SPEAKER: COMMUNITY MAKES HEALTHY YOUTHS

Vision, positive ideals and a little common sense are the only tools a community needs to produce healthier relationships between adults and children.

That's what James Vollbracht told about 150 listeners at a kickoff presentation for Southeast Missouri Hospital's new Generations Family Resource Center Friday night at the Show Me Center.

Southeast Hospital is sponsoring a free day-long family resource fair at the Show Me Center today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Former Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith will make a presentation at 1 p.m. Other activities for adults and children are also scheduled throughout the day.

Vollbracht's presentation brought together representatives from the more than 75 nonprofit community organizations that will be participating in the resource fair.

Vollbracht, a speaker from the National Search Institute, told listeners that youth and adults needed to learn how to communicate. He said if communities came together, assessed their strengths and developed a comprehensive plan for improving intergenerational communication, healthier and stronger youth would be the result.

"We've got to begin to transform not only the behaviors of the youth, but also the mindsets that we have that foster these behaviors," he said. "We have to move away from focusing on youth as problems. We often think today's youth are more mature than we were. Actually, they aren't, but they are more sophisticated. We've really got to learn not to mistake one for the other."

Vollbracht used information from attitude and behavior surveys of youth to show what factors are more likely to help youth grow up to be healthy, caring and responsible. Assets included family and non-familial support, positive interaction with parents, structured time use, educational commitment, positive values and well-develop social skills.

In a short exercise, he asked the audience to name assets of Cape Girardeau's community. These assets could be community service organizations or a "cookie lady" who would sit and eat cookies with a youth and not be amazed by anything the young person thought or did.

Various names and organizations were listed, including the Cape Girardeau Public Library, the high school Renaissance program, police officer Charlie Herbst, state Rep. Mary Kasten and local hairdressers.

Although the last was listed in fun, Vollbracht said all were strengths that should be built upon to help the young people in the community.

Vollbracht encouraged people to include all ages from youth to senior citizens in activities as often as possible. All too often, he said, the very young and the very old are left out, leaving a negative impact on them.

"Our extended family has eroded," he said, "and youths and seniors are always left out of things. For whatever reason, we've got our blinders on and have not extended the invitation."

Moving from despair to hope is the job of the entire community rather than one segment. Individuals and organizations must work together in order to prosper, Vollbracht said.