After-school programs, scout groups, community service activities, religious youth groups, and other community-based activities have long been thought to play a key role in the lives of adolescents. But what do we know about the role of such programs for today's adolescents? How can we ensure that programs are designed to successfully meet young people's developmental needs and help them become healthy, happy, and productive adults? Community Programs to Promote Youth Development explores these questions, focusing on essential elements of adolescent well-being and healthy development. It offers recommendations for policy, practice, and research to ensure that programs are well designed to meet young people's developmental needs. The book also discusses the features of programs that can contribute to a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. It examines what we know about the current landscape of youth development programs for America's youth, as well as how these programs are meeting their diverse needs. Recognizing the importance of adolescence as a period of transition to adulthood, Community Programs to Promote Youth Development offers authoritative guidance to policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and other key stakeholders on the role of youth development programs to promote the healthy development and well-being of the nation's youth.

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.

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.

Each chapter provides in-depth discussions and this volume serves as an invaluable resource for Developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students. Includes chapters that highlight some of the most recent research in the area of Positive Youth Development Each chapter provides in-depth discussions An invaluable resource for developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students

"In recent years, the fields of psychology and human development have focused growing attention on issues of positive youth development. . . . This volume provides a tool that can be used by researchers, practitioners, and policy makers alike to build collective efforts to enhance the well-being of youth. . . . Professor Hamilton is one of the most respected scholars in the country. There is no doubt in my mind that this volume will not only make a significant contribution in the field, but more important, that it is a volume that will be utilized across disciplines and professions." —Francisco A. Villarruel, Michigan State University "The conceptualization and comprehensiveness are excellent. The book also deals with a newly emerging and exciting field and hence is at the forefront of research, policy, and practice. . . . a useful resource." —Lonnie Sherrod, Fordham University "Both timely and potentially very useful...nothing nearly as inclusive as this youth development handbook now exists." —John Kretzmann, Northwestern University "A handbook like this is a good idea because of the interest in communities and colleges in this topic and because of the number of programs being developed targeted at adolescents. . . . I believe the book will serve as a useful reference for scholars, policy makers, and program development specialists. . . . There are no other comparable resources that focus on exemplary programs and community development issues." —Philip Newman, University of Rhode Island What are the types of environments in which youth thrive? How do we cultivate such environments to promote optimal development and positive behavior in youth? The Youth Development Handbook: Coming of Age in American Communities provides youth and development practitioners access to current theory and research in the field of youth development, including illustrations of good practice, original case studies, and a contextual approach to such topics as youth participation and diversity. Because youth practitioners typically identify themselves with one or more contexts, such as youth-serving organizations or faith-based organizations, editors Stephen F. Hamilton and Mary Agnes Hamilton have arranged the book so that each chapter explores the application of youth development principles to its context, drawing on current research. Part I of the book is organized around contexts in which adolescents grow up, such as schools, workplaces, families, peer groups, youth-serving organizations, faith-based organizations, recreation groups, juvenile courts, health clinics, neighborhoods, and cyberspace. Part II addresses broader issues such as evaluation, funding, and community-wide initiatives and the concluding chapter identifies themes that cut across contexts, including mentoring, universal vs. targeted approaches, and evidence-based practice. Features of this volume: Chapters written expressly for the book by established scholars committed to learning from the field and making research useful to practitioners in everyday life. Rather than a "how-to" guide, the book is a source of information and ideas for use in planning programs, training practitioners, and understanding the perspectives of partners in community collaborations. Original case studies provide illustrations of good practice in working with youth to optimize growth and development in varied settings such as the family, school, youth organizations, and workplaces. Serves as both a useful reference and as a "state of the art" account of youth development as a field. The Youth Development Handbook is designed for scholars and researchers in applied developmental science as well as practitioners and policy makers who implement youth development initiatives. The book is also recommended for use in graduate courses on youth development in the fields of Psychology, Human Development & Family Studies, and Education.

This edited text focuses on positive approaches to youth development that are rapidly supplanting the traditional deficit-oriented, problem-reduction approach. The book addresses the question; what does it take to create a community that will promote the positive opportunities that can optimize the development of all young people? The book draws together the perspectives of top names and programs in positive youth development, thus assuring readers of authoritative, cutting-edge coverage.

