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Book Chapter
"Who’ll even listen to me"? The
Cognitive-Emotional Spiral Effect of
Integrating Volunteer Youth into
Emergency Teams
Miriam Billig*
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ariel University;
Eastern R&D Regional Center, Israel
*Corresponding Author: Miriam Billig, Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, Ariel University; Eastern R&D
Regional Center, Israel
Published July 09, 2020
This Book Chapter is a republication of an article published by
Miriam Billig at Cogent Psychology in December 2019. (Billig,
M. (2019). Incorporating volunteer youth in emergency teams:
The effect of the cognitive-emotional spiral. Cogent Psychology,
6(1), 1704610. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2019.1704610)
How to cite this book chapter: Miriam Billig. "Who‘ll even
listen to me"? The Cognitive-Emotional Spiral Effect of
Integrating Volunteer Youth into Emergency Teams. In: Paul
Raj, editor. Prime Archives in Psychology. Hyderabad, India:
Vide Leaf. 2020.
© The Author(s) 2020. This article is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Acknowledgment: To Noga Fridman (Ph.D) for conducting
interviews and collecting data for this research; to the Eastern
R&D Center for financial support.
Public interest statement - The research findings are especially
important for community managers and youth counselors who
engage in non-formal education. The study enables holistic
observation of the consequences of incorporating youth in the
CET program in a small and isolated communal settlement. The
findings show that the program has improved the community‘s
emergency plan, strengthened communal empowerment in the
settlement, and strengthened the self-efficacy and self-esteem of
the participating youth.
About the author – Prof. Miriam Billig, (Ph.D), Sociology and
Urban and Regional Planning. Her research focuses on the field
of Environmental Psychology: place identity, place attachment
and sense of place and quality of life; community development
and change; religious faith and living under pressure and threat;
coping with displacement and the sense of loss.
Abstract
Examining the implications of recruiting youth for local
community emergency team (CET) in a small rural settlement
near Israel's eastern border, is at the center of this chapter. Three
different perspectives were examined: The contribution to
professional operations of the emergency team, to community
social capital and to youth empowerment. The article is based on
a study which included participant observation and in-depth
interviews with youth CET members and their parents, and with
adult CET organizers and members. Findings show that the
program improved the community‘s emergency response
preparations, empowered the community, and strengthened self-
efficacy and self-esteem of the participating youth. The
emotional aspect was found to be a central factor in setting
change processes in motion, both in the functionality of CET
youth and their relationships with adults. Evidently, by being
incorporated into the program, adolescents experienced
emotional empowerment which affected them personally,
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deepening their understanding and attitudes towards the
collective.
Keywords
Community Emergency Team; Youth Volunteering; Youth
Organizing; Communal Empowerment; Self–Efficacy; Youth
Civic Engagement
Introduction
On a mundane day in the summer of 2009 a child from Barak – a
small peripheral settlement in Israel, went missing. Local
adolescents were called to participate in a think tank and search
team. This formative event revealed much about the power and
willingness of the youth of the community to aid in emergencies.
Secluded rural settlements must deal with their remoteness from
public response centers, since the size of such settlements does
not justify the maintenance of basic services, such as health
services, fire and rescue services, and police forces. The absence
of such services is especially acute during emergencies and
disasters that often strike swiftly and without warning.
Therefore, these remote communities must prepare in advance
and arrange an accessible and skilled team that is on continuous
stand-by and comes into operation during such hours of need.
The community‘s functionality during the crisis span greatly
depends upon its ability to organize and on its preparedness to
manage an emergency. The community emergency team (CET),
comprised of volunteer residents of the same community who
are trained to face emergencies in their place of residence, came
to address this need. In the past few decades‘ emergency teams
have been established in Israel, mainly in the periphery and in
settlements near national borders. Barak is an example of one
such secluded settlement in which a community emergency team
was founded. The team comprises adult residents, most of them
with families, who volunteered to contribute their skills and time
to this team.
