How to Apply Practices That Support Positive Youth Development
March 5, 2024
Decades of research have demonstrated what practitioners often innately know to be true: learning and development are fundamentally shaped by the quality of relationships and experiences in the settings where young people and adults interact. High-quality youth programs focus on the experiences that young people have in these settings. Adults can develop their practice to support learning and development more effectively by understanding the things they can do to create and support these high-quality experiences.
The Pyramid of Program Quality is a visual representation of these ideas, affirming that the fundamental need for safety and belonging has important parallels to what we know about how human development occurs. Syntheses of human development research across multiple fields have affirmed that establishing safety and belonging is the starting point for learning and development and that relationships are the vehicle that propel the process of learning forward [1]. According to this standard represented in the Pyramid of Program Quality, there are four sets of practices that define the quality of youth program and support whole child learning, beginning with safety, and building with supportiveness, interaction, and engagement. Science points to the fact that all young people have tremendous potential to learn and develop, when supported through these domains.
A youth program setting that includes safe, supportive, interactive, and engaging environments is one that can support young people to thrive. In turbulent times when young people face stressors and navigate personal challenges, the base of the pyramid may need to be strengthened – ensuring that young people feel safe and supported – before focusing on aspects of learning and development that are at the top of the pyramid – like group projects and developing complex plans. Understanding principles about how young people learn, grow, and thrive is critical to ensuring that learning experiences are designed in ways that nurture the incredible potential of young people.
SAFE ENVIRONMENT
Physical, psychological, and emotional safety are critical to set the stage for young people to learn. Adverse experiences don’t just happen to children, they happen inside their brains and bodies [2] –emphasizing why safety is so important. While physical safety is certainly a priority, psychological and emotional safety are also critical to helping a young person establish a sense of safety and trust.
- Ways to apply practices: Welcoming young people by name and showing genuine interest in their lives is essential for building trust with young people. When clear rules and behavior guidelines are co-developed with young people and are applied to both youth and adults, the youth can know that they are both emotionally and physically safe in the program. Finally, providing young people with guidance on how to listen and share respectfully and how to welcome people of all backgrounds can give them the tools they need to create a welcoming environment for their peers.
- Examples: During the first week of a program, youth create their own behavior guidelines by listing what actions belong inside or outside their program’s Circle of Trust. Youth place ‘only one person talks at a time’ inside the circle and place ‘insults or put-downs’ outside of the circle.
SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT
The practices related to creating a supportive environment for learning build on those that are present for a safe space and focus on creating a learning setting that centers the developmental needs of young people, rather than what is easy or convenient for adults. It includes explaining, supporting, and scaffolding learning tasks. It may also include helping young people to recognize and be comfortable with their emotions and to process them in productive ways or offering encouragement rather than praise to foster a growth mindset and a sense of being a learner.
- Ways to apply practices: Programs can create opportunities for young people to learn new skills through creative, project-based learning activities, including non-academic skills like emotional awareness. Child and adolescent development is filled with a range of emotions, and the tools for effectively identifying and working through those emotions are more critical than ever, for both adults and young people. Offering specific encouragement instead of empty praise, often by asking thoughtful questions of young people, can support them in becoming self-motivated learners.
- Example: Young people learn to describe their emotions through an activity where they are asked to visually represent different emotions using paint and paper. Staff circulates and asks open-ended questions as young people work.
INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT
The practices related to creating an interactive environment focus on how adults support learning experiences that occur through interactions with other people – both between adults and youth and between youth. Interactive learning environments often involve collaboration and small group discussions. This supports young people to build skills for working with others and bridging differences, such as practicing empathy or leadership.
- Ways to apply practices: Youth programs are well suited for creating opportunities for young people to collaborate with one another and develop skills for working together and in leading and taking appropriate responsibility for the group. When young people take on specific roles, whether it’s playing on a sports team, acting in a play or skit, or creating a group science project, young people are more motivated to succeed because their peers rely on them. Working collaboratively also allows young people to practice empathy and kindness.
- Example: Young people are placed in two teams and challenged to see which team can get all of their members across an imaginary river the fastest. As an extra challenge, only one young person on each team can touch the materials and only one young person on each team can speak.
ENGAGING ENVIRONMENT
The practices related to creating an engaging environment for young people represent an active engagement with ideas and opportunities – supporting young people to make plans and goals, identify and pursue their unique interests, and reflect upon their experiences in ways that help them to build a sense of agency and integrated identity.
- Ways to apply practices: Young people are more engaged learners when they can make real choices and have true autonomy in what and how they want to learn. Providing young people with structured time to make plans, set goals, and then reflect on their progress towards those goals supports them as independent learners and critical thinkers. Asking thoughtful questions like, “what could you do differently?” instead of just providing answers can be a simple way to consistently support young people’s problem solving.
- Example: Staff guides youth in planning all of the steps for organizing Parent Night. Young people design the content, invitations and decorations with the staff circulating to ask questions. After parent night, staff leads young people in a reflection by asking “what went well?” and “what could we do differently next time?”
Learn More
The Forum for Youth Investment’s Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality has decades of experience in assessing and improving program quality through a continuous improvement approach – focused on the adult practices that support young people’s learning and development when they come together in a youth program. Our Program Quality Assessments and related training workshops support youth-serving systems to build and sustain high-quality experiences for young people. Learn more about our approach.