What Happened to LRY?

The central question still stands: what happened to LRY? The answer depends on the answerer. SCOYP had one set of ideas; the continental youth leadership had another. Other groups of people had other theories as to what was wrong and what was reputed to be wrong. While SCOYP and SCOYP's process left many people feeling unheard, there were some good things that came out of it.

SCOYP


good stuff:

SCOYP was the Special Committee on Youth Programs. It was created by the UUA Board of Trustees in April, 1976, as a result of a proposal made by the Continental LRY Executive Committee of 1976. The committee was charged:
"...to study the existing youth programs in the denomination, including LRY, and to make proposals, including budget proposals, to the Board as to the best ways for the UUA to develop, offer and support programs for youth generally of high school age" (SCOYP Report, 1).
When the report came out, the essence of the recommendation was that funding for the LRY Executive Committee be discontinued, that youth programming be restructured and brought more closely under the control/supervision of adults, and that continental youth have some kind of opportunity to help develop the new structure. This proposal made many, many youth at the time extremely unhappy. However, there were some good results from the evaluation process aside from the eventual development of a working structure for youth programs. On the denominational level there was a heightened awareness of UU youth, their programming, their needs, and their predicaments at the time. SCOYP also revisited the questions of youth, adults, and what their needs and mutual responsibilities are. Because the purpose of the report was focused on the proposals, people seem to have skimmed or skipped the beginning. From the report, some of SCOYP's insights: (beginning on page 4), quote:
Young adults are searching for meaning in life and for personal identity. They seek continuity, power, and a responsible place in the world. Because of extended adolescence and the dissolving nature of contemporary community, the search and the space to find personal answers are increasingly disparate. UUA program goals for youth must be responsive to the needs of youth, or youth will continue to drop out and vanish. UU societies should provide meaningful programs to their youth in a consistent way. A program for youth needs to offer
bullet a safe space for transition and passage
bullet it needs to offer experience with real power
bullet an opportunity to develop a personal religious philosophy,
bullet and significant, meaningful work.
The programs should
bulletfoster a commitment to the larger UU body
bulletcelebrate potential for continuous growth and change throughout life,
bulletand affirm the questioning stance of adolescence
...Adults working with youth must be authentic, secure in their adulthood, and able to stand by their principles without trying to "program" young people. Adults should be able to facilitate self-exploration, the facing of difficult decisions, and the examination of the consequences of decisions on the part of youth in an open, growth producing fashion. Adults should set limits with respect to their rights as human beings and should be ready to confront issues related to this at every opportunity. They should realize that abuse of sexuality and intoxicating chemicals by adolescents is frequently a purposeful attempt at control of self and others, or is goal directed in some other way, and that these issues should be explored. Adults who work with young people should be optimistic about the possibilities for growth and should inspire self confidence in youth. Manipulative personal involvements between group advisors and youth are divisive and destructive of the group's efforts at personal empowerment.
Most important in adults working with youth is a constant commitment to freedom and responsibility as inseparable ideals, and a feeling of security in one's adulthood. Some expertise in human relations, familiarity with counseling and growth and development would be valuable. Adolescence is a time of self-examination and of developing a commitment to others. Young people (and adults) need love, acceptance, security, and approval.
Adults working with youth should be members of the UU community. They should be familiar with the goals of the church or fellowship and see the young people as valuable members of the UU community. The denomination has the responsibility to adults working with youth to provide training and support that will enable them to carry out their charge. Responsibilities between adults and youth are reciprocal—they go both ways. The youth advisor should be an indicator that adults care about young people and feel that what they are doing is of importance.

The Problems

The SCOYP report cited a number of problems with LRY. Most of them had to do with lack of adult responsibility and support and lack of youth organization. Nearly everyone else cites sexual activity and the use of illegal drugs as the determining factors.

SCOYP

The SCOYP report mentions an oft-quoted "Massive abdication of adult responsibility". It continues, "where there is evidence of adult interest, concern, involvement, sensitivity and continuity, there is also apt to be strong youth activity. Where there is neglect, noninvolvement, lack of adult concern or continuity, the programs are most apt to be weak or nonexistent" (7). Wayne Arnason, who was involved with youth programming from the end of LRY through the beginning of YRUU, also writes, "So what happened during those ten years? In brief, I would say that the adults of the UUA gradually despaired of effectively working with youth after they gave up formal power over them. What happened first at the continental level gradually happened at the district and local levels as well. Youth leadership groups said "We don't need an advisor" and adults said "Well, OK..." and walked away from it all until there was trouble.
So it wasn't just that the adults needed to be there, it was that the same adults needed to be there. But adult staff were hard to find and harder to keep. This has always been a problem for our youth programming. In 1955, the Adviser's Handbook (sic) said, "Yes, we know the usual problem is not paring a list down but just finding a person, any person, who will agree to be an adviser (sic)" (32).
In 1977, the SCOYP report cited lack of willing adults as one of the problems, leading to advising staff who might be advisors for themselves instead of for the youth, and/or might interact with youth in inappropriate ways.
In 1989, the YRUU five-year review wrote,
"Our overall youth programs are inadequately supported by adult leaders. . . we still have a shortage of adults (and especially of men) working with youth" (3).
Both SCOYP and the YAC noted that local congregations had stopped providing support for youth programming, and that the denomination was not supporting youth programming, either. The congregations which had programs had usually dissociated from LRY, but many had simply "kicked [the youth group] out" and created no alternative programming. This was bound to create some hard feelings between the youth and adults of a church. In many cases, youth thus alienated never fully returned to the denomination. The UUA lost some excellent leaders this way.
Local groups were not interacting with the continental leadership. This was partially because of the lack of congregational support, which certainly made it harder for the LRY Executive Committee to get programming aids and materials to the youth. It was also because, until 1976, there seem to have been few programming materials available. The locals wanted support. Unfortunately, federations were often functioning shakily, if at all, and were not providing much support or taking much responsibility. In addition, LRY felt responsible for providing material to LRY groups. When there was a non-affiliated youth-not-LRY group somewhere, LRY might not know about it and certainly didn't consider itself responsible for providing materials (this, according to SCOYP). Even had they wished to, they might not have been able to—the budget they had seems to have been fairly inadequate for housing and feeding four people who were in turn responsible for running continental programming. Training was (and is) a big issue. Again, the 1955 Adviser's Handbook suggested that a training program might help recruit adults to work with youth. The writers also said,
"Training for church school teachers has long been accepted as a basic need in a church's program. Slowly this same need is being recognized for youth advisers (sic). As yet, however, opportunities for group training for advisers (sic) are limited" (4). The YRUU Five-Year Review:
"Support and training for adults who work with youth is seriously lacking..." (3).
All of these problems created a lot of discord and fragmentation. Because some youth groups were into drug use, the youth who were not felt alienated. Because some churches withdrew support for their youth groups, the youth in those groups felt alienated. Because the general culture was still reeling from the sixties and some groups were reeling with it, youth who did not identify with a "hippie" image sometimes felt alienated. Because the UUA seemed to be trying to dismantle LRY, the continental youth leaders felt alienated.
It was a mess.