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Another difficulty which characterizes small rural settlements is
the low supply of extracurricular activities available to teenagers
and the lack of after-school challenges for them. Small
settlements find difficulty in supplying the needs of settlement
youth, especially when it comes to those youth perceived by
peers as socially unacceptable at school, which may lead to
frustration, boredom, and even vandalism [1].
Following the emergency event of summer 2009, a decision was
made in Barak in 2010 to start a youth community emergency
team (YCET). The project was initiated in collaboration with the
regional council, the Department of Social Services, and the
Community Work Unit, as a primary attempt to incorporate
teenagers into community emergency response preparations and
add them to the adult emergency team.
Twenty-five candidates requested to join the program. The
selection was based on criteria of maturity, responsibility, and
skill sets that could contribute to the group, including knowledge
of technology, languages, familiarity with the environment, the
ability to navigate, and good manual dexterity. Twelve
adolescents, aged 14-17, were chosen. Success in studies and
social status at school were not criteria; students spanning the
full gamut of academic achievement from gifted students to
relatively weak students were included. and some of the
candidates were considered socially unacceptable at school. A
professional training program was prepared to train the selected
youth for this role, including a four months program of three-
hour, bi-weekly training sessions.
Since 2010, the YCET program has become highly popular in
distant and peripheral settlements in Israel. However, no holistic
perspective of this program's effects has been presented and no
evaluation research has been conducted. This research is the first
to examine interpersonal and emotional relationships between
people involved in the program, their influence on the CET
organization, its young members and the community.
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Community Involvement of Youth
A sense of community (SoC) and community involvement mean
active engagement "in issues that affect people's lives and impact
the larger community" [2]. Adolescence is identified by the
formation of personal and collective identity, while cultural and
social context has a central role in developing a coherent self-
identity [3,4]. Researchers emphasize the importance of
psychological involvement in the positive development of youth
[5], in the empowerment and positive strengthening of their self-
perception and in fostering their learning motivation [6,7]. Youth
participation in community events has cognitive-emotional
repercussions, manifesting in the lives of the adolescents
themselves. Those who are involved in their local communities
create stronger bonds with other community members, stronger
determination to solve problems, and a stronger sense of social
responsibility [8,9]. Active communal participation has been
found to be an important tool for promoting the development of
critical awareness, political involvement, empowerment, and
good citizenship of youth [10,11],
Youth-adult relationships based on mutual trust and respect may
be powerful promoters of organizational, community, and social
change, strengthen adolescents‘ sense of security, resilience, and
critical thinking, and advance their social well-being [12-15].
Researchers highlight core components coming into play to
create an effective youth-adult partnership: Unjudgmental and
egalitarian support by adults who act as natural youth ―mentors‖;
reciprocal activity and joint decision making. These components
enable youth and adults to form engagements through meetings
with community stakeholders and to work together towards a
common goal [16-19].
Youth Volunteering in the Community
Volunteering - ―a helping action of an individual that is valued
by him or her, and yet is not aimed directly at material gain, or
mandated or coerced by others‖ [20] - might be motivated by
altruistic motives to help others, self-interest, or by the
combination of egoistic and self-interest motives [21,22].
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According the role identity model, engagement in volunteering
work enhances commitment to the organization, which in turn
increases involvement in its activities and leads to a change in
the volunteer's role identity and self-concept [23,24].
Adolescence is identified by the formation of personal and
collective identity, while cultural and social context have a
central role in developing a coherent self-identity [3,4].
