Running head: POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT 1

Lennie Jackson

Group Project 2

Article Title: Positive Youth Development in the United States: Research Findings on

Evaluations of Positive Youth Development Programs

This article discusses the findings after researching programs and projects. The project

promotes ways to socially interact with the youths in order to help them to establish trust. Youths

will be encouraged to bond with others, to promote competencies, self-determination, spirituality,

and efficacy. The project fosters clear and positive identity, promotes belief in the future, provides

recognition for positive behavior, and opportunities for prosocial involvement.

Article Summary: This article summarizes a much lengthier one that appeared in Prevention and

Treatment. The earlier article grew out of a project initiated by the Department of Health and

Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The Positive Youth

Development Evaluation project described why policy makers, practitioners, and prevention

scientists advocated a shift in approach for how youth issues are addressed in this country. The

Positive Youth Development Evaluation project sought to define how youth development

programs have been defined in the literature and then to locate, through a structured search,

strong evaluations of these programs and summarize the outcomes of these evaluations. In the

current article, we explain why prevention has shifted from a single problem focus to a focus on

factors that affect both positive and problem youth development, describe what is meant by

positive youth development, and summarize what we know about the effectiveness of positive

youth development programs (Richard F. Catalano, 2004).

Article Reference:
POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT 2

References

Richard F. Catalano, M. L. (2004). Positive Youth Development in the United States: Research

Findings on Evaluations of Positive Youth Development Programs. The Annals of the

American Academy of Political and Social Science, 104-124.