Malia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: education, Counseling, General, Leadership, Professional Development
ISBN: 9781119577072
Google: X80cEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2021-02-10T00:04:49.107523+00:00

Connections That Matter Most

The social lives of today's kids must extend far beyond digital “friends” and shallow forms of hyperconnectivity. In a strange and unpredictable world, today's kids need a vibrant, diverse, and durable assembly of friends, supports, and social connections. Most of all, they need lifelines, door openers, and navigators. These individuals form the base of a young person's social network—the kind that extends beyond social media—to provide real life care, community, identity, opportunity, and power.

Lifelines. Lifelines are the people who have your back, no matter what. Their role is to cheer you on, pick you up, and push you forward when life is hard. Lifelines can be friends, co-workers, mentors, clergy, counselors, teachers, coaches, or family members. They offer safety, stability, and support. These are the people who you care for and who care for you. Lifelines do not need to increase a young person's social capital. They just need to be there, meeting the young person where they are, offering free and ongoing love and support.

Door Openers. Door openers do not need to be in your life for long. A door opener might be a lifeline (or become one later) but doesn't have to be. This is a person who or program that opens the door to a better opportunity, perhaps one that might have been closed or otherwise unknown. Door openers are social mobilizers and bridges, introducing or integrating young people into their own networks and groups, extending their social capital and connections to provide new social, cultural, and economic benefits. Those born into wealthy families may inherit powerful door openers. Not having access to door openers inflames disparities.

Navigators. Navigators are people who help us figure out how a new opportunity, environment, or experience works. Navigators can be counselors, mentors, supervisors, or peer advisors. They can be self-appointed or assigned. In school, navigators might be someone older, like a student leader with a similar background, or even a caring teacher or professor. In the workplace, navigators can be colleagues from the same department or location who have been there longer. Navigators may have had a similar experience with a system or situation—sometimes because they share an identity with the young person, such as race or gender. Navigators help us understand the culture of a place, what to expect and what is expected of us. Navigators might start off as door openers and can often become lifelines, but that is not always the case. Navigators are the people to ask what something means, where something is, or how to get something done.

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