The ROPE®
initiative provides a vehicle to integrate a number of important
youth and community development approaches, including the 40 developmental
assets proposed by the Search Institute (www.search-institute.org).
ROPE® has concrete programmatic elements to build strong kids,
strong families and strong communities. ROPE® serves as a catalyst
to engage organizations and communities in a process of change.
When professionals and citizens join together
in ROPE® training they increase their understanding of
youth and community development through rites of passage and can
use language and techniques to integrate strength-based approaches,
including developmental assets, character education, asset-based
community development, and resiliency within all of the ROPE®
curriculum and activities.
Below you’ll find all 40 Developmental
Assets, grouped within the eight overall Asset Types, as
they relate to the ROPE® initiative.
Support
Support is achieved when connections are made between the major
environments (family, school, community, peers) that impact youth
and significant people within those environments.
1. Family Support: Parents are involved
in ROPE® and connections between them and other members of the
community are made through shared experiences, common language,
and shared skill building for human development.
2. Positive Family Communication: Youth
and parent(s) engage in shared skill building and experiences that
include mutual problem solving and communication skills. Parent(s)
and youth share a language to discuss the challenges of coming of
age within a family.
3. Other Adult Relationships: Youth
have at least three other Guides they may connect with during ROPE®,
including a high school mentor. Relationships forged during ROPE®
are deep and long lasting.
4. Caring Neighborhood: A community
uses ROPE® to tie their assets and youth development resources
together in a cohesive approach. The common language and shared
experience facilitates greater connection and caring between neighbors.
5. Caring School Climate: Youth engage
in highly desirable and fun activities during school, which transfers
into a student's perception of greater bonding and attachment to
school.
6. Parent Involvement in Schooling:
Parents join with the school in ROPE®. Prescribed skill-building
sessions, parent group experiences, and parent involvement are included
in student ROPE® challenges.
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Empowerment
Empowerment is achieved when youth are given opportunities to develop
mastery of skills, competency in performance, meaning, identity,
and purpose in their lives, and the ability to positively impact
the major environments in their lives.
7. Community Values Youth: Many adults
join together to support youth during emotionally charged teachable
moments, and the shared experience of ROPE® amplifies and
contextualizes the community's value of its youth.
8. Youth as Resource: ROPE® provides
a context (i.e., coming of age requires “giving back"
for youth to engage in community service. This service increases
their capacity, and sense of mastery and competence.
9. Service to Others: High school students
are trained to facilitate ROPE® skill building sessions for
youth moving from primary to secondary school, and they mentor younger
students.
10. Safety: Physical and psychological
threats are mediated by the common language and shared experience
of ROPE®, which serves to build a sense of community and diminishes
feelings of isolation and disconnection. A broad array of adults
is accessible to youth and helps to weave a safety net for all youth.
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Boundaries & Expectations
Boundaries and expectations are achieved when youth have opportunities
to engage in meaningful dialogue with adults to establish clear
rules and consequences in the major environments that impact their
lives.
11. Family Boundaries: One parent said,
"ROPE provides a common language for us to talk to our children
during the turbulent times of adolescence." Youth and parent
skill building sessions focus on communication, boundaries, and
shared values.
12. School Boundaries: ROPE® groups
empower students to establish their own guidelines for working together
and to create their own process for mediating disputes, skills they
can call upon when interacting in the larger school community.
13. Neighborhood Boundaries: "It
takes a whole child to raise a village." Community dialogue
and parent networking are cornerstones of ROPE®. Pathways are
established for parents and citizens to join in supporting youth
development.
14. Adult Role Models: ROPE® engages
many citizens to be involved in the lives of youth and establishes
many opportunities for their involvement.
15. Positive Peer Influence: A positive
peer culture is cultivated through ROPE®. School, parent, and
community resources are coordinated to provide opportunities for
youth to engage in fun and meaningful responsible behavior. Youth
are systematically guided to health promoting activities and community
service.
16. High Expectations: The language
and experience of "challenge by choice" set high expectations,
which are transferable to a student's life.
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Constructive Use of Time
Constructive use of time is achieved when youth are systematically
guided into meaningful and health-promoting connections with major
environments that impact their lives.
