About

In 1988 the psychologist Julius Segal wrote that children who overcome long odds usually have one thing in common: a charismatic adult, “a person with whom they can identify and from whom they gather strength.” He noted, with some surprise, how often it turned out to be a teacher.

The word does not mean magnetic or outgoing. It has nothing to do with being impressive. Segal meant something closer to its older sense: a person who gives something away without depleting themselves.

The research has only got firmer since. Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child puts it plainly: the single most common factor for children who do well is at least one stable, committed relationship with a supportive adult.

Which raises the obvious question. If it is that simple, and that well established, why is nobody taught how to do it?

What this site is

Two halves that feed each other. A wall where people write about the adult who did it for them — and, if they want, send that person a letter thirty years late. And a short course, in four levels, on how to be that adult for somebody else.

It is free, and it is meant for people who are not professionals: the coach, the neighbor, the bus driver, the grandmother, the uncle. Everything else in this field is either a poster telling you it matters or a training course for people whose job it already is. This is for the rest of us.

One honest caveat

“One caring adult is enough” is a lovely line and it is not quite true. For young people carrying the heaviest loads, one adult is an anchor and a gateway, not a whole support system. Part of the job — the fourth level of the course — is handing them onward to more people than just you.