Positive Youth Development: What It Is and How It Fits in Therapeutic Settings (original) (raw)
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This review outlines the current perspectives on positive youth development (PYD). Besides presenting the diverse theoretical roots contributing to PYD approaches, this review also introduces several PYD perspectives, including Benson's 40 developmental assets, Lerner's 5Cs and 6Cs conceptions, Catalano's 15 PYD constructs, social-emotional learning (SEL) and the "being" perspective (character and spirituality). A comparison of the different PYD models in terms of theoretical orientation, the role of community, spirituality, character/ morality, thriving, "being" versus "doing" and origin is also presented. The review suggests three future research directions, including the development of spirituality and character approaches to PYD, differentiating the role of "being" versus "doing" in PYD and construction of PYD models as well as conducting related research in non-Western contexts.
Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a framework used to design and guide programs and services for children and youth. PYD emphasizes the relationship between young people's strengths and resources and their capacity to live healthy and productive lives. The underlying tenets of PYD suggest that healthy child and youth development is characterized by a sense of responsibility, connectedness, and positive values. Put into practice, key PYD strategies include identifying youth strengths, engaging and motivating young people to support positive growth through these strengths, working with youth as collaborators, and harnessing resources that exist in a young person's environment. PYD advocates assert that common risk-oriented prevention and intervention frameworks fail to consider the idea that preventing a problem from occurring does not guarantee that youth are developing and growing in a healthy manner. Thus, from a PYD perspective healthy development is not simply the absence of problem behavior but it also includes the cultivation of resources and strengths within a child and her or his particular context. Ultimately, PYD suggests that young people who have mutually beneficial relationships with other people and institutions will enter adulthood as positive and successful contributors. In this sense, individuals and their respective social ecologies-peers, schools, families, and communities-are active contributors to the developmental process and promotion of well-being. Today, on-the-ground proponents of PYD are social workers and other individuals who advocate for policy change and funding for interventions and community-based services aimed at promoting healthy youth development. The grassroots efforts of advocates and interdisciplinary research efforts of scholars have also contributed greatly to a recent proliferation in PYD programs for children and youth. The PYD model has much to offer practitioners, community and program planners, and administrators seeking to develop or improve interventions and program services for children and youth. The positive focus on healthy child and adolescent development that the framework embodies has stimulated a rapid increase in PYD programs since the turn of the 21st century. More important, positive outcomes garnered from participants of PYD programs have now begun to support the utility of the model in real-world contexts. Yet as the field has grown, so have challenges in characterizing what constitutes a PYD program, organization, policy, or set of practices.
Approaches to Positive Youth Development: A View of the Issues
SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, 2007
The "positive youth development" (PYD) perspective is an orientation to young people that has arisen because of interest among developmental scientists in using developmental systems, or dynamic, models of human behaviour and development for understanding (1) the plasticity of human development and (2) the importance of relations between individuals and their real-world ecological settings as bases of variation in the course of human development (Lerner, 2005). The PYD perspective has arisen as well through the development and, in some cases, the evaluation of interventions designed and delivered within community-based, youth serving programs that have worked to counter what have been seen as steady states across the past five to six decades of substantial incidences of risk behaviours among adolescents. This book discusses several of the key models of PYD framing the literature of developmental science. In addition, we illustrate the use of the PYD perspective in understanding adolescent development in relation to the multiple contexts of youth development and in promoting PYD through community-based interventions or social policy. In turn, this chapter rationalizes and explains the foci of this book by discussing the origins and the features of the PYD perspective.
Positive Youth Development Practices in Recreation Settings in the United States
World Leisure Journal, 2003
Recreation programs sponsored by park and recreation departments in the United State are moving beyond simply offering programs designed to reduce at-risk youth deficit behaviors to approaches that include the broader focus of positive youth development for all youth. Using the Developmental Assets Model and the Protective Factors/Resiliency framework, language and practice are moving from a "fun and games" approach to one that includes supplying the supports and opportunities necessary to enable youth to thrive. Building on ideas such as "Problem free is not fully prepared" and "Fully prepared is not fully engaged," programs have been paying more attention to services that do more than reduce violence, problem use of drugs and alcohol, and unprotected sex among adolescents, to approaches emphasizing young people and families as partners in shaping and delivering services; developing comprehensive service systems that encompass home, school and non-school settings; along with serving the needs of all youth in the community, not just those labeled at-risk. In this paper these approaches to services are described along with case examples of how selected communities are applying these principles in their youth work efforts.
What is positive youth development?
The Annals of the American Academy of Political …, 2004
This article explores the recent approach to youth research and practice that has been called positive youth development. The author makes the case that the approach grew out of dissatisfaction with a predominant view that underestimated the true capacities of young people by focusing on their deficits rather than their developmental potentials. The article examines three areas of research that have been transformed by the positive youth approach: the nature of the child; the interaction between the child and the community; and moral growth. It concludes with the point that positive youth development does not simply mean an examination of anything that appears to be beneficial for young people. Rather, it is an approach with strong defining assumptions about what is important to look at if we are to accurately capture the full potential of all young people to learn and thrive in the diverse settings where they live.
Next steps in advancing research on positive youth development
Prevention & Treatment, 2002
This article briefly reviews the ambitious and timely report "Positive Youth Development in the United States: Research Findings on Evaluations of Positive Youth Development Programs (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 2002). We focus on the importance of the report, its implications for measurement and methodology in this field, defining the domain positive youth development and its importance independent of
The Positive Perspective on Youth Development
Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders, 2005
This contribution addresses positive youth development with respect to mental illness and mental health.We discuss positive characteristics of youth and their settings and how these are related to thriving.We summarize what is known about programs and institutions that promote positive development. In conclusion, we take stock of what we know and what we do not know.
2016
The positive youth development (PYD) perspective is a strength-based conception of adolescence. Derived from developmental systems theory, the perspective stressed that PYD emerges when the potential plasticity of human development is aligned with devel-opmental assets. The research reported in this special issue, which is derived from col-laborations among multiple university and community-based laboratories, reflects and extends past theory and research by documenting empirically (a) the usefulness of apply-ing this strength-based view of adolescent development within diverse youth and commu-nities; (b) the adequacy of conceptualizing PYD through Five Cs (competence, confi-dence, connection, character, and caring); (c) the individual and ecological developmental assets associated with PYD; and (d) implications for community programs and social policies pertinent to youth.