positive youth development: conceptual issues, empirical findings, and practical applications

Miami University

Center for School-Based Mental Health Programs

Positive Youth Development: Conceptual Issues, Empirical

Findings, and Practical Applications

Carl E. PaterniteDon Domenici

Marc McLaughlin

Center for School-Based Mental Health ProgramsDepartment of Psychology

Miami University

Presentation for the Partnerships for Success AcademySeptember 23, 2003

Miami University


Positive Youth Development(PYD)

An approach that encourages the following:

1. Promoting and fostering positive aspects of young people’s lives.

2. Promoting healthy ways of living in young people,families,and society.

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Instructional Objectives For Presentation:

Increase awareness of the importance of schools as asetting for promotion of positive youth development.

Increase knowledge of critical issues and perspectives takenon the study of positive youth development.

Increase knowledge about application of principals ofpositive youth development to problem prevention.

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Themes Addressed in Presentation:

Program development.

Interdisciplinary collaboration and partnership.

Health promotion and problem prevention.

Research, training and education.

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“ We have a burgeoning field of developmental psychopathology but have a more diffuse body of research on the pathways whereby children and adolescents become motivated, directed, socially competent, compassionate, and psychologically vigorous adults. Corresponding to that, we have numerous research-based programs for youth aimed at curbing drug use, violence, suicide, teen pregnancy, and other problem behaviors, but lack a rigorous applied psychology of how to promote youth development.

The place for such a field is apparent to anyone who has had contact with a cross section of American adolescents.” (Larson, 2000, p. 170)

The need for increased attention to positive youth development is quite clear:

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Specialized Individual Interventions(Individual StudentSystem)

Continuum of Effective BehaviorSupport

Specialized GroupInterventions(At-Risk System)

Universal Interventions (School-Wide SystemClassroom System)

Studentswithout SeriousProblemBehaviors (80 -90%)

Students At-Risk for Problem Behavior(5-15%)

Students withChronic/IntenseProblem Behavior(1 - 7%)

Primary Prevention

Secondary Prevention

Tertiary Prevention

All Students in School

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Report of President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov

“…the mental health delivery system is fragmented and in disarray…leading to unnecessary and costly disability, homelessness, school failure and incarceration.”

Unmet needs and barriers to care include (among others):• Fragmentation and gaps in care for children.• Lack of national priority for mental health and suicide prevention.

July, 2003

Miami University


Report of President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health: Six Goals

for a Transformed System

• Americans understand that mental health is essential to overall health.

• Mental health care is consumer and family driven.

• Disparities in mental health services are eliminated.

• Early mental health screening, assessment, and referral to services are common practice.

• Excellent mental health care is delivered and research is accelerated.

• Technology is used to access mental health care and information.

July, 2003

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1. Promote the mental health of young children.

2. Improve and expand school mental health programs.

3. Screen for co-occurring mental and substance use disorders and link with integrated treatment strategies.

4. Screen for mental disorders in primary health care, across the lifespan, and connect to treatment and supports.

July, 2003

Four Recommendations SupportingGoal 4: Early Mental Health Screening,

Assessment, and Referral to Services areCommon Practice

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National movement to place effective mental health programs in schools, serving youth in general and special ed.

To promote the academic, behavioral, social, emotional, and contextual/systems well-being of youth, and to reduce “mental health” barriers to school success.

Programs incorporate primary prevention and mental health promotion, secondary prevention, and intensive intervention,joining staff and resources from education and other community systems.

Intent is to contribute to building capacity for a comprehensive, multifaceted, and integrated system of support and care.

Expanded School-Based Mental Health Programs

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University of Maryland

Center for School Mental Health Assistance

Mark Weist

(http://csmha.umaryland.edu)

ESBMH

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UCLA

Center for Mental Health Assistance

Howard Adelman & Linda Taylor

(http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu)

“Barriers to Learning”

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Miami University


Opportunities to engage youth where they are.

