Building Healthy Communities for Positive Youth Development

"
Building Healthy Communities for Positive Youth Development
comes to us during a time when many are calling for significant school reform and worrying about growing rates of school dropouts and cases of bullying and youth suicides. Whereas many schools are

instituting antibullying programs or “dare to care” suicide prevention efforts or offering alternative programs for students at risk of dropping out, they by and large follow the deficit model approach.

Nakkula et al. remind us that canned programs of reform, built on a view of youths as being diagnosed with “problems” to be solved, well intentioned though they may be, will never prove so powerful as that group of committed individuals—the religious leaders, the teachers, the business owners—who can reflect on their deeply held beliefs and then thoughtfully act in new ways that support healthy development of our youths and our communities."

- Ellen L. Nuffer

PsycCRITIQUES - July 27, 2011, Vol. 56, Release 30, Article 6