Self-leadership for youth

The youth are the future of a country, and promoting their health should be a key objective of primary health care clinics. In our communities, the young are prone to injuries and trauma—minor to extensive—that are related to aggression, drug abuse, fights and car accidents. These injuries can have a crippling effect not only on the person sustaining the trauma, but also on the person’s parents and community.

For the traumatized person to be restored to normalcy and take up his or her role in the community, severe injuries, whether psychological or physical, require rehabilitation. To support that rehabilitation, self-leadership programs in primary health care clinics are helpful.

Self-leadership is a lifelong personal journey, one that further develops a young person’s strong qualities while addressing his or her weaknesses. For this journey to be initiated properly among youth, evidence of the trauma they’ve encountered is needed. A nationally funded research project that could lead to a community engagement program for youth is currently underway in Clinics Johannesburg in South Africa.

Although there is relatively little data available on the prevalence of youth exposure to violence and trauma in South Africa, a few surveys have described that exposure and its associated psychological outcomes. One study indicated that both full-symptom post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and partial-symptom PTSD are significantly higher in South Africa than in Kenya: 22.2 percent versus 5 percent for full-symptom PTSD and 12 percent versus 8 percent for partial.

A South African survey by Ward, Flisher, and Zissis (2001) of 104 adolescents in four secondary schools in Cape Town found that the majority of youth were exposed to at least one type of violent event, either as a victim or as a witness (Seedat, Nyamai, Njenga, Vythilingum, & Stein, 2004). The survey also found that youth from those schools were exposed to a high level of violence and trauma in their neighborhoods and homes, as well as in school. While many teenagers have been victims of violence or extreme trauma, many more have seen or witnessed these events (SAHealthInfo, 2004). If support is not provided to these young people, the results of their trauma can continue into adulthood. Similar situations of youth trauma are found in the Johannesburg region. The need for a program that supports youth in dealing with trauma is thus evident.

As a principal investigator of a research project on youth violence, I conducted interviews with youth and their parents and realized that we have a “Somalia” in our communities. There are people without food to eat! As they shared their stories with me, I learned that their lives are a sequence of traumatic incidents, and it was amazing to hear how they deal with their challenges.

Is it possible for a community to heal? The people I interviewed gave me hope that, despite unhealthy circumstances, it is possible to do something for one’s self. By helping others, these people have helped themselves move forward through their hurt. It’s like a process of regeneration. Despite multiple traumatic events, faith keeps them standing. In the absence of hope, faith seems to give them a reason to live.

While conducting my interviews, I reflected a lot on myself, where I am and the impact that this research has had on me personally. People need somebody to listen to their stories. There is a huge need for help, and the need sometimes can be overwhelming in terms of what you think you can do as an individual.

All successful actions start with a good self-image, especially among the youth. Therefore, it is important that they learn to craft a self-image capable of sustained acts of greatness. Preparation, conditioning, persuasion and training precede leadership actions. Self-leadership is the process of influencing yourself to establish the self-direction and self-motivation needed for effective performance or to accomplish desirable outcomes (Politis 2006).

References:

Politis, J.D. (2006). Self-leadership behavioural-focused strategies and team performance. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 27(3), 203-216.

SAHealthInfo. (n.d.). Bathuthuzele youth stress clinic. Retrieved from http://www.sahealthinfo.org/mentalhealth/bathuthuzele.htm

Seedat, S., Nyamai, C., Njenga, F., Vythilingum, B., & Stein, D.J. (2004). Trauma exposure and post-traumatic stress symptoms in urban African schools. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 184,169-175.

Ward, C.L., Flisher, A.J., & Zissis, C. (2001). Exposure to violence and its relationship to psychopathology in adolescents. Injury Prevention: Journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 7, 297-301.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.