On the Couch: A Community Leader on What the Block Actually Needs.

Media & Culture

Everybody has an opinion about what the community needs.

Another program.

Another grant.

Another event.

Another initiative.

Another committee.

Another person standing at a microphone explaining what they are going to do for everybody.

But one of the lessons I have learned from working around young people, families, educators, entrepreneurs, churches, and community organizations is that sometimes the first thing the block needs is much simpler:

Somebody needs to listen.

That is part of why I love the idea behind On the Couch with Jessica LaShawn.

The couch is not supposed to feel like a press conference.

It is a place to sit down.

Get comfortable.

Tell the truth.

And talk about what is actually happening.

Because sometimes the people closest to the problem are the last people anybody asks about the solution.

Stop Designing for People You Have Not Talked To

We have to stop deciding what communities need from conference rooms without talking to the people who actually live there.

If you want to design a youth program, talk to young people.

If you want to support families, talk to parents.

If you want to help small businesses, talk to the people trying to keep their doors open.

If you want better schools, listen to students, teachers, families, administrators, and the businesses that eventually employ those students.

Community development should not be something we do to people.

It should be something we build with people.

That changes the questions.

Instead of asking:

What can we give them?

Ask:

What already exists here that deserves investment?

Instead of:

What is wrong with this community?

Ask:

What is working that nobody has bothered to notice?

Instead of:

How do we get people to participate?

Ask:

Did we create something they actually asked for?

Young People Know When Something Is for Show

Children are especially good at recognizing when adults are performing.

We can create a beautiful event, take pictures, write a press release, and call it youth engagement.

But did the young people learn anything?

Did they build a relationship?

Did they gain access?

Did they leave with a skill?

Did they meet somebody who could help them take their next step?

Did anyone ask what they thought afterward?

Mentorship has taught me that young people do not simply need people talking at them.

They need adults willing to know them.

They need exposure.

They need practical skills.

They need expectations.

They need correction.

They need opportunities to make decisions.

And they need adults who are still around after the event is over.

Business Belongs in the Conversation

I also believe community development has to include business.

Not only corporate sponsorship checks.

Real participation.

Businesses can provide internships.

Mentors.

Job shadowing.

Career exposure.

Meeting space.

Technology.

Professional networks.

Real-world projects.

Entrepreneurship education.

Students need to understand that the businesses they pass every day are part of an economic ecosystem.

And businesses need to understand that educating young people is not somebody else's responsibility.

The student sitting in a classroom today may become tomorrow's employee, customer, founder, elected official, teacher, investor, or community leader.

Education, business, and community should know one another.

Your Journal Work

Think about a community you care about.

Then ask:

Who have I actually listened to?

Whose voice is missing from the conversation?

Am I designing programs based on assumptions or evidence?

What resources already exist in this community that could be connected instead of recreated?

How could a school, business, church, nonprofit, and resident solve one problem together?

And perhaps the most important question:

If the people I am trying to help had the microphone, would they describe the problem the same way I do?

Sit with that.

Because the block does not always need somebody to come save it.

Sometimes it needs people to recognize the wisdom, talent, relationships, businesses, families, and young people that are already there.

Sometimes it needs investment.

Sometimes it needs access.

Sometimes it needs accountability.

Sometimes it needs somebody to connect resources that have been operating three blocks apart for twenty years without ever speaking to one another.

And sometimes it just needs somebody willing to sit down long enough to listen before deciding what everybody else needs.

That is the kind of conversation I want to have on the couch.

Not about the community.

With the community.

Because everybody has a story.

And sometimes the solution starts when we finally make room to hear it.