Unique opportunities for intensive, multifaceted approaches and are essential contexts for health promotion, prevention and research activity.

Potential of Schools as Key Points of Engagement

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Miami University


“The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as it is for graduate students, for fledgling artists as graying accountants.

A good education ought to help people become more perceptive to and more discriminating about the world: seeing, feeling, and understanding more, yet sorting the pertinent from the peripheral with ever finer touch, increasingly able to integrate what they see and to make meaning of it in ways that enhance their ability to go on growing. To imagine otherwise, to act as though learning were simply a matter of stacking facts on top of one another, makes as much sense as thinking one can learn a language by memorizing a dictionary. Ideas only come to life when they root in the mind of a learner.” (Daloz, 1999, p. 243)

Clearly, intellectual, social, and emotional education go hand-in-hand, and all are linked to creating safe schools, building healthy character, and achieving academic success:

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Schools: The Most Universal Natural Setting

• Over 52 million youth attend 114,000 schools

• Over 6 million adults work in schools

• Combining students and staff, one-fifth of the U.S. population can be found schools

From Weist, 2003

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Schools: The Most Universal Natural Setting

Educators are key partners in efforts to intervene with children in need and to promote positive youth development.

In fact, through their day-to-day interactions with students, educators are the linchpins of school-based efforts to encourage healthy psychological development of youth.

Miami University


Miami University


Educators as Key Members of the PYD/Health Promotion Team

Schools should not be held responsible for meeting every need of every student.

However, schools must meet the challenge when the need directly affects learning and school success. (Carnegie Council Task Force on Education of Young Adolescents, 1989)

There is clear and compelling evidence that there are strong positive associations between mental health and school success.

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“Children whose emotional, behavioral, or social difficulties are not addressed have a diminished capacity to learn and benefit from the school environment. In addition, children who develop disruptive behavior patterns can have a negative influence on the social and academic environment for other children.” (Rones & Hoagwood, 2000, p.236)

Contemporary school reform—and the associated high-stakes testing (including federal legislation signed in 2002)—has not incorporated the Carnegie Council imperative. That is, recent reform has not adequately incorporated a focus on addressing barriers to development, learning, and teaching.

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Miami University


“Most educators, parents, students, and the public support a broader educational agenda that also involves enhancing students’ social-emotional competence, character, health, and civic engagement.” (Greenberg, et al., 2003, p. 466)


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The Ohio Mental Health Network for School Success

Mission

To help Ohio’s school districts, community-based agencies, and families work together to achieve improved educational and developmental outcomes for all children — especially those at emotional or behavioral risk and those with mental health problems.

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Action Agenda

Create awareness about the gap between children’s mental health needs and “treatment” resources, and encourage improved and expanded services (including new anti-stigma campaign).

Encourage mental health agencies and school districts to adopt mission statements that address the importance of partnerships.

Conduct surveys of mental health agencies and school districts to better define the mental health needs of children and to gather information about promising practices.

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Action Agenda (continued)

Provide technical assistance to mental health agencies and school districts, to support adoption of evidence-based and promising practices, including improvement and expansion of school-based mental health services.

Develop a guide for education and mental health professionals and families, for the development of productive partnerships.

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Action Agenda (continued)

Assist in identification of sources of financial support for school-based mental health initiatives.

Assist university-based professional preparation programs in psychology, social work, public health, and education, in developing inter-professional strategies and practices for addressing the mental health needs of school-age children.

Miami University


Ohio’s Shared Agenda Initiative:

Mental Health, Schools and Families Working Together for All

Children and Youth

Policy Maker Partnership (PMP) at the National Association of State Directors

of Special Education (NASDSE) and the National Association of State Mental

Health Program Directors (NASMHPD)

Concept Paper:Mental Health, Schools and Families Working

Together for All Children and Youth:Toward A Shared Agenda (2002)

Purpose of the Concept Paper

“Encourage state and local family and youth organizations, mental health organizations, education entities and schools across the nation to enter new relationships to achieve positive social, emotional and educational outcomes for every child.”

