Low-income urban youth of color often face challenges in their transition to early adulthood. High school out-of-school time (OST) programs that promote positive youth development may help youth to better negotiate this period. However, little research exists on the long-term impact of such programs on young adults. The authors conducted a pilot…

Positive youth development and youth organizing are strengths-based approaches to the lives, needs, and contributions of young people (Damon & Gregory, 2003). These approaches privilege the voices of youth as they engage with issues in their communities and challenge institutions to respond. Few studies, however, have explored the role of…

Non-formal learning for urban youth has a long history in the United States; it remains a source of innovation. This essay draws on literature about organizations that use community ties to encourage cognitive development and identity formation. It then describes how one youth organization in Camden, New Jersey uses presentations to the community…

Young people in the U.S. are falling behind their peers in the rest of the developed world in science, technology, engineering, and math. The Program for International Student Assessment study, conducted every three years, ranked the U.S. 24th in math and science out of 29 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…

This article considers and assesses a youth exchange project between two community-based youth centers: The Purple Thistle Centre in East Vancouver, British Columbia, and the K'asho Got'ine Youth Centre in Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories. Both centers serve primarily low-income youth, but after that the similarities are very few. The…

Brendtro, Brokenleg, and Van Bockern (2002) describe the Circle of Courage model for creating environments in which all children can thrive. This approach blends youth developmental research, the wisdom of pioneer workers, and Native American philosophies of child care. This model for reclaiming youth at risk posits four elements as essential for…

Physical education time has been reduced or even eliminated in middle and high schools in favor of more time for standardized test preparation, especially in urban schools and inner cities. One way to replace the time lost is by providing it after school as part of a comprehensive program. After-School All-Stars (ASAS) is such a program, networked…

This is the third in a series of reports summarizing the investment of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in community-based health programming. It addresses the health issues confronting young people in U.S. society by profiling eight different community-based approaches to adolescent health. The programs described, all sponsored by the Kellogg…

This guide was developed to help concerned community members, groups, and organizations learn about major federal and state funds for employment-related youth programs and to direct them to additional funding resources. The guide discusses several types of employment-related activities that help young people become healthy and productive adults.…

This manual is designed to provide a review of the Residential Youth Center (RYC) program. In 1968, the Department of Labor funded the Training and Research Institute for Residential Youth Centers, Inc. (TRI-RYC) which attempts to improve the quality of life in the urban community. Such centers use a model that includes the following components:…

Argues that the demise of the Urban Leadership Training Program, which was designed to reach hard-core delinquents, exemplifies the fact that programs which best serve institutional or political ends often poorly serve the needs of the participants in whose interests they were originally conceived. (Author/JM)

What are the common tasks facing cities committed to saturating their city with high quality out-of-school opportunities, available to every young person? While no list is definitive or complete, we identify ten critical tasks. (Background and Contact information is appended. Contains 5 footnotes and 9 figures.)

This document is a compendium of descriptions of programs throughout the United States dedicated to making a positive difference in the lives and educational development of Latino youth and children. In reviewing these programs, some common threads were found that define successful programs for Latino children and youth. The successful programs…

This summary report describes the findings of a study undertaken in 1995 by the Academy for Educational Development, a nonprofit educational evaluation and research organization for the New York Women's Foundation. The major purposes of the study were to document the status of girls aged 9 to 15 in New York City, identify exemplary programs for…

This book describes a project, the Bede Detached Youth Work Project, that was designed to combat racism in a community in London (England). It also presents information that should be useful to community workers and activists, teachers, and others involved in antiracist work with young people. An introduction provides an overview of the project…