WHAT IS THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT? YOUTH WORK?

WHAT IS THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT?

We can define "youth development" as follows:

This definition accurately describes youth development as a process that all young people pass through on their way to adulthood. As the definition indicates, it is a process or journey that automatically involves all people around a youth-family and community. A young person will not be able to build essential skills and competencies and be able to feel safe, cared for, valued, useful, and spiritually within their families and communities to provide support and opportunities they need along the way. Thus, youth development is also a process in which the family and the community must actively participate. As Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, has so succinctly in 1998, the youth development is "what parents do for their children ...... a good day. "

Youth development is a combination of all the people, places, supports, opportunities and services that most of us so understand that young people need to be happy, healthy and successful. Youth development currently exists in a variety of different places, forms and all kinds of different names.

People, programs and institutions involved in youth development work to positive results in the lives of young people. Some have clearly defined desired results or positive results in an attempt to work more effectively with them. There are many efforts to define the results of youth development, and while the language may vary from place to express the results more than most people want for their own children. These results include but move above and beyond the academic skills and competencies that are the subject of most schools. The Centre has identified these results as follows:

There are a number of well-known factors in the lives of young people who contribute to the achievement of these positive developmental outcomes. The Research Institute has identified 40 assets, internal and external, which provide a basis for the healthy development of young people. 40-part asset covers eight categories (support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity ) and provides communities with a tool to measure these assets in the lives of young people. "

People, programs and institutions that work with young people involved in youth development if there is strong evidence of the following practices:

Supports: motivation, emotional support and strategic success in life. Media can take many different forms, but they must say, respectful and continuous. Supports are most powerful when they are offered by a variety of people, such as parents and relatives, social networking community, teachers, educators, employers, providers and peers who are involved in the life youth.
Opportunities: There are opportunities for young people to learn to act in the world around them, to explore, express, earn, belong, and influence. Opportunities to give young people the chance to test ideas and behaviors and experiment with different roles. It is important to note that young people, like adults, learn best through active participation and learning occurs in all types of environments and situations.
Quality services: services in areas such as education, health, employment and juvenile justice are: (1) education and relevant information, (2) challenging opportunities to express themselves to contribute to assume new roles and be part of a group, and (3) support from adults and peers who provide high standards and expectations, guidance and affirmation to young people.
Youth Development is not a very sophisticated and complicated prescription to "fix these troubled youth." Youth development is about people, programs, institutions and systems that provide all young people "in trouble" or not-with the support and opportunities they need to take charge. For a nation with such a diversity of youth, which requires the development of young people in all shapes and sizes:

• An adult who volunteers time to mentor or tutor a young person;
• A school that collaborates with community organizations to keep its doors open until 10 pm and provide all young people with a safe and supervised place to be with homework, activities, physical and mental health;
• A leadership development program that provides members of rival gangs neutral territory where they can identify each other as individuals and build skills;
• Municipal government that engages young people in decision-making through youth councils and youth positions in the ministries;
• A religious institution that provides youth access to computers and the necessary training and
• A local company that employs young people in a meaningful and relevant work.