The concept paper is available online at:

www.nasdse.org/sharedagenda.pdf

www.ideapolicy.org/sharedagenda.pdf

www.nasmhpd.org

Policy Maker Partnership (PMP) at the National Association of State Directors of

Special Education (NASDSE) and the National Association of State Mental

Health Program Directors (NASMHPD)

Shared Agenda Seed Grant Awards to Six States:

Missouri, Ohio, Oregon,South Carolina, Texas, and Vermont

Additional Funding for Ohio’s Shared Agenda

Initiative

Ohio Department of Mental HealthOhio Department of Education

Ohio Department of Healthand

Numerous Additional State-level and Regional Organizations

Infrastructure for Ohio’s SharedAgenda Initiative

The Shared Agenda seed grant is being implemented in Ohio within the

collaborative infrastructure of the Mental Health Network

Three Phases of Ohio’s SharedAgenda Initiative

Phase 1—Statewide forum for leaders of mental health, education, and family policymaking organizations and child-serving systems (March 3, 2003)

Phase 2—Six regional forums for policy implementers and consumer stakeholders (April-May, 2003)

Phase 3—Legislative forum involving key leadership of relevant house and senate committees (October 9, 2003)

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Phase 1 and Phase 2Shared Agenda Forums

Columbus, OH — Statewide Forum, March 3, 2003

Athens, OH—Southeast Wooster, OH—North CentralApril 15, 2003 April 28, 2003

Columbus, OH—Central Bowling Green, OH—NorthwestApril 29, 2003 April 29, 2003

Cleveland, OH—Northeast Hamilton, OH—SouthwestMay 5, 2003 May 5, 2003

Strategies and Features of Various Shared Agenda Forums

• Mark Weist, Center for School MH Assistance, U. of Maryland

• Steve Adelsheim, New Mexico School MH Initiative

• Howard Adelman & Linda Taylor, UCLA School MH Project

• Kimberly Hoagwood, Columbia University

• Howie Knoff, Project Achieve

• Joseph Johnson, Ohio Department of Education

• Eric Fingerhut, Ohio State Senator

Keynote presentations by national and state experts:

Promising work in Ohio showcased

Youth and parent testimony

Cross-stakeholder panel discussions

Facilitated discussion structured to create a collective vision, build a sense of mutual responsibility for reaching the vision, instill hope that systemic change is possible, and problem-solve regarding implementation issues

Appreciative Inquiry model for promotion of systems-level change and transformation informed the process

Strategies and Features of Various Shared Agenda Forums

Approximately 725 participants

Report being compiled that will inform the Fall, 2003 Shared Agenda Legislative Forum

Through Legislative Forum raise public awareness and build advocacy for policy and fiscal support for better alignment for education and mental health in the next biennial budget process

Website created to track and publicize Ohio’s Shared Agenda initiative (http://www.units.muohio.edu/csbmhp/sharedagenda.html)

Outcomes and Recommendationsfrom Phases 1 and 2 of

Ohio’s Shared Agenda Initiative

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1. Promote EFFECTIVE mental health and educational practices in schools

2. Increase family and community involvement in school mental health and educational programs

3. Actively solicit and appreciate student input in program planning and operation

4. Reduce stigma for children who need mental healthservices

Ten Emerging Recommendationsfrom Phases 1 and 2 of Ohio’s Shared

Agenda Initiative

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Ten Emerging Recommendations from Phases 1 and 2 of Ohio’s

Shared Agenda Initiative (cont’d)

5. Maintain focus on all children, not just students in special education

6. Promote a better understanding of children’s mental health needs in schools

7. Expand cross-discipline training (preservice and inservice) for mental health/family-serving providers,

educators and parents

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Ten Emerging Recommendations from Phases 1 and 2 of Ohio’s

Shared Agenda Initiative (cont’d)

8. Work more effectively to reduce “turf issues” that interfere with children’s mental health service delivery and with

mental health-education collaboration

9. Coordinate more effectively between state-level and regional/local efforts in the area of school mental health and

in promotion of mental health and school success

10.Develop organizational structures (e.g., 501C3) that will promote strong coalitions and facilitate funding

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Creating and Maintaining Ongoing, Empowering Partnership with Educators

Multi-level, formal and informal dialogue with policy makers, formulators, enforcers, and implementers—adopt an inclusive definition of “educator”

Programs for school board members and administrators.

