Guiding transitional events for children and adolescents through a modern day rite of passage.

The following paper is directed towards highlighting contemporary society's need to maintain rituals of initiation. It focuses on the process of rites of passage. The rite of passage historically has been an important cultural and individual developmental milestone, and is by and large absent in contemporary culture. A three-stage community intervention is described as one example of guiding transitional events for children and adolescents through a modern day rite of passage. Attention is directed towards the process component of such a community intervention, and suggests that an unrealistic amount of focus has been directed towards the content of curriculum and program materials rather than towards the process of a community intervention.