Seeds of Trust: How Developmental Relationships Strengthen Opportunity Youths’ Social Capital and Positive Youth Development

This study examines how community-based organizations providing wraparound services support opportunity youth—young people who are neither enrolled in school nor employed—by facilitating access to relationships and resources responsive to their needs. The study focused on six programs in Minnesota, including four urban and two rural sites, designed to strengthen education and career outcomes for opportunity youth. Using semi-structured focus groups and interviews, data were collected from 75 youth participants (ages 14–24; 52% cis-female; 90% youth of color) and 54 program staff. Inductive thematic analysis, conducted with NVivo software, identified key themes across programs, including how relationships and resources were provided, strengthened, and leveraged to enhance educational and career opportunities with and for youth. Findings show how staff cultivated trust by collaboratively helping youth overcome systemic barriers, appropriately sharing life experiences, understanding young people’s needs, facilitating targeted support, providing encouragement and accountability with flexibility, and empowering young people’s autonomy. Staff connected young people with previously inaccessible social capital while helping them build the knowledge and skills to leverage these assets.