Newsletter for teachers.

Website resources.

Extensive “contact time” with educators in their school buildings.

“Joining” the school community.

Key opinion leaders.

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Careful, detailed, local needs assessments from the perspective of educators, and a commitment to be responsive to identified needs.

Results used in advocacy efforts and as guideposts for ongoing work.

Incorporate academic and school success outcomes in youth development initiatives.

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Capitalize on schools’ unique opportunities for PYD and health-promoting activities.

Many recommended strategies for drop-out prevention and non-violence promotion can be implemented, in partnership with educators, in school settings.

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Prioritizing Promotion of Healthy Development and Problem Prevention

Early intervention.

Mentoring and tutoring.

Service learning.

Conflict resolution and violence prevention curricula and training for students/staff.

Alternative schooling.

For drop-out prevention, these include:

Miami University


Model: Influences on Violent versusNon-Violent Behavior

(From Shapiro, 1999, Applewood Centers, Inc., Cleveland, OH)

Miami University


Some of What We Know AboutYouth Violence Prevention and Promotion

of Non-violence

From the Surgeon General (2001), U.S. Secret Service (2000),CDC (2002), Mulvey & Cauffman (2001)

• Promoting healthy relationships and environments is more effective for reducing school violence than instituting punitive penalties.

• The best predictor of adolescent well-being is a feeling of connection to school. Students who feel close to others, fairly treated, and vested in school are less likely to engage in risky behaviors.

• A critical component of any effective school violence program is a school environment in which ongoing activities and problems of students are discussed, rather than tallied. Such an environment promotes ongoing risk management, which depends on the support and involvement of those closest to the indicators of trouble — peers and teachers.

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Violence Prevention and Promotion of Non-violence:

What Doesn’t WorkFrom the Surgeon General (2001) and others

Scare tactics. (e.g., Scared Straight)

Deterrence programs — shock incarceration, boot camps.

Efforts focusing exclusively on providing education/information about drugs/violence and resistance. (DARE)

Efforts focusing solely on self-esteem enhancement.

Vocational counseling.

Residential treatment.

Traditional casework and clinic-based counseling.

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Deutsch (1993) — Educating for a peaceful world

Four Key Components Including:

Cooperative Learning.

Conflict Resolution Training.

Use of Constructive Controversy in Teaching Subject Matters.

Mediation in the Schools.

Promoting Nonviolence: AnExample of a Heuristic

School-Based Framework

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Prioritizing Promotion of Healthy Development and Violence Prevention:

Best and Promising Practices

Including:

Structured social skill development programs. Mentoring. (see Big Brothers/Sisters; Garbarino, 1999) Employment. Programs that foster school engagement, participation, and bonding. Promotion of developmental assets. (see Search Institute) A variety of approaches that engage parents and families (e.g., parent training, MST, functional FT) Early childhood home visitation programs. Multi-faceted programs that combine several of the above. For good examples see “Blueprint Programs.”

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What is Positive Youth Development (PYD)?

An approach toward youth programs that encourages the following:

1. Promoting and fostering positive aspects of young people’s lives.

2. Promoting healthy ways of living in young people,families,and society.

Miami University


Intervention-Providing services in response to established problems

Prevention-Identifying and addressing factors that predict problem behaviors

Promotion- Assisting with the development of strengths- Focus not limited to just problem behaviors

Shifts in Approaching Youth Issues

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• Humanistic psychology (Rogers, Maslow)First emphasized the potential for human growth and focusing on strengths.

