The Circle of Courage has piloted an innovative curriculum which offers "basic training" for all who deal with challenging children and youth. Response Ability Pathways™, or simply RAP, provides essential strength-based strategies for all who deal with young persons in family, school, or community.

What is RAP?

Response Ability Pathways (RAP) is a training program that provides skills for working effectively with all youth and supporting them on pathways toward responsibility. RAP training is highly practical in design and can be provided both to mentors and mature youth. RAP builds positive connections among youth and with their elders to create a climate of respect.

What Challenges Face Today’s Youth?

In early tribal cultures, children thrived when nurtured by caring relatives. But in modern society, the bonds between generations have been tattered. Children who are not attached to adults fail to learn the values of respect for self and others. Hungry for attention, they become prisoners of peer approval. Unmotivated in school, they fail to develop their potentials. Struggling for power, they challenge authority. Many youth mask their spiritual emptiness by reckless pursuit of pleasure. Their disruptive behaviors are signals of distress. Beneath their defiance, indifference, or reckless bravado, many of our youth are swimming in rivers of pain. But when their behavior bothers others, they are likely to be dealt more pain. These problems are not unique to impoverished communities but are found in the city, suburb, and rural community. Family instability, substance abuse, delinquency, school problems, racism, and alienated youth are all symptoms of broken communities. RAP addresses such problems by restoring relationships and building positive peer climates.

How Does RAP Work?

To succeed in the face of risk and challenge, children need concerned adults and peers who respond to their needs rather than react to problem behavior. RAP provides these “response-abilities” to all who deal directly with young persons experiencing conflict in school, family, peer group, and community. This training can include key adult stakeholders as well as youth who exercise positive influence among their peers. RAP turns problems into positive learning opportunities by creating a system for communicating with youth. RAP uses a clear-cut problem-solving format: Connect ► Clarify ► Restore. This is the normal process for resilient coping found in all cultures. Thus, RAP taps the strengths and natural capacity kids already have to connect with others for support, clarify challenging problems, and restore respect.

• Connecting: A mentor’s first challenge is to create positive social bonds. While “building relationships” with reluctant youth may appear to be a daunting task, many meaningful connections can be made in a short period of time, both with individuals and with groups. Positive connections are built upon small acts of respect and kindness. Once youth connect, they are able to use that person for positive support.

• Clarifying: By helping a youth understand “here-and-now” problem situations, mentors support the development of resilient coping strengths. Youth learn to use strengths and overcome limitations to meet important life goals. Young persons need to learn to think clearly about their behavior in order to creatively solve problems, master difficult challenges, and meet their needs.

• Restoring: Interpersonal harmony involves respect for self and others. A restorative plan taps inner strengths and external supports to meet growth needs for belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. Though complicated problems may not be resolved immediately, a young person can take steps on the pathway toward responsibility.

RAP starts with problems but searches for strengths and solutions. RAP provides whatever support the “teaching moment” allows, whether literally a moment or an hour. Sometimes a few short RAP interventions distributed over time have more lasting impact than a long session. RAP training grew from the Circle of Courage model based on Native American philosophies of child rearing as described in Reclaiming Youth At Risk by Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, and Steve Van Bockern. The goal is to create opportunities for belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. RAP is also grounded in research on resilience and brain science.

How is RAP Training Organized?

RAP training follows principles of “universal design.” It is intuitive, jargon-free, and relevant across diverse cultural settings. Training is interactive and experiential and provides practical strategies for professional and lay persons as well as youth who are peer leaders. A RAP course is delivered over three days by certified RAP trainers. Outside readings support the formal training.

RAP trainers use brief lectures, audio-visual resources, discussion, and extensive role-playing of problem-solving scenarios. Participation in role-playing is organized to be as non-threatening as possible. The skills for these interventions are developed in sequence, first concentrating on Connecting, later adding Clarifying, and by the last day putting together Connecting, Clarifying, and Restoring.

Course Outline

I. RAP Foundations
Circle of Courage and Resilience Science
Rivers of Pain
Fighting Pain with Pain

II. Connecting
RAP Introduction
Disconnected Kids
Brain Science on Connecting
Strategies for Connecting

III. Clarifying
Coping With Challenges
Private Logic: The Inside Kid
Thinking Errors
CLEAR Thinking

IV. Restoring
Instilling Responsibility
Cultivating Respect
Restoring Social Bonds
Choosing New Pathways

To schedule a training in your area, contact our preferred provider:
Reclaiming Youth International
Phone: 605 647-2532
Toll Free:1-888-647-2532
Email: seminars@reclaiming.com
Fax: 605 647-5212
Website: www.reclaiming.com

This course is available for college credit.

2010 Syllabus - RAP.pdf