This study uses an ecological framework to consider negative behaviors and outcomes observed among Caribbean youth, and also to identify ways to enhance positive influences. Casting aside the often narrow view taken of "youth" as a marginal issue, this report advocates the prioritization of youth development across all sectors, and identifies key principles and actions for moving forward.

Critically examining narratives of participation in governance and development, this volume adds Caribbean voices and experiences to the global discourse on youth participation. The essays provide empirical case studies of institutions, practices and processes of youth engagement in the politics of Caribbean development, orienting the reader to the political culture of the Caribbean and the position of youth within small societies. Covering experiences at intergovernmental, national and local levels, as well as formal and informal modes of participation, it examines how young people have organised themselves or have been organised to engage with the state and with community agents in politics, public policy and activism. It illustrates the heterogeneity of youth political participation, employing multi- disciplinary, multi- level and mixed- method analyses from the fields of demography, political science, social policy, development studies and youth development. Critical themes addressed include regional governance, democratic representation, online engagement, local governance and community development. In exploring these themes, the book discusses the legitimacy and inclusiveness of governance in relation to age, gender, race, geography and socio-economic status. The findings will be useful to students, researchers and policymakers alike who are keen to improve governance and contribute to inclusive sustainable development in the Caribbean.

This compilation of works highlights the historical, economic, and human dynamics behind youth offending in the nations of the West Indies. Youth Crime and Violence in the Caribbean offers insights into the slow rate of system change yet leaves readers with an optimistic picture of possibilities. Recent events in Haiti and neighboring Venezuela demonstrate how quickly dynamics in the Caribbean area can shift if crime is not addressed and people increasingly disengage from systems in a manner that allows despots to rise to power. When this happens, the impacts are not localized.

The Caribbean faces numerous economic, social and environmental challenges, with current projections predicting the road ahead to be filled with low levels of growth, high debt and low resilience. In Achieving a Resilient Future for Small States: Caribbean 2050, the contributors set out a long-term, research-based strategy for avoiding these projections, recommending a number of policy interventions aimed at building the region’s resilience and development prospects. Written by influential analysts and researchers and drawing on a wide cross-section of regional stakeholders and thought leaders, the study contains an assessment of the main challenges and opportunities for the region, scenario modelling of where the region could be by 2050, and a broad vision for the region with sector specific goals of how to get there.

This edited text focuses on positive approaches to youth development that are rapidly supplanting the traditional deficit-oriented, problem-reduction approach. The book addresses the question; what does it take to create a community that will promote the positive opportunities that can optimize the development of all young people? The book draws together the perspectives of top names and programs in positive youth development, thus assuring readers of authoritative, cutting-edge coverage.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the history, definition, causes, effects, impacts and implications of climate change on young people globally, with a focus on Small Island Communities (SIDS) in particular. The text highlights the key problems associated with the impact of climate change on young people in SIDS, specifically its effects on socio-economic development and livelihoods, and explores the need for the development of a new conceptual framework to deal with building the resilience of the adaptive capacity of youth in SIDS. The book analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging phenomenon of Global Youth Climate Change Movements/Actions, and examines the management/governance challenges associated with the Movement in terms of its operational mechanism, mobilization strategies and its use of social media/technology to mobilize mass action. The text concludes with a recommendation for further research in this area as a way to understand how the Movement functions and its mechanism for implementation of future research.

This publication contains a number of papers on issues which are key to Caribbean survival and prosperity. They critically review the challenges facing Member States of CARICOM. Written by a number of outstanding authors of recognized academic pedigree, these analyses look at the Region across a spectrum of issues: political, economic, social and environmental, among others. Attention is focused on efforts at regional integration as well as on the options to be pursued be CARICOM if it is to survive in the new political, economic and social dispensation. The book is replete with insightful; presentations on the evolution of the Community at this point in its history.

Ninety percent of the world's youth live in Africa, Latin America and the developing countries of Asia. Despite this, the field of Youth Studies, like many others, is dominated by the knowledge economy of the Global North. To address these geo-political inequalities of knowledge, The Oxford Handbook of Global South Youth Studies offers a contribution from Southern scholars to remake Youth Studies from its current state, that universalises Northern perspectives, into a truly Global Youth Studies. Contributors from across various regions of the Global South, including from the Diaspora, Indigenous and Aboriginal communities, locate and define "the Global South", articulate the necessity of studying Southern lives to enrich, re-interpret, legitimate and offer symmetry to Youth Studies, and utilize and innovate Southern theory to do so. Eleven concepts are re-imagined and re-presented throughout the Handbook--personhood, intersectionality, violences, de- and post-coloniality, consciousness, precarity, fluid modernities, ontological insecurity, navigational capacities, collective agency and emancipation. The outcome is a series of everyday practices such as hustling, navigating, fixing, waiting, being on standby, silence, and life-writing, that demonstrate how youth living in adversity experiment with and push back against routine and conformity, and how research may support them in these endeavors and, simultaneously, redefine the relationships between knowledge, practice and politics-what the volume editors term "epistepraxis". The Handbook concludes with a nascent charter for a Global Youth Studies of benefit to the world, that no longer excludes, assumes or elides but rather includes new possibilities for representing youth, researching amongst them, and devising policies and interventions to better serve them. This volume is a critical addition to the field of Youth Studies and one that should be of interest to scholars, researchers, and students working in this area in both the Global North and South.

Youth Work in the Commonwealth: A Growth Profession establishes a baseline to inform the planning and implementation of initiatives to professionalise youth work in Commonwealth member countries. The study was conducted in 35 countries in the Africa, Asia, the Caribbean/Americas, Europe and Pacific regions. It catalogues the extent to which the youth work profession is formally recognised in these countries and examines the qualities and rights-based ethos of the various forms of youth work promoted and practised in the Commonwealth. The report aims to help countries learn from good practices, and assess gaps in establishing youth work as a recognised profession in diverse contexts.

This book examines childhood in four Caribbean SIDS (Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti and St. Lucia). Through the analysis of primary and secondary data, the author reveals that children in Caribbean SIDS experience an endangered childhood. The intrinsic characteristics of SIDs, including susceptibility to climate change, and high levels of poverty, indebtedness and inequality, Henry-Lee argues, increase the vulnerability of children. Furthermore, duty bearers are not adequately investing in children, private and public spaces are not child-friendly, and children’s rights are violated daily. Endangered and Transformative Childhood in Caribbean Small Island Developing States shows that children are therefore at risk of being left behind in the fulfilment of the UN2030 Agenda and that the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) lacks enforceable sanctions. Unless a radical transformation of childhood takes place, the prosperity and viability of Caribbean SIDS will remain elusive for generations to come. Students, scholars and policy-makers with an interest in childhood studies, children’s rights, and social policy will find this book a valuable read.