• Positive psychology (Seligman)A recent movement to research human

strengths rather than flaws

• Key to success involves incorporating different, but related approaches into PYD.

Theoretical Foundations

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Promotion of what?

• Human Strengths (Seligman)• Psychological Wellness (Cowen)• Social Change (Tseng)• Spirituality (Garbarino) • Initiative (Larson)• Hope (Snyder) • Developmental Assets (Benson)

Qualities of a Promotion-Focused Program

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• Using PYD to evaluate existing programs (e.g., Catalano’s review).

• Feasibility: Can it be implemented?

• Improving existing programs by incorporating promotion-based strategies in addition to those of intervention and prevention

• Intervention/Prevention: Useful, but not enough to make lasting change.

Incorporating Promotion into Youth Programs: Issues and Examples

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Developmental Assets (1997 data, www.search-institute.org)

Approximately 100,000 6th-12th graders.

Youth with Different Levels of Assets.

8% with 31 or more of 40 assets.

30% with 21-30 assets.



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Developmental Assets and Violence(1997 data, www.search-institute.org)


Definition of violence—three or more acts of fighting, hitting, injuring a person, carrying a weapon, or threatening physical harm in the past 12 months (self report).

61% of youth with fewer than 11 of 40 developmental assets were violent.

6% of youth with 31 or more of 40 developmental assets were violent.

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Developmental Assets and School Success

(1997 data, www.search-institute.org)


Succeeds in School—get’s mostly A’s on report card (self report).

53% of youth with 31 or more of 40 developmental assets.

3% of youth with fewer than 11 of 40 developmental assets.

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Strengths of the Search Institute Modelof Positive Youth Development

• Asset-focused (instead of deficit-focused)• Distinguishes between external and internal

assetso Communities intervene with external assets

o Adults shape or directly provide most external assets

• Grounded in relationship-oriented assetso Multiple aspects of relationships

o Modest potential for “depth/redundancy” measurement by gauging youths’ positive relationships with: Both adults and peers Community adults

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Moving Beyond the Search Institute Model: Recommended Next Steps

• Refined measures of depth/redundancy of

interactions with family adultso Clear discrimination of parent figures’ roles/identities

o Measurement of assets provided by multiple parent

figures Does redundancy enhance potency of asset provision?

o Immediate measures (e.g. daily log of preceding evening at home.)

• Multiple informants (e.g. students, multiple

parents)

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Moving Beyond the Search Institute Model: Recommended Next Steps

• Refined measures of depth/redundancy of interactions with community adults

• More refined identification of developmental and protective function of assets (requires longitudinal studies):

o Connections between specific assets and subsequent competencies

o Connections between specific assets and subsequent problems

o Related assets/cumulative effects of specific competencies

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Overall Take-Home Message

Positive Youth Development (PYD) models of intervention that focus on relational competence and systemic/contextual factors—i.e. developmental/ relational/ systemic (DRS) models of intervention—represent the optimal method for not only preventing youth problems but, more importantly, preparing youth to be successful adults.

Preview of Take-Home Messages

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Preview of Take-Home Messages

Specific Take Home Messages

•DRS interventions can broadly enhance life satisfaction-in all life domains, not just sexuality

•DRS interventions can enduringly enhance life satisfaction-throughout adolescence and into adulthood

•DRS interventions “kill 3 birds with one stone:”-concurrent problem prevention (instead of problem resolution)-competence promotion (instead of just prevention)-universal delivery (i.e. impacting all youth)

•DRS interventions represent the optimal delivery mechanism for instilling feminist ideologies that promote wholeness/competence

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A Few General Statistics on Teen HRSB

Pregnancy:• Each year, almost 1 million teenage women—10% of all women aged 15-19 and

19% of those who have had sexual intercourse—become pregnant.

