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The Center

“The Center for Youth & Community, Inc. (The Center) was established as a home for the work and experiences of Dr. David Blumenkrantz which began in 1966. Formally initiated as a 501(c)(3) NGO in 1990 by Famed Yale Professor and early pioneer in Community Psychology Dr. Seymour Sarason* and Steven Blumenkrantz, Esq. as a vehicle to share advances through consultation and training in innovation transfer (see below). Since 2020 our purpose has been to share information and offer support.

*The American Psychological Association – Society for Community Research and Action division established the Seymour B. Sarason Award for Community Research and Action in 1993.

In partnership with individuals, communities, indigenous people and institutions throughout the world David and The Center community have become leading thought partners and resources in defining, explaining, and helping people adapt and put into practice “youth and community development through rites of passage” through a process of “Innovation Transfer.” Through “thought partnerships” we collaborate to learn together, share information that fosters social innovation and supports the transfer of knowledge in ways that nourish life and fosters a world that works for all.

In the Spirit of generativity beginning in 2022 all of the materials located on this and related sites are available to download for free along with support as requested.

We help people to promote positive youth & community development in ways that assist a whole and well functioning community to help their children in their transition through adolescence to become healthy adults connected to their communities. In this way we say: "It takes a whole child to raise a community."

It’s About Reciprocity

Since 1980 we have encouraged reciprocity between parents, youth, teachers, counselors, cultural, civic, religious, businesses and community leaders to support effective school and community-based strategic partnerships. Rather than a providing programs, we encourage a reciprocal process between youth and community development that includes 20 interrelated elements as design principles in an architectural structure to guide the integration of education and community resources.

In the past this has included, but not limited to community and/or agency members to adapt and creatively imagine designs that have included:

  • Rite of Passage Experience© (ROPE®) (An exemplar of youth & community development)
  • Rites of Passage for Parents – “Collision of Transitions”
  • Innovative After-School Strategies that connect play and learning
  • An Initiation of Scholars© Strategy for grades 5-8 that improve academic performance and foster respectful and compassionate school climate.
  • “Finding Your Bliss” Initiation into the world of Play as Secular Spirituality.
  • Giving back – Community Service as part of an overall “coming of age” process where volunteering is expected as a desired characteristic of maturity and exemplar of adulthood.
  • A college level Rite of Passage Experience© initiative designed specifically to foster bonding and commitment to college and to combating binge drinking and other health-compromising behaviors.
  • Establishing a foundation for intervening with children & their families if problems arise by reframing therapy as part of an ongoing process of initiation where “problems” are another “ordeal” to be overcome with the support of the community and skills learned in ROPE®.

Some people have asked; “Why are there copyright© and registration® marks? The central and overarching reason is to distinguish between our orientations in theory and practice with all other initiatives and programs, especially those that use concepts related to rites of passage, and/or call themselves a rite of passage program. There are also materials that correspond to designs related to this work that we encourage fidelity, i.e. adapting the concepts and processes in ways that are aligned with their original intent. For example, rather than program replication we utilize the concept and process of innovation transfer.

Innovation Transfer*

The way programs in education and youth and human development are created, transferred or replicated into another setting, and evaluated are inadequate. The process attempts to parallel the scientific or medical model. There is a fatal flaw in this orientation. Unlike the elements or component parts that go into scientific experiments or medical procedures human behavior is dynamic, variable, and beyond control and our ability to predict outcomes at a level of confidence that is present in the “hard sciences.” These considerations put the concept of “Evidence-Based Practice” into question.

Martinez-Brawley (1995) may have said it best when she wrote: "Knowledge use generates new knowledge, and the process of diffusion, which is itself a process of transformation, begins again. In the human services, knowledge application and use generate new knowledge. Any program generated through replication is, in the end, a new program that can again be disseminated" (679).  In a sense, ideas take on a life of their own when applied in new settings. How does this fit, or not, with the evidence-based paradigm, which suggests that you can replicate a program in the exact same way in any situation or context?

 Innovation transfer is centered around the concept that a group of people, within a community (any grouping of 2/3 people) are oriented around certain design principles or elements that comprise a series of activities with a name referring to a program. These design principles are used to creatively imagine the various ways they could be organized and constructed – put together in such a way that integrates and respect local culture, customs, values, etc. It is more about art than science and cherishes the notion that their creation is an innovation that can be transferred or implemented in their setting as a new program.

* Originally in: Blumenkrantz, D.G. The rite way: Guiding youth to adulthood and the problem of communitas. UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, MI. (1996).

** Blumenkrantz, D.G. Coming of Age the RITE Way: Youth & Community Development through Rites of Passage. Oxford University Press (2016).