Due to their work engaging with diverse people representing varied institutions and community settings and addressing diverse issues and topics, community engagement professionals (CEPs) must serve as boundary spanners (Child & Faulkner, 1998; Janke, 2009) across differences. Quite often, interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and other…

As children with autism spectrum disorder become adults, social participation continues to be an area of need. Within creative arts, there is a growing body of literature about the use of theatre arts, improvisational theatre, and improvisational techniques as a way to address social participation for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The…

Because researchers know so much more about the brain and development than they did when the 20th-century U.S. education system was designed, this knowledge can now be used to design a system in which all individuals are able to take advantage of high-quality opportunities for transformative learning and development. This playbook suggests a set…

The author's training and experience in educational theatre has provided her with examples of the therapeutic power that engagement in dramatic activity can have on individuals and groups. In this article, the author reflects on empowering performance projects with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) teens at the Rainbow Pride Youth…

Trilhos Alternativos (Alternative Paths) is a community-based program that aims to integrate African-Portuguese urban youth from low-income families into Portuguese society. This article describes the first year of the program and presents formative data about effectiveness of the program. The motivation system seems to be an indirect variable…

Sixty-five model programs striving to integrate people with severe disabilities into their natural communities were nominated and screened via interviews, site visits, and comparison with eight principles of community integration including family scale community living arrangements, consumer and parent involvement, and development of community…

This document reports on findings that describe the characteristics of delinquent males and the resources available to them for social skills building in the Washington, D.C. area. The study looked at the types of delinquent behavior found among boys living in the three most violent neighborhoods in Washington, and the role played by families,…

This article explores an important purpose that some scholars in professional programs of study are utilizing service-learning to pursue: educating the civic professional by integrating education for work and citizenship. While such a purpose holds promise, an examination of a case study from the field of landscape architecture illustrates the…

Research demonstrates that children develop psychological "resilience" through the fostering of certain protective factors in their lives. Youth programs can promote development of these protective factors by helping children build attachments to adults and others and develop social competence and by providing meaningful participation in…

This paper describes the Prime Time Project, a Washington-based project which is a comprehensive intervention model for youths who are at the extreme end of the juvenile justice continuum due to their history of repeat offending, relatively severe offenses, a high degree of isolation or abandonment from their natural community, and the…

Examines shortcomings of the traditional high school special education curriculum and highlights a curriculum designed to assist students with mild disabilities in their transition to adulthood. The curriculum emphasizes problem solving and self-advocacy and includes components on daily living, personal/social, occupational exploration, and…

This monograph summarizes what is known about youth and violence, identifying 10 myths that confound people's understanding of the real causes of youth violence. It focuses on: what contributes to youth violence (e.g., children exposed to domestic violence are at risk of using violence, children and adolescents use guns when they are easily…

This issue highlights six distinct studies. The first study examines the inclusion of literacy props and teacher mediation on the literacy behaviors of young children. The second explores the relationship of amount of talk, diversity of talk, and complexity of talk on the language acquisition of young preschool children who are learning a second…

The report describes a program which used the resources of community recreational arts programs, secondary schools, postsecondary institutions, and families to involve 76 moderately mentally handicapped youth in their last year of high school in recreational art activities to enhance successful transition from school to mainstream society. The…

The training and use of volunteers is described in a comparison of two community integration projects for the developmentally disabled, one aimed at mainstreaming preschoolers, the other at increasing community integration of elderly persons. Changes in attitudes and knowledge by nondisabled volunteers and measured outcomes for clients are also…