Risk, Resilience, and Positive Youth Development

Risk, Resilience, and Positive Youth Development: Developing Effective Community Programs for High-Risk Youth: Lessons from the Denver Bridge Project describes an approach to developing and testing effective community-based programs for at-risk children and youth. This volume shows how elements of risk and resilience, positive youth development, and organizational collaboration are used to develop a comprehensive intervention framework called the Integrated Prevention and Early Intervention (IPEI) Model. The IPEI is then applied to a community-based after-school program called the Bridge Project to illustrate how an integrated intervention framework can be used to prevent childhood and adolescent problems and improve academic achievement. Findings from an evaluation of the Denver Bridge Project intervention components are presented, and recommendations for advancing policy and practice for high-risk youth in community-based programs are described. Readers will follow the planning, development, implementation, evaluation and assessment of the Bridge Project guided by first-person perspectives from program participants who share their stories throughout the book. Risk, Resilience, and Positive Youth Development presents an integrated theory and model for working with at-risk youth, demonstrated in a detailed case example, giving practitioners, administrators, educators, researchers and policymakers a complete package.

Jeffrey M. Jenson, PhD, is the Philip D. and Eleanor G. Winn Professor for Children and Youth at Risk and Associate Dean for Research in the Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver.

Catherine F. Alter, PhD, was Dean of the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver from 1997 to 2006.

Nicole Nicotera, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver.

Elizabeth K. Anthony, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University.

Shandra S. Forrest-Bank, MSW, is Assistant Professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee.