July 26, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Youth Development: Issues, Challenges, and Directions
Over the last several decades, the public has developed a deep skepticism about the ability of social programs to deal with the problems of and prospects for America’s youth, according to the introduction to this book of essays.
Nevertheless, in the early 1990’s a “positive youth-development” movement arose, working under the assumption that “enduring, positive results in a youth’s life are most effectively achieved by tending to basic needs for guidance, support, and involvement, and not by surgical interventions aimed at removing problems.”
Those programs, which focus on young people’s need for positive, continuing relationships with adults and other youths, participation in local activities, and esteem-building opportunities outside of school, grew in popularity alongside the burgeoning skepticism that such programs could succeed in a world with increasing violence among teenagers and pressure upon them to quickly gain the skills necessary to succeed in the “global economy.”
Despite recent gains among youth-development programs, the authors write, government funds continue to favor projects in early-childhood education. “The body politic seems to be in the process of deciding that a young person’s life course is set in concrete after the onset of puberty,” the authors write.
To battle that attitude, the authors here examine the history of youth-development programs, their effectiveness and costs, and how they may be improved in the future. The book brings together the major work of the Youth Development Directions Project, a group founded in 1998 that includes Public/Private Ventures and the Juvenile Law Center and is sponsored by such foundations as Edna McConnell Clark, Ford, and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur.
The project focused on adolescents, “the hardest age group for which to generate positive public interest and support, and thus the group (unsurprisingly) for which the public and nonprofit sectors provide the least amount of support, opportunities, and guidance,” the authors write.
The first section, “The Context for Moving Forward,” contains chapters that examine the historical, political, and social atmosphere in the United States for “positive youth development” as a guiding principle in shaping youth policy.
“What We Know—and Don’t,” Section Two, looks at the scientific underpinnings of youth development and examines how experts monitor youth-development projects and whether those monitoring systems should change. A lack of enthusiasm among academics for youth-development programs could make it more difficult to “recruit the talent needed” for youth programs and to inform the news media about such work, one chapter warns.
The final section, “Institutional Challenges,” focuses on what changes must be made to reach more young people through youth-development programs. Chapters discuss youth organizations, the juvenile-justice system, neighborhoods and communities, and youth-employment programs.
Publisher: Public/Private Ventures, 1 Commerce Square, 2005 Market Street, Suite 900, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103; (215) 557-4400; fax (215) 557-4469; http://www.ppv.org; 324 pages; $15.
