About Us

Sites

Project Contact List

Resources

Community Development

Early Childhood Intervention

Empowerment, Cultural Sensitivity and Family Support

Evaluation Resources

FAQ's

Family, Friend and Neighbor Care

Home Visiting

Miscellaneous Resources

Funding Opportunities

Conference Call Notes

Sparking Connections Home

Families and Work Institute Home
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Lerner, R.M., & Benson, P.L. (Eds.) (2003). Developmental Assets and Asset-Building Communities. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers: New York.
BOOK

Introduced by Search Institute in 1990, the framework of developmental assets is a set of social and psychological strengths that function to promote health outcomes for children and adolescents. The book examines the relationships of developmental assets to other approaches and bodies of work. The authors raise challenges about the asset-building approach and offer recommendations for how it can be strengthened and broadened. In doing so, the book extends the scholarly base for the understanding of the character and scope of the systemic relation between young people's healthy development and the nature of developmentally-attentive communities. Chapters provide evidence that asset-building communities both promote and are promoted by positive youth development, a bidirectional, systemic linkage that--consistent with developmental systems theory--furthers civil society by building relationships and intergenerational places within a community that are united in attending to the developmental needs of children and adolescents.