The playroom at Broadview Shelter and Transitional Housing is filled with laughter on a Tuesday evening as a group of kids and teenagers take turns mashing cheese into boiled potatoes to make filling for pierogis.

It looks like a somewhat chaotic cooking class – which it is – but it’s also one of the tools that Broadview staff use to help the children of domestic violence (DV) survivors gain a strong sense of self, build skills to support resilience, and develop healthy relationships. Between measuring cups of flour and cutting out circles of dough, the kids are practicing working with others, listening to instructions, and taking turns.  

“It’s not just a fun thing to do with the kiddos,” says Amy H., Children’s Program Supervisor at Broadview. “It’s about intentionally creating safe spaces for them to build on their own strengths and gain the social-emotional skills and values that will allow them to thrive throughout their lives.

“Plus, when it’s all over, they get to share a meal they’ve cooked together – as a community.” 

Solving poverty tomorrow by investing in youth today

At Solid Ground, we know we can’t achieve our mission of solving poverty if we don’t also nurture the success of our community’s children and disrupt cycles of generational poverty. And we know the scale of the challenge is huge: Nearly 40,000 children in King County are currently living in poverty,¹ a deeply traumatic experience that leads to disparate health and economic outcomes across the lifespan. 

Fortunately, studies have shown that children who participate in positive youth development programs may be less likely to experience poverty as an adult.² That’s why you’ll find best practices gleaned from recent youth development research embedded in so many of our programs, from teaching kids about food and nutrition through our Community Food Education (CFE) program, to providing tutoring and enriching activities for the young people who live at Sand Point Housing and Broadview. 

At Broadview – the first emergency DV shelter opened in Seattle, and the only one that people escaping DV can call directly for help – we provide tailored support for more than 60 children at a time who have experienced the added trauma of living with DV in their homes

Our staff works to support these children as soon as their families arrive at Broadview, meeting with each child individually to evaluate their social-emotional state and determine their strengths. Broadview can help get them set up in a new school, make sure they have clothes and other basics, and identify outside resources to support their healing and growth. 

“We find out what their most pressing goals and concerns are and how we can support them best,” Amy says. “Some of the kids who come to us are showing signs of regression, so going back to past behaviors – maybe bed wetting, or temper tantrums, feelings of insecurity and not feeling physically safe. 

“Others are dealing with attachment and trust issues with adults and other kids. With domestic violence and homelessness, there’s not a lot of opportunities to connect with peers in a healthy way, and to learn to agree to disagree, to deal with conflict in a healthy way, or make healthy relationships. Some kids are at risk of engaging in dangerous and harmful behavior.” 

Building on strengths instead of focusing on deficits  

To help them overcome these challenges, Amy and other staff at Broadview work continuously to build on kids’ social-emotional strengths using an approach based on the Search Institute’s Developmental Assets Framework. The framework identifies 20 social-emotional strengths and values that children need to succeed in life – things like caring, restraint, self-esteem, and sense of purpose. 

But instead of identifying where kids’ skills are deficient, Broadview staff look for their strengths and work to nurture them. 

“In the past, what we’ve often done in social work is to look at what things are broken, what things are not functioning well for a family,” Amy says. “But this is about focusing on a child’s assets, or the strengths they already have and can develop further with our support. Every child has gifts and characteristics that are unique and wonderful, and that enrich everybody else around them, so we really want to focus on building and affirming those.”  

Broadview does this by creating fun, safe opportunities for the kids to exercise their strengths – usually without knowing it. It shows up in all kinds of activities, from working on homework to practicing songs on the ukulele. Read more about the Broadview ukulele program in our blog post, Healing to the tune of two dozen ukuleles.

“The ukuleles are great for building our ability to persist at something,” Amy says. “It’s fun to play even when you’re first starting, but it does take work and practice and not being great at it to get better. So we’re breaking things down into bite-size problems, we’re challenging ourselves, and we’re learning to be OK being a little uncomfortable while we’re all practicing together.” 

All along the way, Amy and the staff use specific, affirming language to reinforce children’s growth. 

“We’re saying specifically what we’re seeing and noticing,” Amy says. “So instead of just, ‘Good job,’ we’re saying, for instance, ‘Wow, I really noticed how much time you’re taking to work on this, I can tell you really care about it. Tell me a little bit more about it, what you’re thinking.’ All of those are open-ended questions that invite the kids to share with you and to feel acknowledged for their talents and their time.” 

Changing lives in ways you can see and measure 

Since launching this asset-based approach with the support of a grant from Best Starts for Kids in late 2022, Amy says she’s already seen the impact it has on individual children. 

“We have a little guy say that he wants to learn how to be a good friend, and today he learned that sharing toys can help,” she says. “So instead of reenacting some of the behaviors he’s seen and experienced in the past, he just reached out to another child and was like, ‘Would you like to be my friend? I’m working on being a good friend, and I learned that sharing toys is a good way to start.’ I was like, ‘Way to go little guy!’” 

The next step is to measure and document that progress. Broadview staff already use surveys to record how children are feeling during various points in their stay, and Amy is now working to incorporate them into a case study on asset-based youth development.  

“We’ll be asking the question, ‘So what? What difference does it make?’” Amy says. “Are kids practicing the skills they’ve developed? Do we have evidence of that skill building? That’s what we want to know.” 

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Sources

1) Poverty Status in the Past 12 Months, American Community Survey, ACS 1-Year Estimates Subject Tables, Table S1701, 2022, U.S. Census Bureau 

2) Long-term effects of a community-based positive youth development program for Black youth: health, education, and financial well-being in adulthood, BMC Public Health, 3/26/22 

Image at top: Bela Sánchez, CFE Youth Education Coordinator and a Broadview kid have fun cooking together (photo by Clarissa Magdich).