Positive Youth Development as a Strategy for Addressing Readiness and Equity: A Commentary

Attention to addressing child and youth disparities associated with race, gender, and class has significantly increased the demand for guidance on how to help local systems and organizations that already serve low‐income youth and youth of color sharpen program components and improve program practices in ways that address the broader and often more complex needs of these populations. In this commentary, the author reflects on how the research findings and themes in the articles included in the special section (a) advance our ability to answer specific questions such as how to improve social skill growth among trauma‐exposed children and (b) reinforce the importance of continuing to link positive youth development to the tenets of program quality and self‐transformation.     

Commentary: Positive Youth Development Goes Mainstream

Evidence has accumulated that confirms the success of a positive youth development (PYD) approach. Importantly, a positive development approach is just that—an approach. It is not a particular program or curriculum but a set of practices designed to achieve one or more positive outcomes. As such, PYD practices can be added onto other programs to make positive outcomes more likely. For example, a tutoring program can work hard to hire and train staff to work with students in a trusting, respectful relationship. Camp counselors can be encouraged to build rapport and positive bonds among the campers.     

正整数有序分拆的一个定理及推论

整数分拆是组合数学中一个重要的知识点。通过对正整数有序分拆的研究,给出了正整数有序分拆的一个定理及推论,并进行了证明。     

Empowering Marginalized Youth: A Self‐Transformative Intervention for Promoting Positive Youth Development

This article reports the results of a positive youth development (PYD) intervention for adolescents in alternative high schools (209 African American and Hispanic American adolescents, aged 14–18; 118 females and 91 males). The intervention was guided by a self‐transformative model of PYD (Eichas, Meca, Montgomery, & Kurtines, 2014). This model proposes that the actions youth take to define themselves function as active ingredients in positive development over the life course. Consistent with the self‐transformative model, results provided support for direct or mediated intervention effects on the self‐transformative processes of self‐construction and self‐discovery, life goal development, identity synthesis, and internalizing problems. The findings illustrate the utility of using a self‐transformative approach to PYD in work with marginalized youth populations.     

Positive Youth Development and Resilience: Growth Patterns of Social Skills Among Youth Investigated for Maltreatment

Maltreated children are a vulnerable population, yet many of these youth follow positive developmental pathways. The primary aim was to identify social skills growth trajectories among at‐risk youth to understand processes underlying resilience. Nationally representative, longitudinal data from 1,179 families investigated for child maltreatment (M_age = 12.75) were obtained from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well‐Being. Four trajectories were identified—stress‐resistant, emergent resilience, breakdown, and unresponsive‐maladaptive. Protective resources from multiple levels of the youth ecology (individual, family, school, and social service) predicted positive growth social skills trajectories. Resilience process and attendant positive outcomes in multiple domains of functioning were evident among the stress‐resistant and emergent resilience trajectories. Results underscore the saliency of social skills development for resilient outcomes in youth.     

Counseling Psychology Licensure in Taiwan: Development,Challenges, and Opportunities

The development and consequences of licensure for counseling psychologists in Taiwan are presented to promote cross-cultural awareness surrounding issues in the counseling psychology profession. The national licensure statute for counseling psychologists in Taiwan was established by the Taiwanese Legislature in 2001. While the licensing system marked an important milestone, it also brought forth a number of internal and external conflicts to the counseling psychology profession in Taiwan. The paper consists of four parts. First, it introduces the development of the Counseling Psychology profession and licensure in Taiwan. Second, challenges triggered by the statute of counseling psychologists are considered. Third, the profession’s strategic response to these challenges is addressed. Finally, the profession’s ongoing post-licensure development is presented. We hope this article facilitates further exchanges of initiatives undertaken by international colleagues to consolidate the ethical practice of the Counseling Psychology profession in different parts of the world.     

Widening Our Global View: The Development of Career Counseling Services for International Students

The increased number of international students in United States universities and colleges have created the need for the development of services that appropriately reflect their needs and characteristics. The Career Center at the University of Missouri, Columbia reacted to this phenomenon by developing career services exclusively for international students. Career services are provided as individual services and online services, and consist of information on graduate schools and entrance examination practices, information on available employment opportunities and work permit policies, career assessments, and information about specific skills for obtaining a job in the United States. Several marketing strategies were used to ensure international students' use of services. Important points in developing career services for international students are presented.     

积极青少年发展:理论、应用与未来展望

积极青少年发展观(Positive Youth Development,PYD)源于对"缺陷模型"的批评,强调关注个体的优势及发展的潜能,促进青少年充分、成功的发展而不仅仅是减少问题行为,是个体毕生发展领域理论与实证研究范式的重大转变。它从更全面、平衡的角度看待青少年的发展,强调其自身的主体性、优势及情境中的资源,重视"个体情境"的互动,拓展了个体毕生发展研究的理论和方法。未来研究应立足我国文化,整合多种研究方法,建构积极青少年发展的指标体系,开发本土化的测量工具,开展"生理—心理—社会"综合视角下的系统研究及跨文化研究,并积极探索教育实践中的科学干预与评估,促使青少年发展研究更趋全面和整合,以便更加精确、深入地描绘个体毕生发展的复杂过程。     