Research has shown that younger people tend to be motivated to
take part in volunteer work by the opportunity to enhance social
networking and skills and value their contribution to a specific
cause [25]. Volunteerism gives young people the opportunity to
appraise their own competencies and thus to further construct
their personal and collective identity [3]. Voluntary service of
young people supports their cognitive, emotional, social and
moral development: Studies have shown positive effects on
socialization, belonging to the community, political participation
[24] and formation of social norms [26]. Crocetti, Erentaitė &
Žukauskienė [27] identified a positive correlation between
social-cognitive identity styles in adolescence, positive youth
development and civic engagement through volunteering. Youth
volunteering was found to increase a sense of community,
promote pro-social orientations such as altruism, cultivate
democratic citizenship and improve volunteers' social well-being
[28-30]. Many studies have reported improvements in self-
concept, including self-esteem and career identity, as the effects
of volunteer activities on adolescents [8,9,28]. Moreover, youth
volunteering decreases the probability of negative behaviors
such as school absenteeism or drug problems [31,32].
Awareness of the role of adolescents in the community and
acknowledging them as an asset and a resource of human capital
has contributed to the development of ―Youth Community
Organizing‖ (YCO) model. According to YCO participatory
approach, young people are placed in leadership positions to lead
for positive community change, and become the "organizing
core" of community activities, while still receiving support and
guidance from accompanying adults [6]. The application of the
model is manifested through the incorporation of youth into a
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wide range of structured and supervised volunteer activities [33-
36]. Preliminary studies on YCO programs show a positive
effect on participants‘ development and indicate that such
programs may improve adolescents‘ abilities to take
responsibility, cope and change challenging personal and family
situations [34,35]. YCO and other civic and community
engagement programs afford adolescents key roles and fields of
responsibility, acknowledge their rights, recognize their
capabilities as leaders during a crisis and turn youth into a
central power source [37-39].
Incorporating Volunteer Youth into Emergency Teams
Because emergencies are usually local, decision makers have
become more conscious of the special role adolescents play in
emergencies [40]. Therefore, according to ―participatory disaster
risk prevention‖ approach, it is crucial to involve community‘s
adolescents alongside its adults in preparing for and preventing
disasters. This approach encourages the inclusion of all
community members in emergency management and planning,
consulting, and decision-making on all disaster-related aspects,
regardless of ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, gender
and age [41-44].
Various programs have been developed to incorporate youth into
the field of emergency action in many countries around the
world, including Canada, India, and the US [45,46]. The Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), US Department of
Education, and the Red Cross have developed a strategy for
recruiting and training communities to educate children and
adolescents in the fields of emergency management and
preparedness. The Community Emergency Response Team
youth program [47] is an established and recognized example.
These educational programs address three stages of an
emergency: Preparation prior to the emergency; reaction during
the emergency; recovery in its wake.
Youth strengthen the operational aspect of emergency response
preparations in ways that adults do not. They contribute energy,
enthusiasm, knowledge, geographical familiarity, innovative
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ideas, creativity, and easy access to learning-enabling
communication technology. Adolescents tend to perceive the
situation in a different way than adults, placing emphasis on
issues that an adult might overlook [48]. They may show greater
courage, resourcefulness and a great deal of independence and
leadership skills, and sometimes might even be more practical
[13,49-52]. Despite the growing awareness in recent years of the
significance of youth as human capital in management of
emergencies, the local applications of these programs remain
limited [41,42,53].
Incorporation of volunteering youth in emergency teams
contributes to their sense of collective responsibility and
reinforces their social involvement. It develops adolescents‘
emotional connections with the community and family and
affords them mental security and resilience [13,54], develops
their leadership skills [52] and may shape their future position in
society [51].
The literature on volunteer youth in the community and their
incorporation into emergency teams has focused primarily on
presenting the various benefits of dichotomous sequence
between the individual and the collective levels. These
depictions disregard the mutual effects and their important
contribution to increasing motivation to volunteer and to
personal youth empowerment. This chapter examines the
implications of recruiting youth and incorporating them into a
local community emergency team and attempts to present a
holistic picture of the relationship between youth and
community.
