“Giving Back to the Community”: Youth Community Engagement as Sport and Recreation Leaders at the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa

Abstract

This report explores the “community engagement” experiences of young adult leaders working with the BGCO. Community organizations like the BGCO operate in a shifting landscape that, in recent decades, has begun considering children and youth as community assets who represent potential, rather than a societal problem in need of management (how they were viewed in the past). Within these organizations, some children and youth are becoming engaged in their communities as leaders. While other children and youths who serve in these organizations may not necessarily become “community leaders,” they are still being groomed to become “good citizens” in their communities. While the definition of “good citizen” is fluid and constantly shifting (see Pykett, Saward & Schaefer, 2010), and while children and youth often have their own citizenship vocabulary (see Thorson, 2012), an intentional, prosocial approach that attempts to engage children and youth and help them acquire qualities Canadians’ feel represent “good citizens” is positive youth development (PYD). As Mahoney, Vandell, Simpkins and Zarrett (2009) suggest, a key factor for successful PYD is activity/program participation (e.g., out-of-school time activities). Through after-school and weekend programming, including recreational and competitive sport, the BGCO staff (paid and voluntary, administrators at the management level and young leaders who are usually “on-the floor”) use PYD to prepare children and youth for their role as “good citizens” and “community leaders” in the Ottawa community (BGCO, 2018b). Importantly, many of the BGCO staff are former club members who continue their involvement in the BGCO as employees or volunteers to “give back” to the BGCO and the greater Ottawa community. In other words, these young people return to work as “community leaders” for the organization that helped them become “good citizens.” This report contextualizes the case study by first outlining the BGCO mission, vision and history, as gleaned from BGCO informational materials (e.g., website, employee handbook, etc.). Next it explains the research questions and methodology. The results are presented and discussed; and administrators and young adult workers explain how they see the BGCO, including what “community” they perceive the BGCO to serve. The analysis then turns to the young leaders’ (aged 17-36) experiences at the BGCO. We attempt to explain how these leaders make sense of their responsibilities and actions in their leadership roles as an expression of their commitment to children and youth in their “communities” – in other words – the essence of their motivation to support and help others. To contextualize these experiences and help explain how and why the BGCO young adult leaders continue their involvement with the club, recruitment and training processes are discussed. We conclude by examining the positive impact that the BGCO is having on its members and young leaders and by asking the BGCO to explore a few ideas we believe might help them continue to encourage youths to transform themselves as “good citizens” and as “community leaders” within and beyond the BGCO.