Positive Youth Development Among Diverse Racial–Ethnic Children: Quality Afterschool Contexts as Developmental Assets

Positive youth development (PYD) deserves more empirical attention, particularly among children of diverse racial–ethnic backgrounds. Given the need among families for monitoring and supervision during out‐of‐school time, community‐based afterschool is a potentially promotive ecological setting. This study explores the quality of afterschool experiences upon PYD. This multimethod study includes over 500 elementary school children in Grades 2–5 (M_age = 8.80, SD = 1.12). The sample comprises of 49% White, 27% African American, 7% Latino, and 17% mixed race/others with 45% free/reduced lunch eligible children. In multilevel models, independently observed quality across time positively impacted competence, connection, caring for all youth, and cultural values for racial–ethnic minority youth. Afterschool fosters PYD, including sociocultural dimensions, when comprised of appropriately structured, supportive, and engaging interactions.     

Environmental Action as Context for Youth Development

This study explored the practices of teachers, nonformal science educators, community organizers, youth program managers, and other educators facilitating youth participation in local environmental action, as well as the experiences of some of the youth involved. We conducted narrative interviews with 33 educators facilitating youth environmental action in communities throughout the United States and group interviews with 46 youth participating in nine environmental action programs in New York State. Through interpretation of educators' stories and youths' reflections, we discovered strong parallels with theory and empirical research in the youth development literature suggesting environmental action is a valuable context for positive youth development.     

Nurturing Positive Mental Health: Mindfulness for Wellbeing in Counseling

As increasing attention has been given in the past decade to positive psychology, this has likewise been directed toward understanding methods of nurturing positive mental health. These methods have moved toward empowering clients in the development of skills to enhance their own sense of wellbeing (Khong, Counseling and Spirituality, 25, 67–84, 2006). Advances in neurosciences are adding to this understanding, especially through the power of neuroimaging. Mindfulness training and self-compassion are key practices undergoing development for empowering clients in ways to nurture their own positive mental health. Counselors who become familiar with these practices and ways in which they promote positive mental health can gain new understanding and methods for assisting clients and thereby extend their therapeutic effectiveness. Counselors can teach clients practices that can serve to enhance coping capabilities and to reduce suffering.     

Counseling Services for Malaysian Gifted Students: An Initial Study

This is a preliminary study that was conducted in regard to 180 gifted students who attended the ‘Malaysian Gifted Centre’s School Holiday Camp’ in 2011. Data indicated that only about 7 % of the respondents had a tendency to seek a counsellor’s help to solve their problems, and the need for counselling services was higher among female than male students. It was also found that career counselling was the most preferred type of counselling service needed by the Malaysian gifted students. Findings from the study reveal five different elements that need consideration when providing counselling services for gifted students: counsellor personality, student issues, the therapeutic environment, approaches used by the counsellor, and the counsellor’s role.     

Wellness as the Paradigm for Counseling and Development: The Possible Future

Wellness refers to the maximizing of human potential through positive life-style choices. This holistic paradigm offers a philosophical base for counseling and development that provides guidelines for intervention and at the same time emphasizes the uniqueness of our approach as counseling and development professionals to mental health concerns. The author advocates a wellness paradigm rather than the illness-oriented medical model as being most reflective of our profession.     

Research Priorities for Mental Health Counseling With Youth: Implications for Counselor Preparation,Professional Development,and Research

Counselors encounter the needs of youth (3–17 years) in a variety of settings; however, outside of school counseling, the profession faces a lack of preparation, professional development, and research focused on mental health practice with youth. Using the Delphi method, 12 counselor educators and 15 practicing counselors were polled regarding research priorities for mental health counseling with youth. Research that considers how varying developmental stages and systems (e.g., families, schools, communities) affect the mental health of youth was identified as a priority. Implications for counselor preparation, professional development, and research are offered on the basis of these results.     

Factors in Students' Endorsement of Counseling as a Requirement for Graduation from a Counseling Program

This study investigated factors involved in students' endorsement of personal counseling as a requirement for graduation from a counseling program. Implications for counselor educators are discussed.     

Commentary: Studying and Testing the Positive Youth Development Model: A Tale of Two Approaches

Interest in promoting positive development among children and adolescents has always been a focus of developmental science. Historically, many researchers framed this interest using a deficit model that sought to optimize positive development by reducing problems. In the context of the articles in this special section, the author discuss a different conception of positive youth development that has emerged across the past 25 years, one that capitalizes on human plasticity and tests a strength‐based model (instead of a deficit one). This model seeks to identify the process that could enhance the attributes of young people that are valued by them and others (e.g., parents, peers, teachers, mentors, coaches, and faith leaders), as compared to processes that reduce or prevent undesirable characteristics.     

Counseling as a Critique of Gender: On the Ethics of Counseling Transgendered Clients

This paper examines the responsibilities of mental health professionals, particularly counselors, to those who identify or might be identifiable as “transgendered.” There are two main objectives. The first is to describe the critical reflection necessary to deal with gender-variant clients in an ethical and effective manner. The second is to discuss a psychotherapeutic model that is likely to be effective in integrating such reflection into the clinical process, and to make counseling recommendations on that basis.