Youth development as a "big picture" public health strategy.

Preventing youth problems—be they physical, emotional, or academic—is undeniably an important goal. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, the notion that “problem free is not fully prepared”—a tenet of the youth development approach developed at the Forum for Youth Investment (heretoafter referred to as the Forum)—began to take hold, and practitioners working with youth across a range of contexts, including public health, began to recognize the power of treating teens as a potential to be tapped rather than problems to be fixed. Asserting that problem-free is not fully prepared is not meant to trivialize the importance of problem prevention. The power of the youth development approach is that it calls for bolstering the expectations and range of supports offered to young people who face barriers to their healthy development and opportunities to enhance the range of assets all youth possess. This “both/and” approach to risk reduction emphasizes that successful efforts to address specific youth problems such as substance abuse, depression, or violence are united by a common core of sustained supports and opportunities, including positive relationships with adults and peers, physical and psychological safety, skill-building experiences, and leadership opportunities. In addition to an approach to supporting young people that goes beyond simply providing them with supplemental services, youth development theory emphasizes broad thinking about the purpose of providing such supports in the first place. It is critical that young people learn and develop across a range of developmental areas, taking into account their cognitive, physical, social, moral, civic, and vocational well-being.