The Current Study
This study aims to unravel the inner cognitive-emotional
processes that motivate adolescents and adults as they volunteer,
and the effects of these processes on the program‘s level of
success. It seeks to understand the overall effect of the
experimental program on incorporating adolescent volunteers
into the CET team of the community settlement. The research
focuses on three central questions: What was youth contribution
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to the management of the emergency operational response
preparations? How did the incorporation of youth in the
community emergency team affect the fabric of youth-adult-
community relations? What were the consequences of
participation in this program on personal youth empowerment,
and on their connection to the settlement in which they reside?
The case study presents a holistic picture of an ongoing
cognitive-emotional spiral of youth-community relationships
based on research of the emotional overflow, understandings and
insights that have arisen following the YCET project.
Methods
Participants
The study was conducted in Barak, a small community
settlement of 450 families and 1800 residents, near the eastern
border of Israel. All participants were graduates of 2013 YCET
course that took place in the settlement.
Eighteen in-depth interviews were held between October and
December of 2014: four interviews with adult CET members
(boys); 10 interviews with participants in the YCET course, (3
girls and 5 boys, (66% of the participants)); and four interviews
with participants‘ parents (3 women, 1 man). The ages of the
young boys and girls were 14 to 17, and the ages of the adults
were 38 to 55. 72% of the interviewees were secular, 28%
traditional; 73% born in Israel, and 27% in the CIS.
Procedure
In the first step, two in-depth interviews were conducted to
reveal the aims of the program and th technical details related to
the procedure for screening and accepting candidates. The first
interview was with the head of the YCET course, Noga
Friedman, who planned the program, and the second with the
CEO of Barak settlement. They were asked to describe
impressions from the program, define the successes or failures,
and focus on unexpected events that occurred during the
program. The descriptions included experiences from their point
of view and from the perspective of different individuals who
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were related to the program. Documents related to the YCET
course were also displayed. The testimonies helped to define
three main topics that became the focus of the second step of the
research.
In the second step participants were asked to address the
following questions in detail: "In your opinion, did the youth
contribute to the professional operation of the CET
organization?", "How would you describe the YCET relationship
with the community?" and "What was the impact of the YCET
program on the youth?"
The study involved semi-structured, in-depth interviews, during
which original questions were dynamically changed in
accordance with topics raised by the interviewee. The
interviewees were chosen randomly. Interviews were conducted
in person, face-to-face, except of one interview that was
conducted over the phone. Prior to conducting the interviews,
approval by the University Ethics Committee was obtained as
well as parental consent for adolescents. The interviewees were
asked to address their own personal experiences, attitudes and
feelings relating to the YCET volunteer program. Interviews
took place in the interviewer‘s home or at the CET office and
lasted between one to two hours. All interviews transcriptions
were analysed, followed by categorization of the elicited
information. Each category signifying a salient issue raised in
several of the interviews; no contradictions or disputes were
found between the portrayals given by adolescents, parents, or
adult CET members. However, there were differences in
emphasis between them, some of which complemented each
other and provided a broad picture of the program's implications.
Results
‘It turned out that I was the first to arrive’: Professional
and Operational Improvements
Availability and Mobility: Youth proved to be more available
than adults during emergencies, as they spend most of their days
and nights in the settlement. Youth have an advantage over many
of the adults because they can move quickly from place to place.
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This mobility is important during emergencies – an advantage
that had not been thought of before. Team members often had to
run between various locations within the settlement.
Additionally, some areas in the settlement are more familiar to
adolescents than to adults. As the head of CET logistics
described:
In our drill, we simulated the destruction of the youth
movement club, a place that was entirely unknown to me,
personally. I used adolescents to locate the entrances, the fuse
boxes, and the possible exits accessible on foot. They did a
good job; the drill changed my perception of them.
One of the boys described:
I was very excited during the drill, […] When it began, I was
running as fast as I could. It turned out that I was the first to
arrive at the field to provide status reports. I knew the place
better than the adults […] It was a great feeling […] I
understood we really can help!
