Africentric Youth and Family Rites of Passage Program: Promoting Resilience among At-Risk African American Youths

African American young men are under siege. In schools they have the highest rates of detention, suspensions, expulsions, and special education placements. In child welfare they are most likely to be removed from their parents, have their parents' rights terminated, exit without being adopted or reunited with their parents, and leave to become homeless or recruited into a survival culture of crime and drugs. (Curtis, Dale, & Kendall, 1999). In juvenile justice they have the highest rates of arrests, detention while awaiting trial, being tried as adults, being more severely sentenced at all stages of the system, and being incarcerated in secure juvenile or adult correctional facilities. Criminologists predicted that African American boys born in 1991 have a 29 percent chance of being imprisoned over their lifetime, compared with only a 4 percent chance among white boys (Mauer, 1999). The MAAT Center for Human and Organizational Enhancement, Inc. of Washington, DC, developed the Africentric Adolescent and Family Rites of Passage Program to reduce the incidence and prevalence of substance abuse and antisocial attitudes and behaviors by African American youths between the ages of 11.5 and 14.5 living in the District of Columbia. This three-year demonstration was supported by a grant from the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. This article describes the components of this program and the program's effect on the young boys and their parents. Literature Review Little seems to be known about which protective mechanisms foster resilience and success among African American youths. Winfield (1995) described four protective mechanisms or processes (identified by Rutter, 1987) that can promote resilience among at-risk youths: (1) risk modification, either through the risk itself or the child's exposure; (2) following exposure, diminishment of the probable negative chain reaction; (3) initiating self-efficacy and self-esteem; and (4) presentation of positive opportunities. Although interventions must also occur within the family unit, Winfield (1995) described methods of reducing the negative outcomes associated with risk exposure in the classroom. One method involves allowing children to vent their frustrations at the beginning of a school day. Regarding the negative chain of events that occurs after risk exposure, children and adolescents must receive immediate intervention to recuperate and more on with their lives. In addition, self-efficacy and self-esteem can be developed through education and empowerment. Last, presenting at-risk youths with positive opportunities, such as athletics for African American males or other incentives for pregnant teenage girls to remain in school, can also enhance resilience. Interventions for at-risk youths include mentoring, church-based programs, social skills training, career development education, HIV/AIDS prevention, and substance abuse prevention and reduction. Mentoring is a common approach for reaching at-risk adolescents, despite the lack of definitive research on its effectiveness. Royse (1998) described the Brothers Project, which used mentors for at-risk youths to improve self-esteem, beliefs regarding substance abuse, academic performance, and overall prosocial behavior. Participants, almost all African American, were assigned to either a mentoring group or a control group--a group without mentors. Methods included matching adolescents with mentors for periods ranging from six to 41 months and administering the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Drug Attitude Questionnaire, and self-report questionnaires. Royse round no statistically significant differences between the mentee group and the control group on the variables of self-esteem, attitudes about drugs and alcohol, grade point average, school absences, and disciplinary infractions. Included in the comprehensive review of research, Jemmott and Jemmott (1994) cited an intervention study by Jemmott, Jemmott, and Fong that addressed African American male adolescents. …