Keynote

Moving Beyond the Power of One to the Rule of Five: Intentionally creating a personal village for every youth

- Derek Peterson - www.catchersofdreams.net

Summary

Anyone walking into the ballroom of the Coast Edmonton Plaza Hotel on October 18th could be forgiven for thinking they were in completely the wrong place – anywhere but a drug coalitions conference. Throughout the formal room, adorned with the traditional skirted tables, pads, pens, and water jugs commonly found at corporate conferences, hundreds of brightly coloured balloons were bopped around by giggling adults. While some delegates seemed disappointed each time a balloon hit the floor or “graduated” by popping, others seemed thrilled to simply keep their balloons afloat. The reason – child/youth advocate Derek Peterson had given them the analogy that each of these balloons represented a child. Keeping a balloon in the air was giving the child “protective factors” or “assets.” In contrast, a balloon hitting the floor meant the child was engaging in risky behaviour – for example drug use, biking without a helmet, or skipping school.

But this was anything but a cheesy prank. By using balloons, Derek was able to effectively illustrate the importance of planning, assessing, revising plans, and collaborating when it comes to protecting the youth of our communities.

Initially, each person had a balloon, and was responsible for keeping that balloon afloat. Much like a parent providing love, support, and guidance – every person in the room was easily able to provide the “assets” needed to keep their balloon off the ground. Unfortunately, this is not enough – Derek pointed out that children go to school, daycare, to friends homes, sports clubs, so now there are more influences, more risks, but also potentially more adults to provide assets. With this established, the participants were now told they could each only hit any given balloon twice, and would together be responsible for keeping all of the balloons safely off the ground. Mayhem quickly ensued, with the delegates racing around the tables desperately trying to bop random balloons, while countless balloons plunged into the frightening world of risky behaviours on the floor.

With approximately a quarter of the balloons languishing on the carpet, Derek pointed out that usually, with no planning or collaborations in place, you could expect around 75% of children to stay away from drugs and 25% to be at risk. To reduce the number at risk, he asked the groups to form coalitions, and plan how they could improve the odds. Five coalitions formed; each with different ideas for keeping their balloons aloft. They immediately saw positive results when they worked together.

Afterwards, there were discussions about what was learned from the balloon exercises. Some groups tried to hide their strategies from others, causing Derek to remind everyone that keeping kids safe should not be a competition – by sharing ideas, the best results could be achieved for everyone. Other groups made a point of scouting out the best ideas from the other groups, opening up the range of options they had available to them. Ultimately, all of the groups saw the value in connecting with other coalitions to create the best practices for helping their communities, thus increasing the enthusiasm for the premise of “Coalitions Connect”.

Derek now brought out string, and asked two groups to start weaving the string back and forth, forming a net.  This is where he brought in the “rule of five” – every child, from birth to adult, needs five adults to give them positive assets. With five adults – parents, teachers, older siblings, extended family, youth workers – there are enough people to weave the net, or “dream catcher” that the child needs. Each time the string passes from one adult to another in the circle, it represents an “asset”. With only five assets, the balloon easily falls through the net. As the number increases to 18, there are less places to fall through, but it can still easily be done. Derek points out that the average kid has 18 assets. As the number increases, it gets to a point where the balloon can no longer fit through the net at all. Derek asks the delegates to ask themselves about their families and communities, “How does your net work?”

By the end of Derek’s session, delegates were even more energized to connect with each other, to learn and share ideas with the coalitions, and to work towards a brighter future for the youth in their communities.