This path-breaking book brings together an international list of contributors to collectively articulate a vision for the field of youth work, sharing what they have learned from decades of experience in the training and education of youth workers. Carefully designed evaluation and research studies have legitimized the learning potential of youth programs and non-school organizations over the last twenty years, and recent attention has shifted towards the education, training, and on-going professional development of youth workers. Contributors define youth work across domains of practice and address the disciplines of knowledge upon which sound practice is based, reviewing examples of youth practitioner development both in and outside of academia. Raising critical questions and concerns about current trends, Advancing Youth Work aims to bring clarity to the field and future of youth work. Advancing Youth Work will help youth work practitioners develop a common language, articulate their field in one voice, and create a shared understanding of similarities and differences. This book is also an invaluable resource for higher educators, researchers, and students involved with youth work.

This handbook examines positive youth development (PYD) in youth and emerging adults from an international perspective. It focuses on large and underrepresented cultural groups across six continents within a strengths-based conception of adolescence that considers all youth as having assets. The volume explores the ways in which developmental assets, when effectively harnessed, empower youth to transition into a productive and resourceful adulthood. The book focuses on PYD across vast geographical regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Latin America as well as on strengths and resources for optimal well-being. The handbook addresses the positive development of young people across various cultural contexts to advance research, policy, and practice and inform interventions that foster continued thriving and reduce the chances of compromised youth development. It presents theoretical perspectives and supporting empirical findings to promote a more comprehensive understanding of PYD from an integrated, multidisciplinary, and multinational perspective.

In the past thirty-six years working with child and youth programs from the local to the federal level in the private, not-for-profit, and public sectors, I have observed more than a thousand child and youth programs. ... As I visit program sites, I have often seen the same scenario play out over and over again. Well-intentioned volunteers and eager new staff want to work with and contribute to the lives of young people, but they don't get the training, support, or resources they need to succeed. They do not have understanding of child and youth development, and how to use these principles as they work with young people. So often, organizations don't have the budgets and resources to provide the needed level of child and youth development training and practice for new staff and volunteers.

Scientific research and science-guided practice based on the promotion of an individual′s strengths constitutes a radical shift in a new and growing area of study within the field of human development. Its trademark term is `positive youth development′. This approach to human development is based on the idea that, in addition to preventing problems, science and practice should promote the development of competencies, skills, and motivation in order to enhance individuals′ developmental pathways. Approaches to Positive Youth Development, is based on this concept and brings together authors from across Europe and America who are leaders in their respective fields. The main focus of the book, beyond a clarification of the paradigmatic foundations, concerns the major contexts of adolescents and young adults, namely, neighbourhoods and leisure locales, school and family, and the major themes of healthy psychosocial development, namely, competences and knowledge, prosocial behaviour, transcending problems of delinquency, civic engagement, identity, agency, and spirituality.

The first volume of this SpringerBrief presents a series of papers compiled from a conference about how after-school programs may be implemented to promote positive youth development (PYD) hosted by Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. This volume reviews the importance of after-school programs for PYD and discusses key components of effective after-school programs. It also discusses issues related to the evaluation and measurement of quality in after-school programs. In addition, the brief presents suggestions for how researchers, policy makers, and practitioners can move the field forward and maximize the potential of after-school time and programs for promoting positive youth development for children and adolescents. Topics featured in this brief include: The history of the relationship between after-school programs and positive youth development. Specific features of programs that are important for advancing positive youth development. Issues in and approaches to measuring quality in after-school programs. The Quality, Engagement, Skills, Transfer (QuEST) model and its use for measuring effective after-school programs. A case study evaluation of the Girls on the Run program. After-School Programs to Promote Positive Youth Development, Volume 1, is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

Practical guide and theoretical manifesto, New Frontiers for Youth Development is a vital roadmap to the problems and prospects of youth development programs today and in the future. In response to an unprecedented array of challenges, policy makers and care providers in the field of youth dvevelopment have begun to expand the field both practically and conceptually. This expansion has thus far outstripped comprehensive analysis of the issues it raises, among them the important matter of establishing common standards of legitimacy and competence for practitioners. New Frontiers for Youth Development is an overview of the field designed to foster a better understanding of the multifaceted aspects and inherent tensions of youth development. Melvin Delgado outlines the broad social forces that affect youth, particularly at-risk or marginalized youth, and the programs designed to address their needs. He stresses the importance of a contextualized approach that avoids rigid standardization and is attuned to the many factors that shape a child's development: cognitive, emotional, physical, moral, social, and spiritual. The key characteristic of youth development in the twenty-first century, Delgado suggests, is the participation of young people as practitioners themselves. Youth must be seen as assets as well as clients, incorporated into the educational process in ways that build character, maturity, and self-confidence.

Social settings have enormous power to promote or hinder positive youth development. Researchers and practitioners know a great deal about features of schools and programs for youth that affect development, but much less about how to transform settings to bring about these desirable features. This book shows how to harness the power of settings. It shifts the debate from simply enhancing youth outcomes at the individual level to improving the settings of youths' daily lives. The book offers researchers and practitioners blueprints for creating and changing influential settings including classrooms, schools, universities, out-of-school time programs, ethnic systems of supplementary education, and other community-based programs. Leading scholars in psychology, education, human development, sociology, anthropology, economics, law, and public policy discuss a wide array of social change strategies, and describe how to measure key features of settings as a target and guide for change. The authors also demonstrate how larger social structures - such as school districts, community coalitions, community data resources - can support change. Many of the chapters describe ways to make settings work for all youth, including those marginalized by reason of race, ethnicity, social class, or sexual orientation. Toward Positive Youth Development will guide researchers, educators, administrators and policy makers to improve schools and youth programs for all of America's youth.