What is Positive Youth Development?
Article by Christian Williams
Description:
Positive youth development is a way of thinking that focuses on building up strengths in children rather than punishing incorrect behaviors. Traditional research has focused on a deficit-based approach where researchers tried to manage the problems affecting youth. These youth were seen as immature and incapable of participating in the creation of solutions to their own social problems. This way of thinking would eventually change for researchers due to the notion that adolescents were self-directed and independent individuals who needed to excel for a community to excel.
The shift in thought happened largely because of experiments done on the concept of resiliency. Resiliency is a concept that scientists struggled with-- the idea that against all odds, people still succeed. Researchers figured out that certain personality traits and environmental settings increased the chances for a young person to succeed in the future. These environmental influences include having caring adults in the life of young people. A caring adult is someone who will look after the young person and guide him or her to a position of success in life.
Resiliency isn’t the only important concept in positive youth development. Assets are a major part of this revolutionary way of thinking. Assets are attributes that children possess, that increase the likelihood of achievement. Assets can be both external (environmental) and internal (personal traits). Some examples of external assets would be family boundaries, safety, and community value of youth, and some examples of internal assets would be school engagement, restraint, and a sense of purpose. The more assets a child has, the greater the chance of success in adulthood. That’s why Positive Youth Development is such a fast growing field-- because it produces real results.
For Positive Youth Development to work, it needs to have everyone involved in creating a change. This means that adults and young people in the community must work together to solve problems. Probably the most important part of this entire ideal is the idea that the entire community must be willing to get involved. Adults must be willing to have young people hold leadership positions, not just as placeholders, but as active members who can voice their opinion about the issues they face. The adult’s perspective may be significantly different from that of young people, who are actually facing the situation. This is why it is critical for youth to play a central role in creating a change. The concept that an entire community is behind a single project is a very powerful thought, because if everyone is working together to meet a common goal, it is likely to be reached.
Positive Youth Development in its early days was just a thought on a page, but through extensive research and resilient adolescents, it has grown legs and has begun to come to life. It is no longer just a theory, but a wave of change that is revolutionizing the way we interact with young people and dramatically increasing their chances of becoming successful members of society.
Contact Person: Cindy J Liberton
Funding for Academic Year: 2008-09