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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:08 pm
Time: 8:08 pm
Results for positive youth development
1 results foundAuthor: Butts, Jeffrey A. Title: Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using the Concepts of Positive Youth Development Summary: The concepts and principles of positive youth development (PYD) offer valuable guidance for the design of interventions for youthful offenders. Unfortunately, few programs draw on PYD principles, often for very good reasons. We believe that can change. The most common approaches to PYD presume that young people possess conventional attitudes and a ready willingness to cooperate with pro-social peers and adults. These are not qualities that one finds in abundance among youth involved with the juvenile court and the larger juvenile justice system. Almost by definition, court-involved youth have a greater inclination than do other youth to violate rules, disregard convention and defy authority. A positive youth development framework for these youth would have to be different from a framework designed for more conventional or normative youth. Some features of PYD models may be relevant for young offenders, but which ones? Which aspects of PYD are likely to be effective with youth who have already engaged in anti-social or illegal behavior? Is there a way to adapt the general principles of PYD for use in a justice environment? The premise of this report is that PYD could, and should be adapted for justice-involved youth. In fact, PYD might be well suited as a principal theory of habilitation and rehabilitation for young offenders. Other treatments and approaches will continue to be necessary as a supplemental response to particular subsets of youth in the justice system. Youth who commit violent acts, for example, will always prompt a strong response from law enforcement and corrections. Yet, punishment and deterrence are not effective strategies for helping youth to succeed at school and work. Young people with drug dependencies need high-quality substance abuse treatments, although drug treatment programs cannot prepare them to meet every type of challenge they are likely to face in life. Youth with mental health problems need specialized interventions, but such programs are clearly not sufficient by themselves as a means of ensuring a successful transition to adulthood. All justice-involved youth, even those who require some of these specialized treatments, need basic supports and opportunities if they are to avoid future criminality and learn to lead positive, productive adult lives. Where should justice authorities turn to design such interventions? We suggest that PYD could be an effective framework for designing general interventions for young offenders. A positive youth development framework would encourage youth justice systems to focus on protective factors as well as risk factors, strengths as well as problems, and broader efforts to facilitate successful transitions to adulthood for justice-involved youth. In this report, we propose such a framework for youth justice interventions. That framework is Positive Youth Justice. The Positive Youth Justice Model (Model) includes 12 key components depicted as a 2 by 6 matrix. Each cell in the matrix represents the interaction of two key assets needed by all youth: (1) learning/doing, and (2) attaching/belonging. Each asset should be developed within the context of six separate life domains (work, education, relationships, community, health, and creativity). Our goals in this report are to introduce and explain the Positive Youth Justice Model by: • Briefly reviewing the research literature about adolescent development and youth justice interventions; • Identifying key theoretical and empirical findings that are supportive of a positive youth development framework; • Exploring how youth justice practitioners use positive youth development concepts to build interventions for young offenders; • Examining the array of concepts related to positive youth development and reducing them to a smaller, more workable set of key components that could be applied in justice settings; and • Considering how the Positive Youth Justice Model could be used to design interventions and create outcome measures for youth justice agencies. Details: Washington, DC: Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 2010. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 10, 2011 at: http://juvjustice.org/media/resources/public/resource_390.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://juvjustice.org/media/resources/public/resource_390.pdf Shelf Number: 122689 Keywords: Juvenile Justice (U.S.)Juvenile Offenders, RehabilitationPositive Youth Development |