Young adulthood - ages approximately 18 to 26 - is a critical period of development with long-lasting implications for a person's economic security, health and well-being. Young adults are key contributors to the nation's workforce and military services and, since many are parents, to the healthy development of the next generation. Although 'millennials' have received attention in the popular media in recent years, young adults are too rarely treated as a distinct population in policy, programs, and research. Instead, they are often grouped with adolescents or, more often, with all adults. Currently, the nation is experiencing economic restructuring, widening inequality, a rapidly rising ratio of older adults, and an increasingly diverse population. The possible transformative effects of these features make focus on young adults especially important. A systematic approach to understanding and responding to the unique circumstances and needs of today's young adults can help to pave the way to a more productive and equitable tomorrow for young adults in particular and our society at large. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults describes what is meant by the term young adulthood, who young adults are, what they are doing, and what they need. This study recommends actions that nonprofit programs and federal, state, and local agencies can take to help young adults make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. According to this report, young adults should be considered as a separate group from adolescents and older adults. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults makes the case that increased efforts to improve high school and college graduate rates and education and workforce development systems that are more closely tied to high-demand economic sectors will help this age group achieve greater opportunity and success. The report also discusses the health status of young adults and makes recommendations to develop evidence-based practices for young adults for medical and behavioral health, including preventions. What happens during the young adult years has profound implications for the rest of the life course, and the stability and progress of society at large depends on how any cohort of young adults fares as a whole. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults will provide a roadmap to improving outcomes for this age group as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.

This book presents the results of the longitudinal 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. The volume discusses how self-regulation and contextual resources (e.g., strong relationships with parents, peers, and the community) can be fostered in young people to contribute to the enhancement of functioning throughout life. Each chapter examines a particular aspect of youth thriving, and offers findings on either the bases or the role of positive development in a variety of outcomes, from reduced risk of emotional problems and harmful behaviors to increased participation in the community. Contributors introduce a contemporary model of positive development for diverse youth, provide examples of effective youth development programs, and suggest applications for informing the next generation of policies and practices. Among the featured topics: The regulation of emotion in adolescence. School engagement, academic achievement, and positive youth development. Peer relationships and positive youth development. Identity development in adolescence and the implications for youth policy and practice. Promoting adolescent sexual health in youth programming. A positive youth development approach to bullying. Researchers in developmental psychology as well as practitioners in educational or youth development programs or policies will gain from Promoting Positive Youth Development a new appreciation of the central role of young people's strengths, and initiatives to build effective youth programs. “This volume is destined to become the handbook for anyone interested in the bourgeoning field of positive youth development. Based on ground breaking, longitudinal research from top researchers in the field, Promoting Healthy Development for America’s Youth presents a rich, theoretically grounded understanding of the landscape today’s youth and programs. The contributors provide clear, data-driven guidance regarding the types of programs and settings that are most beneficial to young people.” Jean E. Rhodes, Ph.D. Frank L. Boyden Professor Department of Psychology University of Massachusetts, Boston

MOVING THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT MESSAGE: TURNING A VAGUE IDEA INTO A MORAL IMPERATIVE Peter L. Benson and Karen Pittman THE CONTAGION OF AN IDEA In the past fifteen years, countless programs, agencies, funding initiatives, profes sionals, and volunteers have embraced the term "youth development. " Linked more by shared passion than by formal membership or credentials, these people and places have contributed to a wave of energy and activity not unlike that of a social movement, with a multitude of people "on the ground" connecting to a set of ideas that give sustenance, support, and value to increasingly innovative efforts to build competent, successful, and healthy youth. There are several particularly interesting dimensions to this movement. First, the youth development idea has the potential to draw people and organizations to gether across many sectors. Conferences and initiatives using youth development language attract increasingly eclectic audiences, bringing together national youth organizations, schools, city, county, and state agencies, police and juvenile jus tice workers, clergy, and committed citizens. Perhaps embedded in the youth de velopment idea is a philosophy or a "way" that has created an intellectual and/or spiritual home for actors across many settings. However this happens, it is clear that one of the powerful social consequences of the youth development idea is a connecting of the dots-the weaving within and across city, county, state, and of a tapestry of new relationships.