Why
it works
(1) Personal power and self-knowledge
By engaging MyPlan, young people build ongoing, direct, and manageable units of personal information. This helps them to harness, articulate, and reflect on personal contexts and thoughts. In the process, young people retain personal power at the same time that they generate structured self-knowledge. In turn, young people are always in the position to make changes relevant to their own life.
(2) Dialogue with community
First, dialogue supports personal power. When two people engage in shared listening and response, they share personal power and consequently learn from one another. Alternatively, when two people engage in obligatory communication, one person acts as a transmitter and the other as a receiver; the transmitter controls the learning process and limits the personal power of the receiver. Communication at THE DOORWAY is based on dialogue instead of obligation.
Secondly, dialogue provides a bridge for communication and trust between members of street and mainstream culture. As young people find support in dialogue, they build personal and interpersonal capacity to imagine, plan, and pursue life in mainstream culture.
(3) Adaptive learning process
Young people learn and adapt to their environments. A young person in street culture (for example) has learned and adapted to a street environment. Successful adaptation occurs where individuals assess and learn what works for their survival in the environment. The following image represents a simple form of adaptation, that applies to any context:
When a young person enters THE DOORWAY, they have already developed knowledge of street survival. In choosing our process, they include an alternative structure (MyPlan) and community to their already developed learning process:
Over time, when young people input consistent energy into THE DOORWAY environment (community and MyPlan), they self generate (often unconscious) life changes structured to sustain mainstream survival.
In the words of a participant:
THE DOORWAY has helped me a lot without me really even realizing it, more because it helped me to help myself. Coming here and setting small goals for myself by making contracts has actually kept me on track with important things that will move me forward in life.
In a real sense, young people who use THE DOORWAY engage a self-intervention process, where learning and self understanding intervene on patterns of street dependency. This learning bridges gaps, and moves their life into mainstream society.