• 78% of teen pregnancies are unplanned, accounting for about ¼ of all accidental pregnancies annually.

• Teen pregnancy rates are much higher in the U.S. than in many other developed countries—twice as high as in England and Wales or Canada, and nine times as high as in the Netherlands or Japan.

• Steep decreases in the pregnancy rate among sexually experienced teenagers accounted for most of the 17% drop in the overall teenage pregnancy rate from 1990-1996. It is estimated that 20% of the decline was because of decreased sexual activity, while 80% was due to more effective contraceptive practice.

• 25% of teenage mothers have a second child within 2 years of their first.Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute (2001, 1999)

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A Few General Statistics on Teen HRSB

STDs:

• Every year 3 million teens—about 1 in 4 sexually experienced teens—acquire an STD.

• Diseases have varying levels of contagion—and all are disturbing: In a single act of unprotected sex with an infected partner, a teenage woman has a 1% chance of acquiring HIV, a 30% risk of getting genital herpes, and a 50% chance of contracting gonorrhea.

• In some studies, up to 15% of sexually active teenage women have been found to be infected with the human papillopmavirus, many with a strain of the virus linked to cervical cancer. (This virus can often be highly contagious even if condoms are used.)

Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute (1999)

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Presentation Outline

• The Value of Short-term and Long-term Effects• The Three Proximal Antecedents of Pregnancy and STD Infection• The Distal Antecedents of Pregnancy and STD Infection• The Key to Long-term Intervention Effects: Broader Conceptualizations of

Antecedents and Consequences of HRSB• Distinguishing Types of Programs: Are Some HRSB-focused Programs

Actually DRS-oriented Programs? (No, not really.)• An Exemplary Advantage of DRS Programming: Incorporation of Feminist

DRS Ideology• Conclusion: DRS Programming Requires Foresight, Tenacity, and Clear Goals

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• The Value of Short-term and Long-term Effects

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• The Three Proximal Antecedents of Pregnancy and STD Infection

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• The Distal Antecedents of Pregnancy and STD Infection

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• The Key to Long-term Intervention Effects: Broader Conceptualizations of Antecedents and Consequences of HRSB

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However, in America, sex is less attached to meaningful, committed relationships, than it is in other Western, developed countries.

Source: Darroch et al. (2001)

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• Distinguishing Types of Programs: Are Some HRSB-focused Programs Actually DRS-oriented Programs? (No, not really.)

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• An Exemplary Advantage of DRS Programming: Incorporation of Feminist DRS Ideology

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Feminist Issues

Egalitarian Relationships?:

• One in eight women aged 15-19, a quarter of those who have ever had sexual intercourse, have been forced to have sex.

• 93% of teenage women report that their first intercourse was voluntary, but one-quarter of these women report that it was unwanted.

• More than a quarter (29%) of sexually active 15-17-year-old women have partners who are 3-5 years older than they are; 7% have partners who are six or more years older than they are.

• The fathers of babies born to teen mothers are likely to be older than their female partners: 1 in 5 infants born to unmarried minors are fathered by men 5 or more years older than the mother.

Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute (2001, 1999)

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Feminist IssuesWomen Bear the Brunt of the Burden of Teen Pregnancy and STDs:

• Teen mothers typically (83%) are from poor or low-income backgrounds• Teen mothers typically complete high school 70% of the time, but are less

likely to go on to college than women who delay childbearing.• Teen mothers often get inadequate prenatal care for themselves and their

child: 1/3 of pregnant teens receive inadequate care• Teen mothers more readily give birth to compromised infants: their children

are more likely to have low birth weight, to have childhood health problems, and to be hospitalized than are those born to older mothers.

• Female adolescents are much more susceptible to catching some STDs than are their male counterparts. The consequences of some of these STDs can result in sterility and/or lethal cancer for women (but not men).

