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On October 30, 11th grader Jaden McDougald embarked on a trip of a lifetime. He was en route to Copenhagen, Denmark to participate in the International Positive Deviance Conference, with participants from all over the world.

Jaden McDougald at the Royal Danish Ballet

The concept of Positive Deviance focuses on finding and spreading existing solutions to problems within a community.

Jaden is a founding member of Stay Positive Clairton, a project of Youth Opportunities Development in Clairton. Jaden’s leadership group of high school age youth design, plan, and implement projects to improve the community. These projects have ranged from basketball camps to reading initiatives and have involved over 600 participants. The group also has associate members in 4th-8th grade, which serves as a feeder program into the leadership group.

In Denmark, Jaden presented the story of Stay Positive Clairton to the attendees of the conference. His presentation was one of the most popular sessions during the entire conference. After that, he was highly sought after by the participants to give advice on various Positive Deviance projects that are being implemented across the globe.

One of the highlights of Jaden’s trip involved author and diplomat Richard Pascale pulling Jaden aside on the second day of the conference and talking over lunch about the group’s work in Clairton. Jaden remembers the final piece of advice that Richard gave him: “Don’t ever change a thing about what you’re doing as a group. A lot of organizations are searching in vain for what you already have. You have the ‘secret sauce’ that makes it successful.

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