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One can define ‘youth development’ as:
"...the ongoing growth process in which all youth are engaged in attempting to (1) meet their basic personal and social needs to be safe, feel cared for, be valued, be useful, and be spiritually grounded, and (2) to build skills and competencies that allow them to function and contribute in their daily lives."
(Pittman, 1993, p. 8)
This definition accurately describes youth development as a process that all young people go through on the way to adulthood. As the definition implies, it is a process or journey that automatically involves all of the people around a youth—family and community. A young person will not be able to build essential skills and competencies and be able to feel safe, cared for, valued, useful, and spiritually grounded unless their family and community provide them with the supports and opportunities they need along the way. Thus, youth development is also a process in which family and community must actively participate. As Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, put it so succinctly in 1998, youth development is "what parents do for their children......on a good day."
Youth development, then, is a combination of all of the people, places, supports, opportunities and services that most of us inherently understand that young people need to be happy, healthy and successful. Youth development currently exists in a variety of different places, forms and under all sorts of different names.
People, programs and institutions involved in youth development are working toward positive results in the lives of youth. Some have clearly defined these desired positive results—or outcomes—in an attempt to more effectively work toward them. There are many efforts to define the outcomes of youth development, and while language may differ from place to place most express the results that most people want for their own children. These outcomes include but move above and beyond the academic skills and competencies which are the focus of most schools.
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Ken Auma
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