Building the Field for Developmental Spaces
This project is a very first step in our field-building efforts. Its focus is on an initial "survey of the field" to map stakeholders and programs and start forging connections and awareness. Focused on programs for youth and young adults (15-25 years old) in the US and Europe, we will be exploring what it looks like to be "deliberately developmental", profile relevant organizations, looking at their programs, approach and philosophy.
There is an opportunity to coalesce a new field of "deliberately developmental" ("transformative") programs or spaces, especially those focused on youth and young adults.
This field exists within the much broader area of programs for youth and young adults ranging from the YMCA and CityYear to national service models as in Israel and Switzerland and Taiwan to spiritual retreats and personal development programs.
We use the term coalesce specifically because there is already significant latent potential within this broader area for the emergence of a deliberately developmental approach. This is not coming together out of a vacuum, it is a bringing together. For example, a CityYear National Hampshire director recently discussed with us how they are becoming more "intentionally developmental".
This has the nature of a "strategic effort" that we hope can force-multiply by crystallizing an idea whose "time has come" and catalyzing change across an entire ecosystem of youth and young adult activity. There is an analogy with "youth development" as a concept twenty years ago: youth workers suddenly had something to explain and legitimize what they were already partially doing and were therefore eager and willing to adopt the concepts and language – at the same time, those ideas had a real impact in focusing and evolving their work.
Publications
Background
Find out more about the project:
- Project announce post
- Preliminary presentation of project research (video recording and slides)
- Deliberately Developmental Spaces Steering Committee - slides (September 2024). A summary of the state of the Steering Committee which was seeded by this project.
Learn more about the concept of "Deliberately Developmental Spaces":
- Rufus Pollock and Theo Cox, 'Deliberately Developmental Spaces: A Key to Addressing the Metacrisis?' (2021)