Cultivating Hope and Optimism
With teenage pregnancy on the rise, a 14 percent and 20 percent increase in juvenile arrests for drug and violence related crimes respectively in 1998, more than 27 percent of juveniles appearing before court for carnal abuse/rape in that same year, and youth in the 10 to 19 age group contributing to 32 percent of attempted suicide cases in 1999 (Youth Reaching Youth, personal communication, November 15, 2010) Informed Hope has chosen to focus its attention on Jamaica’s youth. As cited in our previous research, poverty accounts for the majority of developmental, social, and cognitive problems in children and “undermines their chance for successful lives” (Novotney, 2010); still, there is hope. From our research review of early-intervention programs focusing on low-income/high-risk children, we know that such programs, especially those that are well-designed and delivered effectively, provide a host of positive outcomes for this target population and can help prevent the grim statistics such as those describing the case of Jamaica’s youth.
As we do not intend to be corrective nor curative in our interventions, but rather, focus on enhancing and mobilizing existing strengths in a proactive and culturally sensitive manner, we seek to create an intervention for Jamaican children at the early childhood level that will enable them to face adversity in a healthy and resilient manner. Like Peterson (2004), we believe that stressors may have health enhancing consequences, and because they are omni-present, it is best to equip youth with ways of dealing and responding to stress in healthy ways that lead to high life satisfaction and well being. Research has shown that the higher a child’s life satisfaction is, the less likely he or she will engage in violent problem behaviors such as fighting, weapon carrying and dating violence (Peterson, 2004). While some external factors can be controlled in order to foster and promote healthy development in children such as the provision of a proper educational facility, curriculum, staff etc. it is important to strengthen key virtues within the child that will enable them to be hopeful, optimistic, socially well adjusted and resistant to stressors or a lack of resources in the environment.
Despite our intentions for this early childhood intervention, many challenges lie ahead in its implementation and planning. The debate about which values are the most important to foster and what is culturally appropriate and “ideal” given the context of the child’s surroundings is just one challenge. There is also the challenge of creating an intervention that can adequately assess and measure positive outcomes as opposed to problem outcomes, which are typically easier to measure given the concreteness of their existence (Peterson, 2004). For example, one can easily measure the number of times a child has bitten another child, or disrupted class, but how does one measure concepts such as optimism and hope? Lastly, the challenge lies in the fact that our interventions should be applicable to daily life and its effects should be long lasting and self-supporting.
As our foundation is called “Informed Hope” we believe that the core values we need to foster in Jamaica’s children are hope and optimism. Through our association and collaboration with the LAJ (Love, Altruism and Justice) Foundation we have focused on targeting children ages four to five at a primary school in Kingston, Jamaica: The Pauline Gentles Basic School. This school is not amongst Kingston’s wealthiest nor most prestigious schools, and as ascertained from a needs-analysis gathered from the LAJ Foundation, is lacking in many basic resources such as educational charts and books, art supplies, toys, educational DVD’s, first aid kits, kitchen appliances and tools to provide lunch for the children. Many of the children that attend these schools also come from low-income families and do not enjoy the self-perpetuating privileges that children from wealthier families enjoy, such as access to technology, engagement in extra-curricular activities that complement their education and access to family resources and network opportunities etc.
Given their economic, social and educational disadvantage, it is important to cultivate hope and optimism in these children. Peterson (2004) has found hope and optimism to be associated with a variety of positive outcomes, namely, “greater success at academics, less depression and anxiety, more persistence and positive thinking, which leads to more solutions and in general, behaviors that increase life successes and the belief that the individual can control the outcome rather than external circumstances.”
Our Intervention Program at the moment is in its initial stages in that more background information vital to the Jamaican culture based on research is needed. At the moment we are relying on the firsthand cultural knowledge of a team member of ours who grew up in the country. Despite this, research studies that highlight factors that contribute to the development of hope and optimism in children have been conducted and we aim to apply this information to the children as the school. Peterson (2004) has highlighted the importance of parents, teachers, and other influences such as stories, movies, television and other media as well as genetics, in the cultivation of hope and optimism in young children.
Our Intervention plan would include a focus on three aspects in the cultivation of hope and optimism in children at the Pauline Gentles Basic School in Jamaica:
a. Parents: We would provide family and child counseling for the parents or important family members of these children, focusing on a few key goals in therapy that would enhance the instillation of hope and optimism. We would stress the importance of being involved in the child’s schoolwork and encourage them to have an open dialogue with them and their thoughts and feelings about school in order to see if issues such as bullying, social isolation or low motivation is occurring or not. We would advocate the telling of stories to children with themes of hope and inspiration, particularly through biblical stories if possible. Jamaica is largely a Christian country and religion particularly is central to its culture (Davidson, 2003). Telling stories of triumph in adversity, God’s saving grace, and passing on the tenets of a religious faith by sending them to Sunday School, taking them to church or reading children’s Bible stories to them might have an impact in the long-term development on hope, optimism and ultimately resilience in these children.
b. Teachers: We would advocate for teachers to focus on noting and commenting on good deeds that children engage in. For example, when a child shares, makes a kind gesture that shows care and compassion, or when they seem to be acting out of love, to encourage that. We would also ask teachers to read stories and poems in class with hope and optimism as the underlying themes, and if there are none, brainstorm with them, some with these themes; ones that especially utilize features of the Jamaican culture. We would also encourage the singing of songs with these themes or even the creation of songs with these themes that utilize rhythms and musical beats that are culturally relevant. We would encourage teachers to put up sayings/slogans and cartoons on the walls of the classroom with messages of hope and inspiration. Staying with stories of hope and inspiration, we would also ask teachers to identify prominent Jamaican personalities that lived lives of hope and inspiration, starting with the country’s seven national heroes (Nanny of the Maroons, Marcus Garvey, Samuel Sharpe etc.), prominent poets and musicians (Bob Marley, Louise Bennett) and athletes (Usain Bolt, Courtney Walsh).
c. Students/Children: Most of our engagement with children would involve simply interacting with them in their school environment. We would play the games they play, sing the songs they sing, and listen to their stories; all while trying to glean that which exists naturally in them. We would be keen to picking up on any traits that come naturally to them: confidence, kindness, happiness, love, altruism, caring, courage etc. and highlight it; focus on it, show them how it can be mobilized and how it will be an asset for them in life. We would especially listen to the stories and narratives they tell in order to understand their subjective worlds more, thereby being able to find the most culturally sensitive, and efficacious mode of developing hope and optimism in them.
Our intervention, in order to be long-standing and self-supporting would need to be at least nine months long (Peterson, 2004) and contact should be frequent and daily if possible. It would also need to be evaluated and followed up with over time so that it can be improved upon if necessary and documented and recorded for other practitioners to use. A challenge this project presents, therefore, is that longitudinal studies will be needed in order to evaluate its effectiveness, and additionally, to see whether the values of hope and optimism instilled in childhood have followed them throughout at least the primary, and secondary level of education. Indicators such as educational and cognitive attainment, social and emotional development as well as self-sufficiency would need to be measured. Although much research is still needed and will be needed, we remain hopeful in the implementation of this intervention because hope and optimism exists in everyone; that is our belief… we need only harness and mobilize the inner power and strengths of every child.
References:
Davidson, Marcia (2003, May 1). Jamaica and Religion. www.jamaicans.com Retrieved, December 14, 2010, from http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/intro/religion.shtml
Peterson, C. (Ed.). (2004). Quick read synopsis: Positive development: Realizing the potential of youth. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 594, 202-220