The inter-generational encounter presented both adults and
adolescents with a mirror image, and each group became more
aware of the other group's advantages while discovering its own
capacities and limitations. Adults learned to appreciate the young
volunteers while exposed to their own limitations, and they
showed willingness to count on them in real-time situations.
Youth learned to appreciate adults‘ experience, and their
accumulative experience was mainly one of personal success: by
virtue of being chosen for the job, of their own success in
performing it, and of the positive feedback adults gave them. The
youth enjoyed adults' growing trust, and as their self-esteem
developed, so did their self-confidence and desire to prove
themselves in other aspects of settlement life.
Fresh and Creative Thinking: The main contribution of the
youth to the CET, according to interviews with adults and
adolescents, was their advantage as out-of-the-box thinkers. In
the words of the head of logistics: ―As smart as we think we are,
sometimes a child‘s way of thinking can change the course of
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things.‖ The interviewees were like-minded in thinking that
youth contribute greatly to brainstorming and excel in
improvising solutions differently than do adults. During a
brainstorming session seeking methods to get residents to update
needed details, the adolescents came up with ideas such as
opening a booth near the settlement‘s pool, changing the form‘s
wording to make filling it out simpler and more convenient, and
adolescents going door-to-door to help residents fill out the form.
One teenager described the contribution of youth to the joint
thought process as follows: ―Young people are more innovative,
they can come up with brilliant ideas, they‘re exposed to so
many things and they sometimes know a lot more‖. Working
alongside adolescents has revealed that their lack of experience
in managing emergencies is an advantage, rather than a
disadvantage. Nothing was obvious because of their
involvement.
High Levels of Technology Proficiency: Work with the youth
included mainly emergency preparation during routine days and
drills, because there are just a few emergencies in Barak. The
adolescents built an internet infrastructure with lists of residents‘
personal details and vital information on special needs
populations and uploaded the information to the ―cloud‖, where
everyone could access it, so that during emergencies the required
data would be available from anywhere with ―cloud‖ access. As
the CET vice-chairman describes:
We used whomever specialized in any field: We turned a
Russian-speaking girl into a translator. A logistics team
created an updated resident database. To do that, the head of
the team was aided by two teenage girls who fed the data into
the computer.
Other adult CET members noted that incorporating youth has
improved CET operation, in both planning and executing
activities. Placing faith in youth has proven useful and afforded
the emergency team with innovation, technological skills,
availability, and mobility.
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‘Adopting a sense of local patriotism’: Strengthening
Community Capital
Local Patriotism: The program for incorporating youth into the
CET represents an approach that calls to invest in a ―select
group‖. The professional collaboration between youth and adults
has changed teenagers‘ attitudes toward the settlement, as
evident in many interviews. One girl told us that merely being
chosen to volunteer in the CET alongside adults made her feel
important and needed, ―I didn‘t treat them as adults, but as part
of the team. My attitude was about being together.‖ And another
girl added, ―I was really moved. I never thought teenagers meant
anything here in the settlement.‖ According to the interviewees,
these sentiments were expressed every time they encountered
adult residents. As one girl explained:
When we went from house to house to update the residents‘
emergency contact details, … as soon as I said I was YCET,
I immediately had a special status … I felt like people took
me more seriously.
The adolescents mentioned they feel responsible for the
settlement by virtue of their inclusion in the program, and
considering how much it had invested in them and the trust it had
placed in them. One boy stated:
After the course, I felt like taking part in building the
community, being responsible for the community,
maintaining order, and improving it. We adopted a sense of
local patriotism; I began using language like ‗our settlement‘,
‗my settlement‘. It‘s not obvious.
