Survey examines how youth benefit from social activites
By Kevin Kelley
Fairview Park
Published April 19, 2006

The city has a new recreation center on the way. But how well will it be utilized by the young people of the community?

Fairview Park’s Youth Advisory Commission (YAC), a volunteer group of citizens, sought to answer that question by commissioning a professional survey of the city’s youth. Surveys asking about a variety of factors in a young person’s life were distributed at Fairview Park High School and Lewis F. Middle School.

“This committee was established to determine Fairview Park’s coordinated resources and information for our youth and their parents in the schools, city and its faith-based organizations,” former City Council President Norm Bringman said of the Youth Advisory Commission. “With the advent of the new rec center, we wanted to look at in addition to our current rec programs and how we could better serve our youth.”

While the population of the high school outnumbers the middle school by a seven to three ratio, 70 percent of those who completed the survey were middle school students.

The results of the survey were presented at a committee meeting of city council April 10. Three Baldwin-Wallace College students — Kattie Basnett, Nik Kalich and Lisa Miller — tallied the survey results under the direction of Lisa Green, a B-W psychology professor.

Well accepted research has shown that student participation in social activities has numerous benefits, Green and her students said. For example, a student who participates in activities one to four hours each week is less likely to drop out of school and less likely to use drugs or cigarettes. Because activities are usually tied to the community and its values, student participants are less likely to engage in activities that go against community standards, sociologists believe.

The survey examined everything from students’ perception of parent supervision to hours of television viewing.

Green said Fairview Park youth who took the survey were not that much different from young people elsewhere.

“Most of the data was consistent with previous research,” she said. However, she said she was happy to see a large percentage of youth trusted their parents. Ninety percent of respondents said they had at least one adult they trusted. Of those, 79 percent said they could trust their parents — the only category of adults to be trusted by a majority of respondents, according to the study.

Another interesting result was that nearly 90 percent felt safe walking to and from school. Whether a student carried a cell phone made no significant difference in how safe he or she felt, according to the survey.

In looking at the school environment, 60 percent said it was always or almost always caring and encouraging. Only 10 percent said it was rarely or never encouraging.

Over half of survey participants — 52 percent — reported spending no time engaged in music, theater or art activities during the week. Seventy percent were involved in athletics, however.

The survey concluded that students who participated in school activities got better grades.

The reason most often given by students for not participating in school or community activities was a lack of interest in the programs offered. Other reasons often given included the lack of time and transportation to participate.

More than half — 56 percent — of participants said they were interested in volunteering in the community. Of the 483 survey participants, 192 expressed an interest in volunteering with youth. Ninety-one wanted to volunteer with the elderly, and 67 would volunteer to do lawn maintenance for seniors, the study said.

Based on these findings, the B-W students suggested a volunteer coordinator be stationed at the new rec center. They also recommended scheduling youth events between 2 and 8 p.m. on school days, because it’s during this time that juvenile offenses are most likely to occur, statistics say. Given many students’ lack of automobile transportation, the survey analysts also recommended city council consider sharing community buses for students to utilize.

“Obviously, if they don’t have transportation, they can’t use the (rec) center,” Basnett said.

Council should also consider offering discounted rec center memberships on a need-basis for lower income families, the B-W students said.

Overall, the survey analysts concluded Fairview Park will benefit from having a recreation center. Time spent in youth programs has been associated with positive behaviors and attributes such as leadership, helping others and overcoming adversity, they said.

“The data they gave us will be very useful in helping us understand the interests and the needs of high school and middle school students,” at-large City Council member Peggy Cleary, a member of the YAC, said at Monday evening’s council meeting. “The results from that study will be used to help the rec department when they plan and make programming for the rec department.”