Peter Benson Story - Healthy Communities Healthy Youth Conference

In early November, a team of journalists from 8-18 Media traveled to Rochester, New York to attend the 11th annual Healthy Communities Healthy Youth Conference. While at the conference, 8-18 Media interviewed Peter Benson, the president and founder of the Search Institute, as well as the creator of the 40 Developmental AssetsTM. Benson’s ultimate goal is to reach a “tipping point” of having ten million conscious asset builders worldwide.

8-18: What is the ultimate goal of asset building?

Benson: I think the ultimate goal is to maximize the chances that young human beings get off to a fabulous start in life, that young human beings become really strong, engaged adults in the world, to become really good workers, great parents, committed to their communities. So I think the ultimate goal is a healthier society, a safer society, and a society in which people are more likely to blossom and flourish than they can now.

8-18: Why do you feel that it is important for youth to have assets?

Benson: Because there’s a lot of science behind the assets. The research shows that the assets are probably the most important strategy to promote academic achievement. If you build assets you help young people stay in school. If you build assets you can reduce drug, alcohol and tobacco use really dramatically. If you build assets you can reduce violence in communities dramatically. But what I also like about building assets is that it draws a community of people together on the same team.

8-18: What does society need to do as a whole to build assets in youth?

Benson: I think as a society some of that is about national policy and the way in which our government should be making choices to invest in the development of young people. I think as a nation we could do a lot more in investing in our public schools than we do. Nationally, it would be great if youth development were really a strong part of how government saw its role in America.

8-18: In your childhood, did you ever consider building assets in youth as an option in your future?

Benson: When I was a teenager I think I knew I was going to create some idea about social change. I grew up in an era where we became very aware that there were things in our society that weren’t as strong as they should be, issues of race, poverty, women. So I got really into these issues of how do you change how a nation approaches things? How do you change how a nation thinks? And that’s a heavy part of what we’re doing in the asset building model, trying to change how America thinks and acts with young people.

8-18: How do you think asset building will change in the future?

Benson: In the ten, fifteen, years we’ve been articulating these building blocks, society changes. Maybe we’ll be adding a couple developmental assets as critical for human growth as the world changes.

8-18: When do you think we’ll reach the “tipping point” of having ten million asset builders?

Benson: I think we’re going to get to that tipping point of ten million in about five to six years. We’re going to do some new things to really communicate and reach out and draw more people into this wonderful movement.

8-18: How do you plan to draw people into the movement?

Benson: We need to build Search Institute’s communication capacity. We want to expand our training and our training of trainers. And finally, we’re going to become very intentional about trying to reach American parents and drawing them into this. We’ve really got to reach and empower millions of parents to be very intentional about building assets in their children’s lives.