Youth Today
Guest Opinion Essay
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How We’ve Let TV Hurt Girls
Fifteen years ago, I became director of an 18-acre residential treatment center in Westchester County, N.Y. The place was in lousy condition...
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The Foster Care-Industrial Complex Makes Its Move
Every ideology has its blind spots. For conservatives, it tends to be polluters, oil companies and the military-industrial complex. For my fellow...
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Letters to the Editor for April 2007
How Mentoring Got Diluted The December/January article, “The Study that Ignited (or Diluted) Mentoring,” is very important and factual, especially as described...
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Evidence of a Darker Reality: The Black Youth Project
Six in 10 African-American youth believe “it is hard for young black people to get ahead because they face so much discrimination,”...
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Helping Parents Help Their Kids
The other day I saw yet another study about the important role that parents play in the lives of their children. Parents...
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Promoting Developmental Supports: A Nation at Risk
For all of us who work in youth development, it’s good to keep our eyes on the ball. The ball is providing...
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Why Merge? For Security and Clout
Although big corporate mergers grab national headlines – like the recent $41 billion marriage of Cingular with AT&T Wireless – the union...
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Youth. Development. Work.
Sometimes, I’m just slow. I carried around the results of two work force surveys in my head for weeks before I realized...
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Weight is the Least of It
When it comes to youth wellness, we’ve been having the wrong conversation. In a culture increasingly plagued by obesity, we’ve been obsessed...
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The Ugly Euginics of ‘Teen Pregnancy Prevention’
Gary Yates, president of The California Wellness Foundation, recently mischaracterized teen pregnancy, invoked destructive stereotypes that brand poorer mothers’ babies as “social...
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Why So Silent About the War?
American youth development programs, like the American people, are all over the place when it comes to helping young people learn and...
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Youth Reseach Debate
Response to Youth Research: Duh! By Mark Redmond The woman who heads our education center here at Spectrum Youth and Family Services...
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Don’t Deify Graduation Rates
The buzz about improving the high school graduation rate is becoming a roar. Governors’ children’s cabinets are picking this as the leading...
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Help a Kid, Make a Buck
For years, social scientists of many stripes have tried to make the case for investing in the healthy development of our nation’s...
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Whatever Sells
The bigoted vendetta waged by America’s news media and institutions against youth has entered an even uglier phase: outright fabrication. Endless “teen...
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Can Youth Development Programs Contribute to Academic Success?
A hot topic in the world of after-school and youth development programs is their role in promoting young people’s academic success. Often...
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Not Sick Enough
The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently announced some positive news at its first National Children’s Mental Health...
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Policy and Practice: Will The Gap Ever Close?
Youth workers’ lack of knowledge about and engagement in public policy issues has been noted time and time again at professional gatherings...
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Who Are the Immigrants
“In time, the experience of the children of immigrants became the experience of all American children, who now were the representatives of...
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On a Path Toward Thriving
As caring adults in the lives of youth, many of us are privileged to witness young people discover an aspect of themselves...
