Overview:
Youth mental health struggles and staff burnout are at the core—systems that reward institutional outcomes over nurturing goals—and fixing them requires redesigning the way we define and resource success.
We have a youth mental health crisis, and we have a burnout emergency for youth workers. Provider burnout and youth mental health are often discussed as separate challenges, with separate solutions. But they are two sides of the same coin that share a root: a lack of purpose.
Described as “self-organizing life purpose”, we know, from overwhelming evidence, that a sense of purpose is one of the most powerful preventive measures we have against declining mental health and teacher burnout. Research shows people with a strong sense of purpose report higher resilience, healthier behaviors, greater life satisfaction, and a stronger ability to navigate uncertainty. That’s true for a sixteen-year-old trying to figure out who they are and a nonprofit director struggling to keep up with changing external environments and sponsor priorities. When we share this with the youth and workers in the industry, you can see the sense of relief on their faces. A relief that says, “I am not alone”.
The gap, however, is that the discussions on the needs of the youth and the needs of the adults they serve are different, as if they are not sharing the same corridors. That split in our mental model stifles our ability to design and cultivate a sense of purpose.
As an education activist, I have experienced the field of youth development from the stage and the parking lot. The line in every chair I’ve held is this: What we measure as student ‘success’ is tied to institutional accountability systems, not the meaningful development of young people and their ability to grow over time. As a result, ‘success’ in youth work often requires a trade-off between purpose and productivity.
In hundreds of interviews where we asked directly how young people and those who support them define success, ‘sense of purpose’ was one of the most frequently mentioned but least read metrics. This realization is what drove me to my role as the founding Executive Director of Purpose Commons, where I spend every day collaborating with Cornell University’s Purpose Science and Innovation Exchange (PSiX) on the gap between the lived experiences of young people, those who serve them, and what research tells us is important.
Of course, purpose is not always easily measurable. However, a lot comes down to how success is measured. What gets the reward. What is being punished. And, finally, what services are provided. Students are measured by test scores and grades, schools by graduation rates and college acceptance rates, nonprofits by dollars raised and bodies served. But everywhere you look in the areas of youth development you will find a well-documented view of youth well-being, purpose and mental health.
Mission statements mean one thing; analysis, spreadsheets, report requirements show more. Not only does it kill the ability to cultivate a sense of purpose in young people, it slowly (and effectively) eats away at the well-being of those who are committed to serving.
I understand why, in times of budget cuts and political tensions, the instinct is to retreat from what feels safe and throw all our weight into effective programs. But we can’t rearrange staff responsibilities, peer group support, or budget and work our way out of bad design.
When we launched Purpose Commons, we started by asking more than 130 young people and youth leaders what constitutes purpose. They share that purpose is not something that is acquired, it is something that is cultivated. They named emotional security, exploration, identity, and initiative as driving forces. But they also emphasized that the systems in which we all work can make room for the development of purpose or stifle it.
If doctors work within systems that show why they exist, they don’t need to be rescued from burnout. They are supported by the work itself. When a young person is clear about who they are and who they strive to be, they are better able to navigate the trials and tribulations that come with navigating the world in front of them. That is not an idea. Science backs it up, doctors confirm it.
There is no ‘find purpose quick’ plan that will solve all of our challenges. The work ahead requires young people, funders, policy makers, and practitioners in the same room recognizing a shared problem that requires shared investment. Only together can we define what sustainable investment looks like in practice, at scale, and across systems.
The question will no longer be whether we can invest purposefully. It’s whether we can justify continuing to invest in the same results that got us here.
TeRay Esquibel it’s a Public Speaking Partner on Youth Welfare and Power with the OpEd Project and Hopelab. He serves as the founding Executive Director of Purpose Commons, where he works at the intersection of purpose science, youth development, and program change.
