By Benjamin Chambers, June 29 2009
I just learned about a survey of America's teens conducted last year by an Illinois organization called UCAN that asked them to grade adults on various youth issues.
How'd we do? Not too well. Here's a sampling from our report card:
- Stopping young people from using drugs": C
- Helping young people cope with depression/anxiety: C-
- Building relationships with young people: C-
- Making guns less available: D+
Uh-oh. Looks like we could all spend more time in study hall.
To kick things off, here's an excellent collection of resources on Positive Youth Development (PYD) from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Their page has well-chosen links to PYD organizations, research, and the NCSL's own issue brief from 2005 on the issue, outlining how states and policymakers can -- er, improve their grades.
For more information about how the juvenile justice system can harness PYD, check out this post with links to reports by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice.
*Photo by pjern via Flickr; reproduced under Creative Commons license.
Topics: Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment, No bio box, Positive Youth Development, Youth Engagement
Updated: February 08 2018