Youth Workers Perceptions of Their Role in Cultivating Resistance and Wellbeing Among Black and Brown Youth Impacted By Community Violence

Background and Purpose

Black and brown youth living in disinvested neighborhoods experience high rates of poverty and community violence. Harmful policies targeting these communities, as well as other forms of oppression, adversely impact the social and psychosocial well-being of the youth of color in these areas. Community-based youth serving organizations (CBYSOs) can fill gaps left by other institutions in disinvested neighborhoods, providing support, safe havens, and hope for youth. Though it is widely accepted that many of these organizations foster healthy youth development, little attention has been paid to the role CBYSOs can play as counterspaces – i.e., settings that ready marginalized individuals to resist oppression and achieve wellbeing. Street outreach workers use an evidence-based model to support youth impacted by violence; workers often have a shared background with youth and bring a deep respect for youth’s agency and resistance. Guided by counterspaces theory, this study explores the extent to which and how street outreach workers in a youth serving organization create a counterspace for Black and Brown youth in Hartford, CT.

Methods

Four focus groups with street outreach workers (N=21) were conducted to gather their perceptions on their role in modeling resistance skills and fostering youth agency and wellbeing (N=21). Participants had an average age of 40 and were majority male (62%) and Black (62%). A Sort and Sift, Think and Shift qualitative data approach was used to analyze collected data. The study was part of a larger CDC funded participatory research project stemming from an eight-year university-community partnership.

Results

Findings suggest that 1) by creating safe spaces and strong mutual bonds, street outreach workers help marginalized youth challenge oppressive conditions and thrive; 2) by using their own experiences and knowledge, youth workers transmit cognitive/behavioral strategies of resistance and care needed to navigate oppressive contexts; and 3) by engaging in social action with the youth, street outreach workers help the youth learn resistance skills and enhance their sense of agency. Through these interventions, youth workers helped youth cultivate resistance and promoted their wellbeing.

Conclusions and Implications

Counterspaces serve to reinforce participants' agentic identities and promote their well-being. The narratives provided by street outreach workers in this study highlight the importance of modeling strategies of resistance to youth, creating safe spaces where youth are encouraged to act in alignment with their identities, and collaborating with youth in advocacy. These acts of resistance support youth’s own power by enhancing agency and developing critical consciousness. These findings have implications for social work education and practice, policymaking, and research. The counterspaces framework shifts the focus away from pathologizing to healing-centered approaches. It helps refine and implement service programs that are responsive to minority group needs and suggests that collaborative research-practice partnerships are a promising vehicle to develop programs and design practice models that center individuals, groups, and communities with marginalized identities.