Exploring the theory of change - empowerment in a safe space

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mentors for these youth and help them in situations of personal challenge. The alumni network is also a source of retrieving knowledge in the way staff collects feedback from alumni on long term impact of program participation as a part of the ongoing evaluation practice. ( might want to keep the same verb tense throughout this paragraph- not sure what you want, past or present??)

The program trajectory reflects the pedagogical intentions – which the program staff calls a ‘theory of change’ - of supporting what I interpret as a dynamic reconstruction of youth. A reconstruction that can be described as rising levels of responsibility through the performance and management of different tasks and skills. This expressed in the program terminology and pedagogical intention expressed in the ‘increased leadership model’ and through a strong focus on ‘professionalism’.

Additional aspects of the complexities in this journey for the youth will be described, interpreted and discussed in the following.

I will move on to describe the main ways of framing the work the staff perform as formulated along the lines of building on a ‘philosophy of empowerment’ and the creation of a ‘safe space’ as foundational values that relate the ‘theory of change’ and the ‘increased leadership model’ to the specific applications of a curriculum. Relation building, different feed-back techniques and hands-on activities play a central role. The curriculum is not a single printed entity but rather understood as the combination of the different elements that will be introduced in the following ethnography. The exploration and investigation has also incorporated a wide range of texts produced by the program such as web documents, application forms and different curricular material handed out to the youth.

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forced us to say: ‘well, what’s your theory of change?’ in one line, I would probably say creating a safe space and interacting with youth from an empowerment lens of perspective or approach. Now under that falls everything [Interview with staff person B, October 27:2].

On the program website and written materials as well as in the regular presentations to external visitors, the staff often refers to the program as being a ‘safe space’ in which youth can find their voices and grow as persons. This concept is relevant for a discussion of how staff constructs different kinds of youth ‘at risk’ that can gain and grow from the program experience. Data shows how the program staff prioritizes recruitment of youth from a variety of different but specific positions or categories: Youth that may struggle with diagnoses as ADHD and depression, vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity and race, youth with low self-esteem as well as youth that is identified as possessing different kinds of personal qualities that can contribute positively to group dynamics. The further meaning of these categories must be scrutinized in a further analysis, but as a starting point the social construction of the main target groups for the program is an important part of building the analysis towards an understanding of how the program pedagogy is constructed as addressing the different but specific positions of the youth.

The staff person reflects about the concept of ‘safe space’:

The safe space is critical because without that youth can’t dive into scarier places or insecure places or even forward thinking (or) exciting places because there’s always the, you know, the peer pressure, the fear, the trauma or whatever. I think also part of our theory of change which leads into how do we, how do we work as a staff with youth is we really treat them as adults’ [interview with staff person B, October 27:1-2].

Two important points stand out here – one is that the making of a ‘safe space’ is directly linked to the processes of personal transformation that the program seeks to sustain and the other is that this space making seeks to eliminate factors that are constraining for this process such as peer pressure, trauma or fear.

The concept of ‘safe space’ has its origins in the women’s movement in the second half of the 20^th century (Kenney 2001) and is widely used as a space free of oppression, a space where one can explore identities without the risk of being condemned or harassed (Ibid). The Roestone Collective describes how the concept of safe space has gained momentum in the American school system as part of seeing safety as an ethical obligation of teachers and school administrators. The Roestone Collective cites a number of studies that point to that in many cases the school as a safe space is

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more rhetoric than what students actually experience, and call for a paradigm shift that I interpret as a call for a more active pedagogical use of the concept where safe space begins, here quoting Stengel³², with the “excavation of fear and the deconstruction of the social imagery that creates and supports a world organized around distance and separation”. Challenges around this are as hooks³³ note related to creating a classroom that sees difference and diversity as a resource for learning and acknowledge that no space is free from domination or risk and “such classrooms, when successful, encourage people to embrace and critique individual and collective representations of identity”(Roestone Collective 2014:1354).

