We spend more time talking about what's wrong with youths instead of talking about what every youth needs for healthy character development. Soon experts will be holding more gang summits and hauling out more gang paraphernalia, talking about what's wrong with youths, and dusting off the same programs — more parent/youth meetings, lectures and structured talk programs for youths.

We know all children have basic human needs whether they are rich, poor, delinquent or mentally ill, and we should design services around those needs, not symptoms or what is administratively convenient. However, we have created a host of programs to help children in trouble and designed them around symptoms — crime, gangs, school dropouts, violence, and drugs. Quickly vanishing are the successful character- and skills-building programs that helped kids find experiences that meet their needs, such as boys and girls clubs, settlement houses, civic organizations and church programs. We now have treatment programs designed around talking, and we forget the ability to talk about one's problems is a sophisticated skill learned by some adults later in life. Missing is the best character builder and crime prevention program — jobs. We should involve youths in working in the programs designed to help them, summer jobs and green jobs.

Many of us managed to stay out of trouble because of the city parks and boys and girls clubs in our neighborhoods that were staffed by caring adults who served as role models and showered us with praise. As a kid, mine were Pioneer Park and the Elks Cub on 1300 South and Main Street where I walked or rode my bike after school. We played sports, built things in shops and watched weekly movies sitting on the gym floor. We fought with each other but had adults to teach us how to settle our differences, sometimes with boxing gloves and bloody noses, after which we shook hands. I played M-Men basketball at the 5th Ward and Pioneer Stake House and then with CYO at the Guadalupe Catholic Church. Then there was the Rotary Boys Club on 100 South and 600 West. Next to it was the old Neighborhood House, which was one of the earliest settlement homes in Utah.