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The Healthy Communities . Healthy Youth (HC . HY) project has provided grassroots support for the creation of robust, welcoming environments not only for children and adolescents at risk but for all youth. Building Healthy Communities for Positive Youth Development explains the Developmental Assets framework in depth and demonstrates how eight local initiatives across the country have adapted and implemented it to fit the unique cultures and resources of their neighborhoods and the needs and strengths of their young people. Stakeholders collaborating in the process include parents, educators, politicians, service providers, law enforcement, volunteers, and-as active participants instead of merely recipients of services-youth themselves.
In this visionary book, the authors provide readers with a flexible, living blueprint for promoting the well-being of children and teenagers. Areas of coverage include:
Core themes of the eight HC . HY initiatives.
The use of an asset-based common language among participants.
Building common ground among the various sectors involved in the initiatives.
The varied roles of young people within the initiatives.
Research design and methodology; data collection and interpretation.
Funding issues and challenges.
The mission outlined in Building Healthy Communities for Positive Youth Development fits the interests of a wide range of professionals, including developmental psychologists; child, youth, and family service professionals; clinical child and school psychologists; and allied education and mental health practitioners working with children and adolescents.
List of contents
Introduction: Eight Interpretations of the Developmental Assets Framework.- The Purpose and Design of the National Case Study.- Findings from the Eight Communities: Transformation, Affirmation, and Blended Models.- Introductory Chapter to Wave I of the Study.- Traverse Bay Area's GivEm40 24.7: One Sector at a Time.- Moorhead Healthy Community Initiative: The Forgotten Neighborhoods.- Portland's Take the Time: Reaching toward "The Tipping Point".- Orlando's Healthy Community Initiative: Community Sustainability.- Introductory Chapter to Wave II of the Study.- St. Louis Park's Children First: Permeating Community Life.- Lawton/Fort Sill Community Coalition: Partnering with Prevention.- McPherson's Asset Building Initiative: "Leaderful" Communities.- Nevada's Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Story Counties: Rethinking the New Frontier.- Lessons Learned: Resisting the Template.
About the author
Michael Nakkula is a lecturer on education and human development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he co-directs the Risk and Prevention specialized master's program. Based on his work in promoting and studying youth development within urban schools and communities, Mike was awarded the Marie and Max Kargman rotating chair for human development and urban education, which he held from 1998-2004. He is the senior author of Matters of Interpretation: Reciprocal Transformation in Therapeutic and Developmental Relationships with Youth (1998), a book that examines the mutual impact of adult-youth relationships within various therapeutic contexts. With his colleagues, Mike has worked to refine methods of assessing the quality of adult-youth mentoring relationships, and the various ways in which strength-based youth programming can be measured and understood.