An implication of constructing the program as a safe space is the possible presence of other spaces that are unsafe. I will keep this awareness present but also as The Roestone Collective argues, instead of focusing on this opposition explore how the ‘safe space’ is cultivated relationally (Roestone Collective 2014). The emphasis on the importance of creating a safe space can be interpreted as how staff understands the general situation and need among the youth they are working with. In the following ethnographic journey I will maintain a focus on how this space making is relationally practiced and experienced by staff and youth.

A central element in this definition of empowerment by the staff person is the element of personal choice – or agency - in the relation to what the curriculum offers:

I think a big part of the empowerment piece is that we’re not an A to B, we’re not a linear program. We are very much, a young person will have an experience here and then they’re going to pull, they’re going to be exposed to a wide array of opportunities both personally and professionally and academically and social emotionally and they are going to pull from it what they want and that is, that’s the definition of the empowerment approach. We don’t have a prescript in that we are creating enough opportunities for everybody to get something out of this if they want [Interview with staff person B, October 27: 1].

A question that arises from this is which are the options to choose from and how are concrete choices given meaning, by staff as well as by youth. In this, an understanding of process is central:

32Stengel B (2010) The complex case of fear and safe space. Studies in Philosophy and Education 29(6):523–

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hooks b (1989) Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End

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It’s really hard to define our theory of change. I think part of our theory of change is all of the different elements that in some create the community that create the family. Some of our theory of change is about the process, which would be that young people can have tremendous personal breakthroughs if they’re willing to see themselves clearly, see where they’ve been, kind of engage in a process like positives and improvables to know what do they like about themselves, what do they like about their life situation, what could be improved about themselves and their life situation or the world structure, what could be improved you know talking about food systems or racism or gay rights or whatever if might be. I think part of the theory of change is also having the encouragement and the safe space to constantly examine, examine, examine and then do something. So it’s not just, it’s not just explore .. and understand, it’s both. It’s examine, feel and then do [interview with staff person B, October 27:2].

Here is presented the central way the program seeks to invite youth to work reflexively with themselves through the way different elements are contributing to creating a community, metaphorically also described as a family. A main communicative element in this – the ‘positives and improvables’ – that is mentioned by the staff person is in fact a key feed-back technique in the program that is central to the character of a space for reflection that the program seeks to establish.

Introduced in the spring internship and extensively applied in the summer job training program, the regular practice of ‘straight talk’ involves an exchange of ‘positives’ and ‘improvables’ as a structured feed-back exercise. ‘Straight talk’ has an oral and a written practice. The oral practice is introduced early in the spring internship in the program by the staff exemplifying how they use this technique to give each other regular feed-back on how they manage their staff roles etc. In the summer job training program, the regular practice of the technique is introduced again to the youth as an invitation to reflect on two concrete examples where one noticed a) an action assessed as being positive and b) an action assessed as something that could have been done in a better way and thus can be seen as an ‘improvable’. The technique is gradually intensified over the weeks starting with practicing in two-person groups, moving on to each youth giving her/himself straight talk in the bigger group and ending with each youth receiving straight talk from the whole group in the last weeks of the summer program.

The written practice is performed by the staff once a week where they in this way evaluate each youth by describing concrete situations from the work interactions that they see as being positive as well as that can be improved upon. These written feed-backs are given anonymously and placed in

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the binders that each youth are asked to keep for different program materials, e.g. standard movement chart and the time sheets that are filled out in the end of each working day keeping track of the actual work hours.

One can argue that ‘straight talk’ has a pedagogical intention of supporting central program goals of helping youth to ‘find their voices’. In the interviews with the youth this has also been a returning topic and later an analysis of this will inform a wider discussion of the reflective practice of giving straight talk as a core element in the program pedagogy.

Another central element in the program pedagogy is formulated by the staff person as a continuous process of self-examination, of feeling and of doing. Examples of this are unfolded in relation to specific elements in the program practice. The examination happens from the first day, when an exercise called ‘my favorite word’ where the youth are invited to tell their favorite word that is then written on a board and briefly asked by staff to be reflected upon by each youth.