―Work relations‖ formed between CET youth: The appreciation
and praise adolescents receive for their work with CET have
strengthened their new status in the settlement and tightened
their emotional link to their place of residence, leading them to
exhibit more empathy and caring towards the settlement, the
community, and their families. As a result, adolescents have
sought out new tasks and challenges that would allow them to
contribute to the greater good. Adults realized CET adolescents
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can be relied on, reinforcing their mutual collaboration and
increasing mutual trust. This realization encouraged better
communication between adolescents and adults and led to a
candid and open relationship they didn‘t previously have. It also
intensified sentiments of a fate shared with the rest of the
residents in the settlement and with it a sense of pride in
belonging to it.
A Sense of Altruism: Adolescents have mentioned the changes
they have undergone in their willingness to contribute to the
greater good. Residents have described a sense of pride in the
settlement over the fact that youth aren‘t merely ―self-involved‖,
but also give and care for others. The adolescents who
volunteered in the CET developed volunteering habits, and some
continue to volunteer in other places in and out of school
following the program, in a variety of fields. As a girl from the
program described, ―CET activity set a very positive wheel in
motion […] the personal commitment school program required
60 hours of volunteer work, but I did double that—I volunteered
with holocaust survivors…‖
CET youth have aided with the organization of community
events in the settlement. Some have volunteered as instructors in
the Betar Youth Movement in the settlement, thus gaining the
respect of both adolescents and adults. The adolescents have said
that their CET training provided them with the tools to motivate
others, and so, when the requirement calls for youth to volunteer
around the settlement, they can volunteer themselves, motivate
other adolescents, and coordinate the activity. Following rumors
of the course and activity around it, parents and adolescents who
have yet to join the CET asked to join the program.
The desire around the settlement to volunteer in the CET has
risen, and volunteers have become ―the settlement‘s elite youth‖,
as the CET vice chairman says, ―People came to me, asking me
to put their kid in the CET; the circle of involvement and caring
is expanding".
Environmental Commitment and Leadership: The CET
training has given values such as taking responsibility of the
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environment and coping ecologically with abnormal events in
the field. Youth availability and their inclination to spend their
time out of their homes have given them an advantage in
identifying abnormal events and reacting quickly to evolving
scenarios. One such example could be seen in this testimony by
the CET chairwoman:
A boy asked the following question during the course,
―Who‘ll even listen to me during an emergency? I‘m just a
boy.‖ And the CET vice-chairman answered him, ―People
will listen to whomever reacts to an emergency.‖ One day,
that same boy left his house and saw that seven trees in his
yard were on fire. His sister and mother, who were in the
house, panicked, as did the neighbor. The boy evacuated
people from their homes and then called the fire department.
By the time they arrived the fire was completely under
control. After the event, that boy told me excitedly that what
he had learned in the course truly helped him.
After the course, the bond between CET youth and settlement
leadership strengthened, and they began cooperating in order to
receive information and aid in resolving problems that arose in
the community. When a member of the settlement attempted
suicide, the youth were asked to block the way to prying eyes.
As leaders, CET youth became role models for other teenagers
and encouraged them to behave in a positive manner.
Most youth and adult interviewees emphasized the end of
vandalism in the settlement, following the CET program.
Though CET adolescents themselves were not the perpetrators,
their involvement in the project created an atmosphere which
discouraged others to commit acts of vandalism. As one boy
pointed out, ―CET adolescents can calm down non-CET
adolescents. They‘ll listen to me.‖ CET youth have testified that
they became more sensitive when it comes to identifying
troubled adolescents in the settlement and have become a
significant agent to which children and teenagers may turn,
directly and without restrictions or worries. As the settlement‘s
community coordinator put it, ―CET youth lend an ear where we
might not‖. A girl mentioned identifying the needs of adults who
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require help around the settlement, who were aided by
adolescents. She, for example, speaks Russian, and thus helped
improve the communication between the settlement offices and
its Russian-speaking population.
Youth that participated in the CET course became more positive;
this change was manifested in their attitudes towards their family
and parents; therefore, their parents, other family members,
friends and people in their immediate surroundings related better
to them.