Sporadic Contraception Use:

Teenage females are less likely than older women to practice contraception withoutinterruption over the course of a year, and more likely to practice contraceptionsporadically or not at all. Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute (1999)

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• Conclusion: DRS Programming Requires Foresight, Tenacity, and Clear Goals

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“For every complex problem there is a simple solution that is wrong.” H.L. Mencken

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Addressing Teen HRSB via Positive Youth Development Approaches that Focus on

Relational Competence andSystemic/Contextual Factors

• Positive Youth Development (PYD) models of intervention that focus on relational competence and systemic/contextual factors

i.e. developmental/ relational/ systemic (“DRS”) models of intervention—represent the optimal method of preventing youth problems and preparing youth to be successful adults.

Review of Take-Home Messages

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Interventions focusing on youth relational competence and contextual/systemic factors will broadly enhance life satisfaction. • DRS interventions inherently enhance multiple protective factors

• Relational and systemic developmental assets are multi- potent assets:

e.g.: respect for romantic partners -> more socially competent partner -> relationship satisfaction

e.g.: fundamental improvements in family process -> numerous benefits for family members over the years

Addressing Teen HRSB via Positive Youth Development Approaches that Focus on Relational Competence and

Systemic/Contextual Factors

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Addressing Teen HRSB via Positive Youth Development Approaches that Focus on Relational

Competence and Systemic/Contextual Factors

Interventions focusing on youth relational competence and contextual/systemic factors deliver more enduring protection against HRSB—throughout adolescence and adult life. This endurance results from:

» DRS models’ focus on enhancing multiple relational competencies and systemic factors—this increases the chance that some assets will endure

» The fact that at least a few of these relational competencies and systemic factors are multi-potent assets (as noted above). The multi-potency of these assets—i.e. the manifestation and impact of secondary and tertiary assets—reveals itself over an extended period of time.

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DRS models are advantageous because they “kill three birds with one stone.” They simultaneously

(1) prevent adolescent and adult problems (e.g. HRSB),

(2) create whole, competent adolescents and adults, and

(3) deliver the intervention to all youth.



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DRS models are preventative of adolescent and adult problems by enhancing developmental assets that protect against HRSB.

DRS models:

• Foster a broad number of assets/protective factors that prevent adolescent and adult engagement in HRSB.

• Prevent multiple adolescent problems, not just HRSB and its consequences.

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More importantly,More importantly,

DRS models create whole, competent adults. The DRS perspective emphasizes that adulthood assets are

(a) enduring primary assets acquired in adolescence

and

(b) secondary and tertiary assets stemming from primary assets acquired in adolescence.

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Problem-resolution model:

Acquire medical treatment for a teen’s STD, facilitating adoption/abortion of a teen pregnancy, or achievement of teen parents’ cooperation in nurturing a child (Maybe) view problem resolution as facilitator of fulfilling romantic relationships and productive/fulfilling careers in adulthood.



Consider the different emphases/goals of the three Consider the different emphases/goals of the three models:models:

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Preventative model:

• Help at-risk teens avoid HRSB and its consequences (e.g. STDs, pregnancy, psychological/physical trauma)

• View problem avoidance as facilitator of fulfilling romantic relationships and productive/fulfilling careers in adulthood.

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DRS approach:

• Expose all youth to a variety of enduring relational experiences over an extended period of time that directly instill in them the relational competencies necessary for fulfilling romantic relationships and fulfilling vocational involvement in both adolescence and adulthood.

• View concurrent prevention of prevent HRSB as a side- benefit of creating whole, competent adults

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Prime example of a DRS approach’s ability to create

whole/competent adolescents and adults: the capacity to

thoroughly instill feminist ideology in youth

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• Because DRS approaches are easily implemented as primary interventions, DRS approaches can impact all youth, not just those who are at risk of engaging in HRSB or those who have been identified as already engaging in HRSB.

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This PowerPoint Presentation will be posted on the CSBMHP website

http://www.units.muohio.edu/csbmhp

positive youth development: conceptual issues, empirical findings, and practical applications

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