Another is the daily practice of ‘doing triumphs’, which is a communicative technique where each youth in a circle is invited to share what they see as the biggest achievement during the day (in the spring internship) or during the week (in the summer program). Using the triumphs at the end of the spring program is formulated by a staff person as an indicator of the program was ‘effective or not’.

The staff person recalls an example when a youth during the final round of triumphs said that ‘you know, this program really opened me up’. For the staff person that was seen as an interesting comment, because as he formulates it:

If you look at her, she's very closed, so if she internally is seeing that this really opened her up, and we're externally seeing very little, then this program was instrumental in her growth”

[Interview with staff person B, May 2014)

Staff person B formulates more implications of this continuous examination:

I think having opportunities to practice, succeeding and failing in a different way than at home or in school, and the farming does that. I think cooking and eating together you’re practicing and examining one piece of yourself, your physical health. Some of the workshops a little bit in the spring, definitely in the summer, but in the spring even workshops like how to get a job and keep a job is examining what do you know about, there’s a lot of inquiry, there’s all of the workshops even if they are seen like they’re superficial or external topics they’re like how do I get a job and keep a job. At the end of the day there’s so much relevance, which is another big part of our theory of change, that I think a young person has the opportunity to dive into..

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even just thinking about themselves, well what’s holding me up from getting a job or what are my skill sets to get a job. When we do the public speaking exercise, that’s a huge you know, what is my voice, right. So even though they look like .. skills that you put in tool box there’s a thread of relevance that goes right into the identity, in the best ones that we do. And then in the summer, in the spring it’s, there’s a thread.. In the summer it’s very clear like when we do the poetry workshop and the first prompt is ‘I’m not who they think I am’, that is crystal clear;

we are now talking about your identity and then in the summer we spend a lot more time as staff ..ehm in mentorship coaching roles like one-on-one, talking with youth (Interview with staff person B, October 27:3).

What stand out here are two central points. One is about the development of the staff role and how it gradually also involves mentorship and coaching. The other is about the processes of choice – or agency – that the youth is presented for during the different program phases as a wide range of possibilities for examinations that the program seeks to offer the youth and also referring one of the general principles in this – relevance. This principle is part of an additional cluster of principles that is called ‘The 4 R’s and a C’. This cluster was introduced³⁴ by the staff on a one-day workshop organized by the program staff that I participated in during my fieldwork – ‘Growing Healthy, Strong, Inspired Teens’. The workshop was directed at persons interested in youth empowerment or who are working with teens in a garden or farming setting. I was invited by the staff to join and saw this as an opportunity to gain insight in how the program would communicate its vision and mission to a group of different outside professionals also working with youth. In this workshop staff conveyed the basic philosophies of the empowerment philosophy illustrated with different hands-on activities and also unfolded another central part of the theory of change - ‘the 4 R’s and a C’ that will be resumed here:

Relationships, Relevance, Responsibilities, Rigor and Context.

The relationships dimension stresses the intention to create meaningful relationships as an important part of the program, included in this the ways the staff manages different roles towards the youth – e.g. as boss, as mentor or co-worker and the different ways relationships between the youth plays and important role;

34 This cluster of interrelated principles is an interpretation of recommendations for secondary school change formulated by Wagner (Wagner 2002) as ‘The 3 R’s of reinvention’ introduced to the program staff in a workshop at The Food Project in Boston.

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The relevance dimension stresses that the work has to be relevant to the lives of the youth in relation to applicability in their practice and goals in everyday end future lives;

The responsibilities dimension is reflected in the program phases and changing roles of youth from being interns to become e.g. managers of local farm stands or organizers of educational food justice events;

The rigor dimension stresses a goal to develop the youths’ capacities to endure challenges and hard time in academic as well as employment related aspects. As a staff person formulates it ‘we are stronger than we think we are, but we need those experiences to feel it’;

Finally, the context dimension stresses the ‘why?’-dimension of how program activities are contextualized in ways as different as why onions due to shallow roots need extra weeding or the political ramifications of the ways the social and historical aspects of the organic farming practices are framed.

The following series of tales will present how these central elements in the program’s pedagogical approach were explored.

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