Since its origin in the early 1980s, developmental psychopathology has become one of the most significant frameworks for child clinical psychology. This volume of essays explores this framework from an integrative Christian viewpoint, combining theory, empirical research and theology to explore a holistic understanding of children's development.

This handbook examines positive youth development (PYD) in youth and emerging adults from an international perspective. It focuses on large and underrepresented cultural groups across six continents within a strengths-based conception of adolescence that considers all youth as having assets. The volume explores the ways in which developmental assets, when effectively harnessed, empower youth to transition into a productive and resourceful adulthood. The book focuses on PYD across vast geographical regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Latin America as well as on strengths and resources for optimal well-being. The handbook addresses the positive development of young people across various cultural contexts to advance research, policy, and practice and inform interventions that foster continued thriving and reduce the chances of compromised youth development. It presents theoretical perspectives and supporting empirical findings to promote a more comprehensive understanding of PYD from an integrated, multidisciplinary, and multinational perspective.

After-school programs, scout groups, community service activities, religious youth groups, and other community-based activities have long been thought to play a key role in the lives of adolescents. But what do we know about the role of such programs for today's adolescents? How can we ensure that programs are designed to successfully meet young people's developmental needs and help them become healthy, happy, and productive adults? Community Programs to Promote Youth Development explores these questions, focusing on essential elements of adolescent well-being and healthy development. It offers recommendations for policy, practice, and research to ensure that programs are well designed to meet young people's developmental needs. The book also discusses the features of programs that can contribute to a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. It examines what we know about the current landscape of youth development programs for America's youth, as well as how these programs are meeting their diverse needs. Recognizing the importance of adolescence as a period of transition to adulthood, Community Programs to Promote Youth Development offers authoritative guidance to policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and other key stakeholders on the role of youth development programs to promote the healthy development and well-being of the nation's youth.

Each chapter provides in-depth discussions and this volume serves as an invaluable resource for Developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students. Includes chapters that highlight some of the most recent research in the area of Positive Youth Development Each chapter provides in-depth discussions An invaluable resource for developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students

Scientific research and science-guided practice based on the promotion of an individual′s strengths constitutes a radical shift in a new and growing area of study within the field of human development. Its trademark term is `positive youth development′. This approach to human development is based on the idea that, in addition to preventing problems, science and practice should promote the development of competencies, skills, and motivation in order to enhance individuals′ developmental pathways. Approaches to Positive Youth Development, is based on this concept and brings together authors from across Europe and America who are leaders in their respective fields. The main focus of the book, beyond a clarification of the paradigmatic foundations, concerns the major contexts of adolescents and young adults, namely, neighbourhoods and leisure locales, school and family, and the major themes of healthy psychosocial development, namely, competences and knowledge, prosocial behaviour, transcending problems of delinquency, civic engagement, identity, agency, and spirituality.

Youth development is as a core aspect of human and national progress in Nigeria. The study suggests the development of young people as the means of poverty reduction. It indicates that amidst cultural, ethnic, and religious diversities, and in the light of threats to human life and property, the development of the youth is the way to promoting peace and unity, justice, and security. The book argues on a two-fold contribution: While the Nigerian Church is to intensify efforts in the active participation of lay Christians in politics, the State is to tackle critical areas to ensure a decent standard of living for all.

MOVING THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT MESSAGE: TURNING A VAGUE IDEA INTO A MORAL IMPERATIVE Peter L. Benson and Karen Pittman THE CONTAGION OF AN IDEA In the past fifteen years, countless programs, agencies, funding initiatives, profes sionals, and volunteers have embraced the term "youth development. " Linked more by shared passion than by formal membership or credentials, these people and places have contributed to a wave of energy and activity not unlike that of a social movement, with a multitude of people "on the ground" connecting to a set of ideas that give sustenance, support, and value to increasingly innovative efforts to build competent, successful, and healthy youth. There are several particularly interesting dimensions to this movement. First, the youth development idea has the potential to draw people and organizations to gether across many sectors. Conferences and initiatives using youth development language attract increasingly eclectic audiences, bringing together national youth organizations, schools, city, county, and state agencies, police and juvenile jus tice workers, clergy, and committed citizens. Perhaps embedded in the youth de velopment idea is a philosophy or a "way" that has created an intellectual and/or spiritual home for actors across many settings. However this happens, it is clear that one of the powerful social consequences of the youth development idea is a connecting of the dots-the weaving within and across city, county, state, and of a tapestry of new relationships.

This Handbook draws together leading social scientists in the world from multiple disciplines to articulate what is known and needs to be known about spiritual development in childhood and adolescence.

Drawing from philosophy, religion, biology, behavioral and social sciences, and the arts, The Routledge International Handbooks of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Character Development, Volumes I and II, present cutting-edge scholarship about the concept of character across the life span, the developmental and contextual bases of character, and the key organizations of societal sectors, within and across nations, that promote character development in individuals, families, and communities. This second volume, Moderators, Threats, and Contexts, focuses on the moderators and covariates of character development with chapters pertaining to cultural- and contextual-based exemplars of character development; grit, achievement, and resilience; hope for the future; and parenting and self-regulation. With contributions from international experts, Volume II goes on to discuss threats to moral, positive, or virtuous character development, as well as the different contexts wherein the character is studied and promoted. Special attention is paid to the centers of excellence at universities around the world that specialize in character development research and character education. This comprehensive publication is an essential reference for researchers and graduate students in behavioral sciences, biology, philosophy, theology, and economics, as well as practitioners leading or evaluating character education or character development programs around the world. Find Volume I: Conceptualizing and Defining Character here: www.routledge.com/9781032169491