The Asset-Focus of Youth Social Entrepreneurship

Making Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse

This chapter explores the “asset-based” frameworks in both positive youth development and community. This chapter also orients the reader to the link between youth social entrepreneurship’s grounding in the central theme of positive psychology: human flourishing. Instead of focusing on the incremental steps toward getting any job at all, the emphasis is on youth capacity for creating a positive career trajectory, supported by exposure to a breadth of opportunity instead of a narrow pipeline. To accomplish meaningful and authentic positivity, the cultural reality of each young person and each community must be included in the experience of development. Therefore, a review of culturally relevant pedagogies and the need for valuing cultural funds of knowledge is included. All together, the asset-focused, culturally relevant practices can foster youth leadership with social entrepreneurship that paves a road toward thriving.

Making Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 24-30
Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse

This chapter summarizes significant examples of anecdotal yet powerful findings that have been documented within this field. It reviews existing empirical studies in related areas of study that can lead to an initial understanding of youth social entrepreneurship as a model for positive youth development. Specifically, empirical studies in the area of youth entrepreneurial intent, tendencies, and environments are described. Another model of youth and community development that may offer a recognizable indication to scholars is Youth Participatory Action Research. Examples of this related research are also included in this chapter. Furthermore, research is included in the areas of youth activism and youth leadership because they are suspected to be significantly related to youth social entrepreneurship.


Making Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 37-48
Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse

This chapter reviews the universal elements of positive youth development; that is, explicating the basic foundations of healthy development that are important for all youth, regardless of context or background. Developmental psychology serves as a primary source for the perspectives presented here. Among the key components of this discussion are the principles of the field, a review of relational development theory, and an overview of adolescent brain development. Specific frameworks are included, such as the Five C’s of youth development, social-emotional learning (SEL), and youth interests (sparks). While all of these components are influenced by the broader contexts and environments of the youth, the set of ideas included in this chapter applies to a somewhat decontextualized form of youth development theory as applied to the promise of youth social entrepreneurship.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 201-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mya DeBoer Sendak ◽  
Clarissa Schilstra ◽  
Eitan Tye ◽  
Samuel Brotkin ◽  
Gary Maslow

This study aimed to systematically review all the literature on camps for youth with childhood onset chronic illness (COCI) utilizing the Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework to assess camp processes and psychosocial outcomes. This paper describes a unique dataset of 425 included studies published over the last 70 years and gives a broad overview of camp demographics, processes that align with PYD’s Big 3 (sustained adult-youth relationships, skill-building, and youth leadership) and measured outcomes that align with the PYD’s 5 Cs (Competence, Confidence, Character, Social Connectedness, and Compassion). Among the included studies, 36% included diabetes camps, 15% included camps accepting multiple illnesses, 12% included cancer camps, and 11% included asthma camps. The majority of participants were under the age of 16. While no study explicitly used the PYD approach, over 90% of studies described camps that deployed both active leadership and sustained positive relationships, while only 59% of studies described camps providing the opportunity to learn life skills. Although no study utilized the PYD 5 Cs framework for outcome measurement, 47% addressed outcomes related to Competence, 44% addressed Confidence, 33% addressed Connection, 4% addressed Compassion, and 2% addressed Character. This review highlights opportunities for camp leadership to align their programming with the PYD framework, to incorporate older adolescents and young adults and, ultimately, to improve positive adult outcomes for youth with COCI. It provides a starting point for future research evaluating illness-specific camps using a PYD approach. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-130
Author(s):  
Majidullah Shaikh ◽  
Corliss Bean ◽  
Tanya Forneris

Researchers have asserted that offering intentional leadership roles to youth can help them to develop life skills (e.g., communication, decision-making); however, few physical-activity-based positive youth development programs provide youth these intentional leadership roles, and little research has explored the impact of these opportunities on youth who take them up. The purpose of this study was to understand the developmental experiences of youth leaders in a physical-activity-based positive youth development program. Sixteen youth leaders (Mage= 13.37, SD = 1.36) from 4 sites of the Start2Finish Running & Reading Club participated in semi-structured interviews to discuss their experiences as junior coaches. Fertman and van Linden’s (1999) model of youth leadership development was used to guide the data collection and analysis. Through deductive-inductive thematic analysis, 3 themes were constructed: (a) awareness: developing into leaders started with seeing potential through role models, (b) interaction: learning by doing and interacting with others helped youth to practice leadership abilities, and (c) mastery: taking on greater responsibility allowed for opportunities to refine leadership abilities and develop a variety of life skills. These themes helped to bring an understanding to the processes involved in leadership and life-skill development. Practical and research implications are discussed regarding leveraging youth leadership opportunities in youth programming. 


2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-79
Author(s):  
Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty

This article describes the California 4-H Youth Development Program’s (4-H YDP) creation of a Youth Leadership Summit (YLS), as well as information gained from three summits held in the summers of 1999 through 2001. Previous studies (Camino, 2000; Lerner, 2000; Zeldin, 2000) suggested that youth-adult collaborations along with meaningful activities could have a positive impact on youth. Therefore, the summits emphasized the positive youth development model, employed youth-adult collaborations, and encouraged youth to become involved in their communities. In this article, we share the YLS procedures, the roles of youth and adults and the engagement of youth on community issues. The YLS model developed by the California 4-H YDP impacted the individuals and communities involved in important and positive ways and might be a useful model to follow in the establishment of similar youth programs developed by youth professionals.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
Jeremy Green ◽  
Jamie Davis

The High Desert Leadership Retreat (HDLR) is an annual four-day youth conference which incorporates positive youth development practices to build life skills and increase youth leadership capacity. There are numerous examples in youth development literature of program models and associated outcomes. However, few studies have articulated which aspects of a conference contribute to the achievement of learning outcomes. By utilizing proven program evaluation methods, the achievement of learning outcomes was measured during both formal and informal conference sessions.


Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse

Making Change: Youth Social Entrepreneurship as an Approach to Positive Youth and Community Development connects multiple fields of practices and scholarship to explore a youth-focused model for promoting social justice. Social entrepreneurship creates opportunities, especially for youth in marginalized communities where the opportunity gap, suppressed social mobility, and economic disparity are most profound. In such settings, engaging youth as leaders of social change offers the potentially exponential benefits of personal empowerment, community improvement, and economic transformation. Written for audiences in both academia and in the field of youth work, Making Change advances the fields of positive youth development and community enhancement by linking youth social entrepreneurship as a means to socially just impact.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document