By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The federal and state governments have been urged to adopt the Integrative Youth Development (IYD) Web of Support Programme designed to address social and emotional disconnection among children and parents.
IYD, at a training held last Friday in Lagos, explained that the initiative is to promote those factors that will assist a child grow without being socially or emotionally disconnected.
The IYD Web of Support Programme chief and Lead Facilitator of the programme, Mr Paul Philip Iwok, informed the participants that Nigerian children and the youthful population, in particular, need a web of support education, awareness and enlightenment to help address their social and emotional disconnections.
The child development expert stressed that for a child to experience a storm-free development, there exists the Rule of Five and Power of More which every child who intends to grow and become a responsible adult must recognize and respect, representing five and more personalities, popularly called anchors, that every child must respect to thicken their respective webs of support.
He listed these anchors to include mother, father, teacher, religious leader and mentor and other responsible adults in the family, community and society.
Business Post gathered that the Lagos training was part of activities lined up to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day.
The IYD Web of Support Professional Trainers are the certified trainers in Nigeria from the US-based Institute For Community And Adolescents Resiliency-Unifying Solutions (ICAR-US), the training arm of Agora College USA.
Giving insight into how the initiative originated, Mr Iwok, who doubles as the Country Focal Person, the Agora College, traced the origin of the web of support education to Alaska, United States of America, where the lives of young adults were transformed through the program model.
This, according to Iwok, compelled the government of the United States to adopt the program concept in schools which was later replicated in Canada and other countries.
He noted that the programme was inaugurated in Nigeria in July 2019 by an American International Educator, Kathrine Thomson-Stone.
“If there is any viable education that our children and youths presently need, it is the one anchored on Integrative youth development web of support Program Metrics. The reason is not far-fetched.
“The IYD Web of Support was designed and globally adopted to assist and address social and emotional disconnections,” Mr Iwok said at the venue of the training, the Harrobs International Secondary School, Alapere Ketu, Lagos.
He called on the government at all levels to adopt the initiative as a most assured way of taming juvenile delinquencies among youths.
“As a nation, we must not fail to remember that any education stripped of social and emotional connections cannot take us anywhere,” he submitted.
Dipo Olowookere 
Adedapo Adesanya