‘It changed me completely’: Youth Empowerment
through YCET Project
Self-discovery: Adolescents mention how the project enriched
their knowledge and provided them a different perspective on a
variety of fields that were previously unknown to them but now
raised their curiosity. For example, they admitted that before the
course they were not aware of the importance of organization
and logistics for emergency response preparations, nor did they
know that the subject could be studied academically. Others
became interested in medicine, following their course training.
The experience allowed them to make decisions regarding their
chosen course of study, military career and future profession.
The adolescents attributed a great deal of importance to the
spokesperson training, in which they practiced public speaking
and sending messages during emergencies. Even the shyest
members learned how to speak in front of an audience and
discovered they were capable of doing that and even enjoy it.
Some have further developed these skills as instructors in the
youth movement, at school or in their army service.
CET activity allowed youth to discover new skills they were not
aware of before joining the YCET. This aspect came up in the
following depiction by one of the boys, ―[The project] mostly
gave a lot of confidence to […] who didn‘t have much, who
didn‘t stand out or talk as much. This place brought some
[teenagers] out of their shells. People became confident, realized
they could talk, and that their opinions matter.‖ CET activities
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tested, for example, their ability to successfully cope with
pressure at work; some adolescents found that they perform even
better under such circumstances, others discovered their ability
and gift for thinking outside of the box, and some discovered
their leadership skills, as manifested through their improved
communication abilities, authoritativeness, and other
characteristics.
Parents and some youth mentioned more investment in school
studies as a result of participation in the YCET program. As one
of the girls described: It changed me completely. I was quite a
weak student, […] someone who was shy and introverted […]
knowing that I was chosen for the program (maybe because I
speak Russian) […] it strengthened my self-confidence. After the
course, I made new friends. I have taken responsibility for
myself and for our surroundings. CET set things and gave me a
push.
Strengthening of Social Status: YCET activity has garnered
social connections among CET participants. As a boy who
participated in the course described, ―My best friends are the
guys from the CET. Those are the people I am closest to since
then, because we shared the experience.‖ The mother of one
CET teenager pointed out that his involvement in the YCET had
contributed to his ability to fit in socially with other teenagers in
the settlement, ―He knew he was a very smart but not social
person; he used to shut himself at home… The project gave him
the ability to overcome this obstacle‖. Another mother described,
―My daughter used to be a very lonely girl; she completely
changed that year.‖
The testimonies of adolescents who participated in the program
revealed that they felt calmer and less anxious about
emergencies after their CET program training; that their
preparedness for an emergency gave them an advantage over
other teenagers and strengthened their social status. Over time,
the adolescents who took part in the course became a close-knit
group and began spending time with each other beyond CET
activities. The CET volunteer work created positive peer
pressure that encouraged adolescents to become active and put
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their minds together to think about what they could do in, and
contribute to, the settlement and the community, and so further
established their social status in the settlement. Being a part of
the emergency team gave all volunteer adolescents an equal
opportunity to find and execute their innate potential and
discover skills they were not aware of. Volunteering alongside
adults, gave them an opportunity to receive significant
reinforcements they may not have received from their teenage
peers. This is especially significant with respect to talented
adolescents with low self-esteem and relatively week social
skills. Evidently, success on one level, such as the discovery of
personal skills, alongside positive feedback from adults,
encourages self-efficacy and may increase adolescents‘ self-
confidence.
Discussion
In a post-modern age that emphasizes individualism, alienation
and achievement, community volunteer work is not the obvious
choice. Nevertheless, we are witnessing a developing
phenomenon of adults and adolescents volunteering for the
greater good, in social movements and governmental emergency
organizations. The case of Barak enables a holistic observation
of the consequences of incorporating youth into CET program in
a small, isolated settlement from three perspectives: CET
organization, the community and the youth.
