Sign up for alerts

Winter 2007/08 | Vol 11 No 2

Profile

From boys to men: Health promotion helps youth make the transition

By Dan Werb

St. Margaret’s Public School is just round the bend on a picturesque road in Scarborough, Ontario. The school is quiet as I enter. Most kids have dashed out after the school bell. But while it’s peaceful now, Lew Golding knows how hectic it can get. As co-leader of an innovative value-based program aimed at students in their last year of elementary school, he has had to contend with the many demands of a classroom of 30 boys, many of whom live in single-parent homes and neighbourhoods endemic with crime and poverty.

“Teachers were saying, ‘It’s not possible to contain these guys for an hour,’” says Golding, who is manager of the Substance Abuse Program for African Canadian and Caribbean Youth (SAPACCY) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. “But the kids were engaged and focussed, and they absorbed the information from the program.” Golding is referring to Passport to Manhood, a program developed by the Boys and Girls Club of America. The program aims to build positive values and provide role-modelling for adolescent boys making the important transition to teenhood.

Each session in the 14-week program covers different topics, such as substance abuse, dealing with authority and relationships. “They all tie into one goal – providing a basis for the boys to understand what being a true, representative man is,” says Golding.

“The boys face very serious decisions such as whether to join a gang and issues of crowding, poverty and racism. They also face the usual growing up issues — getting to know their talents, their purpose, their passion.”

That’s where Golding’s work becomes so important. “The school is surrounded by public housing; there is a lot of visible crime, and in many cases some of these boys are challenged to engage in it,” says Golding, as he ushers me over to a classroom window and points to a building behind the school. “At lunchtime, that staircase is where some kids hang out and get involved in … situations,” he says. “The distractions are ever-present, so we provide this program as a counterweight.”

St. Margaret’s principal, Jeannine Joubert, has witnessed the program’s positive results. “The boys seemed to be validated as young men, as valid members of the community,” she says. “The social dynamics within the group allowed less assertive boys to be heard within their comfort zone.” Joubert says the program’s impact can still be felt five months after the fact: “Emotional intelligence became more obvious in the boys after they completed the program.”

“The boys face serious decisions such as whether to join a gang and issues of crowding, poverty and racism,” says Joubert. “They also face the usual growing up issues of getting to know their talents, their purpose, their passion. Few of our students have male role models and this program provided that.”

Passport to Manhood’s interactive sessions rely strongly on role play and discussion. In fact, Golding says, the program has increased the amount of role play because it was so popular with students. At a follow-up interview session with four boys who attended the program, all four agreed that the role play elements stayed with them the most. As for what they enjoyed the most or found to be most useful, two boys cited the visual aid that mapped out drugs, their effects and their street names, and the other two mentioned role playing.

But while Golding believes Passport to Manhood is useful in building positive values among youth who might be at a socio-demographic disadvantage, he concedes that the program cannot help all youth. “One boy was dismissed because he developed a reputation for trying to control the school,” he says. “We had a session on youth violence and gangs and he would shoot looks across the room that restricted students who were fully engaged through these subtle threats of violence.” At first Golding and his co-leaders worked to include the boy in the program, but eventually they had to confront the issue head-on. “We had to decide whether it was in the best interest of the group to keep him and lose time trying to keep him on track or to maintain this resource for the other 30 or so boys. When we decided he was no longer invited, it was like a cloud was lifted off the group.”

As the follow-up session draws to a close, we all stand and Golding extends his hand. The boys, grinning, each take turns shaking his hand and looking him in the eye – a ritual Golding calls “the Manshake,’ which he included at the close of each session to reinforce the relationship between him and the students, and as a physical reminder of their emerging role as decision makers in their own lives. It’s a moment the boys obviously relish, and one that Golding sees as particularly important: “Each week during the program, the Manshake became more firm. The stronger it was, the more we believed the boys to be connecting with the materials and gaining confidence.”

Although the program at St. Margaret’s has now wound down, SAPACCY plans to partner with other youth service providers to offer it in other communities, once feedback from focus group participants has been integrated and funding has been secured.

At a time in their lives when the lure of criminal activity and rebellious attitudes towards authority figures are reinforced by the neighbourhoods in which they live, confidence, Golding believes, is key. Through Passport to Manhood, Golding is betting that prevention now can ensure that the same kids who shake his hand won’t be those he meets at his clinical office in a few years, under very different, and more difficult, circumstances.