As traditional face-to-face Extension office interactions are supplanted by online education options, the makerspace offers a venue for authentic engagement between Extension and the community. In makerspaces, learners make and learn from one another in a cooperative learning environment. Through involvement in the maker movement, Extension has an…

There is a critical need to identify solutions to the unemployment of high school dropouts. When a student prematurely leaves school, the economic, social, and political impacts result in negative consequences for the individual and the community. Of the nearly 2.2 million students who drop out of high school every year in the United States,…

The prevention of drug abuse is an especially salient topic for school psychologists and other educational professionals. Schools are the primary setting for providing education and information aimed at the prevention of drug abuse. Previous meta-analyses (Ennett, et al., 1994; West & O'Neal, 2004) indicate that one of the nation's most popular…

The Miami Youth Development Project (YDP) had its beginnings in the early 1990s as a grassroots response to the needs of troubled (multiproblem) young people in the community (Arnett, Kurtines, & Montgomery, 2008, this issue). YDP is an important outcome of efforts to create positive youth development interventions that draw on the strengths…

This paper describes work directed toward creating community-supported positive youth development interventions that draw on a developmental intervention science outreach research approach. With respect to developmental interventions, this approach focuses on creating evidence-based longitudinal change intervention strategies for promoting…

In Fall 2007, Hudson Guild--a settlement house that provides services to hundreds of adults, teens and children in two housing developments in New York City--embarked on a study to assess the needs of youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who were residing in the community and were disconnected (i.e., those youth who were not in school or not…

Explores some of the underlying causes of violence among youth; examines approaches to solving the problem; and looks at some specific programs for eliminating violence. (SKC)

Project CREST (Clinical Regional Support Teams) is an innovative, LEAA-funded action project, using paid and volunteer counselor education students to work as referral agents with juvenile delinquents in several north Florida communities. The program is distinctive in that its assessment, counseling, and consulting services do not replace but…

Describes the Support, Tutoring, and Adventures for Youth (S.T.A.Y.) program developed by the YMCA in Manchester, New Hampshire, to assist young teens at risk of dropping out of school. The program features educational and outdoor adventures, and focuses on motivation and counseling. (SKC)

The Santa Clara County Pre-Delinquent Diversion Program is an attempt to develop and coordinate community based alternatives to the juvenile justice system. The concept of diversion is implemented at the police level by 12 law enforcement jurisdictions, each of which has shaped a distinctive approach to the problem in consonance with the nature of…

"Encounter," a guidance program developed for the urban high school classroom, is designed to deal with both the personal crises of adolescence and the structural problems that arise in crowded, racially mixed urban schools. (GC)

The report describes Aunt Martha's Youth Service Center (IL), a multipurpose agency which focuses on the needs of adolescents. Founded in 1968, the agency now (1978) has a staff of 40, a 21 member board of directors, 199 volunteers, 28 foster parents, and serves a 15 township region. The goals of the program are to increase opportunities for young…

Describes a pilot project in York, Pennsylvania which provides therapy for the families of status offender youths (i.e. incorrigibles, runaways, truants). Results indicate that the program is effective in reducing placements and costs. (BD)

Describes the results of an experiment in Florida in which jurisdiction over juvenile status offenders (i.e., runaways, truants, or incorrigibles) was transferred from the juvenile justice system to the child welfare system. (BD)

This book makes extensive use of photographs to document successful community-based family support programs that enable families and their children to overcome cycles of poverty, drugs, and violence. The book begins with an essay by Roger Rosenblatt discussing the history of childhood in America and the growth of community-based programs; the…