Engaging high-risk, marginalized youth presents a significance challenge in our society, considering the prevalence of disconnect and distrust they often experience with their social environments/systems. Yet, meaningful youth engagement is a key concept not only for positive youth development, but also for a systems change to more effectively support high-risk youth and families. This section presents a framework of youth engagement that has been developed through working with sixteen youth leaders in our community-based research team over nine months. Although this framework has directly incorporated the youth leaders’ lived experiences, talents, and voices, conceptually positive youth development (PYD) is an overall theoretical framework of our research. Contrary to a conventional approach to leading research by academic investigators, our youth leaders were the ones who led the development of the framework. The framework consists of three components ( Basis: philosophy and principles, What: goals/outcomes, and How: actions/processes/pathways to change) that are supported by nine themes described in this report. We will also provide remarks about preparing to implement the framework in a practical setting.
Report