The findings show the program improved the emergency teams,
both in planning and in practice, empowered the community and
strengthened self-efficacy and self-esteem of the young
participants. Like a ripple effect, introducing adolescents into
emergency teams led to unexpected changes. It turned out that
having them work side-by-side with adults blurred the
boundaries between the worlds of adults and youth while
preserving and redesigning them. Indeed, adolescents
contributed to operational improvement of emergency response
preparations, but moreover, youth involvement encouraged
better communication and promoted new sincerity and openness
between generations, strengthening their common sense of
shared fate. Professional appreciation, empathy and a new
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discourse of understanding, esteem, and mutual respect replaced
a discourse rife with rights and duties. At the same time, the
incorporation of adolescents into CETs forced adults to set a
personal example and take their CET role seriously, while
assisting the youth to become aware of their own capabilities and
connection to the community.
Apparently, YCET program also had far wider implications that
concerned the overall socio-cultural discourse in the settlement.
The change in adult-adolescent relationships was not restricted to
CET activity alone, but also induced a positive transformation in
the familial inter-generational connection, in the attitudes of
youth toward the rest of the community, and in CET adolescents‘
attitude towards their peers in the settlement. Following the
recruitment of adolescents into CETs in Barak, an atmosphere of
joint responsibilities, including both adults and adolescents, had
been developed in the community. Additionally, the self-image
of CET youth improved, and their sense of connection to their
settlement became stronger. These changes are the result of a
process beginning with a structured initiative that led to
spontaneous chain reactions which strengthened mutual
connections and relations between residents.
Preparation for emergencies calls for experience with crises – for
which CETs must practice and be on call, knowing they may be
called to an emergency at any moment. In addition, any
emergency in the settlement is a catalyst that floods the shared
emotions and experiences that become embedded in the
community over time until the next event. Therefore, ongoing
CET activities create constant tension and excitement, as the
connection to the settlement and its community develops not
only during active hours, but throughout the day. Participation in
CETs evokes feelings of collective responsibility in adolescents
toward their environment and a "continuous sense of
community" [2].
The emotional aspect was found to be a central factor in setting
change processes in motion, both in the functionality of CET
youth and their relationships with adults in the settlement.
Adolescents experienced emotional empowerment which
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affected them personally by being incorporated into the program
and strengthened their understanding and attitudes towards the
collective. The study reveals the importance of encouraging
youth to achieve "little successes" which strengthen their self-
efficacy and self-esteem. Moreover, the positive feedback and
emotional support adolescents received from adults during their
joint activity in the emergency team and the community was also
important. The positive reinforcements received from the small
and large successes, from the adult participants' feedback and the
responses of the surrounding community, elicited strong feelings
among youth and adults, which in turn led to insights that
changed their mutual perceptions, and contributed to the
adolescents‘ cognitive-emotional development of identity.
The encouragement which did not come from within the formal
educational frameworks but rather spontaneously from members
of the community, has had a profound effect on the adolescents.
These have all been motivating factors that transformed the
settlement‘s communal social capital and empowered the
adolescents themselves. Studies have indicated that volunteer
work in governmental emergency organizations and youth
movements may evoke feelings of altruism, resourcefulness and
leadership. An important finding to be emphasized is that when
volunteers participate in the emergency response preparations of
their own communities, the experience strengthens additional
emotions. Emergency preparations concern the basis of
consciousness regarding adolescents‘ overall sense of affiliation,
and consequently, feelings of empathy toward the people they
live with, a sense of community, and strong sentiments toward
their place of residence.
The study reveals several positive effects created following the
incorporation of adolescents into YCET program and shows that
youth who joined the program not only volunteered in
emergencies, but also became active in the settlement and
developed stronger connection to the community. The study
presents youth empowerment process of three dimensions:
increasing the efficiency of the community emergency response
preparations; empowering the community; and empowering CET
adolescents themselves. These dimensions could be described as
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a comprehensive system whose parts interact with each other,
empowering each other cognitively and emotionally.
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