17. Creative Activities: Youth explore
concepts related to having fun and are guided to explore and experiment
with health promoting recreational activities.
18. Youth Programs: A cornerstone of
ROPE® establishes a community expectation that youth will engage
in after-school activities and has the language and context for
this to systematically happen.
19. Religious Community: ROPE®
uses a language that serves as a bridge between secular and non-secular
rites of passage. It links youth to religious organizations and
links religious organizations to each other.
20. Time at Home: The community establishes
values, translated for youth through ROPE®, that set an expectation
for the productive and healthy use of leisure time at home.
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Commitment to Learning
Commitment to learning is achieved when youth are engaged in skill
development directed to help them accomplish increasingly difficult
challenges that build pathways to learning and a success identity.
The initiation of Scholars portion of ROPE® specifically focuses
on building important skills for academic success.
21. Achievement Motivation: Accomplishing
cognitive and physical challenges builds a “success identity,”
which helps motivate students to stick with difficult challenges.
22. School Engagement: Adventure-based
learning sets new and deeper pathways to engage students in the
joy of learning, which is transferable to other settings and subjects.
23. Homework: ROPE® sessions focus
on planning, ways to learn, and goal setting, and they include specific
homework for both youth and parents.
24. Bonding to School: Powerful positive
experiences impart important knowledge and skills to students, and
are supported by caring, nurturing adults. This fosters bonding
between youth and school.
25. Reading for Pleasure: Students
enjoy reading books which feature rites of passage themes, and relating
those stories to their ROPE® curriculum and their own rite of
passage experiences.
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Positive Values
Positive values are achieved when youth can transcend their personal
needs and issues, make connections with others, and see their lives
in a larger context (i.e., community, society, the universe).
26. Caring: Students learn about caring
and helping other people and have roles available to mentor others
and provide community service. High school students help facilitate
ROPE® for 6th graders and may serve as mentors to those students.
27. Equality & Social Justice:
Students may select a service-learning project to improve their
community and/or the lives of others.
28. Integrity: Instruction and practice
in communication skills and values-discovery sessions join with
lessons and experience in group dynamics to help youth form a greater
sense of self and commitment to values.
29. Honesty: Guidelines within ROPE®
groups set clear standards for trust and honesty. Guided group experiences
strengthen standards.
30. Responsibility: Group challenges
present opportunities for youth to explore and experience individual
and group responsibility.
31. Restraint: Parent and youth value-discovery
sessions – the exploration of the problems and concerns of
teenagers – and intensive life skill building exercises serve
to form strong protective factors against health compromising behaviors.
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Social Competencies
Social competencies are achieved when youth are given opportunities
to learn skills, attitudes, and beliefs that give them the interpersonal
competency and confidence to be with people of different backgrounds
and engage in health promoting life styles.
32. Planning & Decision Making:
Life skills sessions focus on planning and goal setting and offer
opportunities for students to practice those skills and test their
level of development.
33. Interpersonal Competence: The intensive
group experience of ROPE® is a laboratory for students to explore
a broad range of individual and interpersonal issues while engaging
in collaborative problem solving experiences.
34. Cultural Competence: ROPE®
explores the human history of creating rites of passage as a shared
experience and amplifies cultural context to promote unity in the
community.
35. Resistance Skills: ROPE® offers
powerful teaching moments which invite youth to explore the impact
of peer pressure.
36. Peaceful Conflict Resolution: ROPE®
offers experiences that support student’s skills in communication
and conflict resolution.
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Positive Identity
Positive Identity is achieved when youth engage in activities that
help them derive meaning in living, as well as a sense of purpose
and a perception of hope for their future.
37. Personal Power: Adventure-based
learning gives students a greater sense of social and personal mastery.
38. Self-Esteem: Accomplishing difficult
physical and cognitive challenges increases a student’s sense
of personal power.
39. Sense of Purpose: One central purpose
of rites of passage is to help youth achieve a sense of identity,
meaning, and purpose in their lives.
40. Positive View of Personal Future: Rites
of passage are the traditional way for youth to gain a "vision"
for their lives. It helps them to have hope and to see how they
can become a valued adult in the community. |
