NCJ Number
240186
Date Published
2010
Length
40 pages
Annotation
The premise of this report is that positive youth development (PYD) could and should be adapted for justice-involved youth and might be well-suited to be a principal theory of habilitation and rehabilitation for young offenders.
Abstract
The PYD 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: learning/doing and attaching/belonging. Each asset should be developed within the context of six separate life domains: work, education, relationships, community, health, and creativity. In introducing and explaining the PYD Model, this report briefly reviews the research literature on adolescent development and youth justice interventions. It also identifies key theoretical and empirical findings that support a PYD framework. In addition, it explores how youth justice practitioners use PYD concepts in designing interventions for young offenders. Further, the report examines the array of concepts related to PYD and reducing them to a smaller, more useful set of key components that could be applied in justice settings. Finally, it explains how the PYD Model could be used to design interventions and create outcome measures for youth justice agencies. 1 table and 90 references