BACKGROUND: Individuals learn and develop across their lifespan in response to the people with whom they interact in settings, communities, cultures, and experiences. Collaborative research and policy efforts underscore the critical and reparative role of identity-safe, culturally driven, and relationship-rich environments-in classrooms, schools, and communities-for the healthy social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development of all learners. These themes align closely with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. METHODS:Collaborative research and policy efforts, combined with the WSCC model make a strong case to elevate the unusual suspects, the settings and people outside of instructional classrooms who are key actors in creating the conditions and relationships that promote student health and well-being. RESULTS:We describe promising cases of efforts aimed at bolstering adult capacity to foster student health and well-being. We also discuss how these types of systemic efforts can move beyond system and program level actors to acknowledge the power of individual-level implementation. CONCLUSIONS:It is time to recognize the systemic efforts, programmatic opportunities, and individual roles adults have in implementing an ideal WSCC model that is aligned with the collaborative research and policy efforts.

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Arnold and Gagnon’s timely work on the 4-H Thriving Model is an excellent example of the application of developmental science in youth development practice. In their article, the authors describe how 4-H, an established youth development organization, updated the theory of change. Designing an actionable theory of change based on science is indeed a commendable effort for any youth-serving organization. However, the work does not stop there. The diverse 4-H system now has the ultimate challenge of adopting and implementing the principles presented in their theory of change. In this commentary, I discuss the often-overlooked components of implementation readiness: motivation, general capacity, and content-specific knowledge (R=MC2) in relation to the 4-H Thriving Model.  When staff are ready, they can succeed in aligning resources and coordinate professional learning for the adults, or implementers, to know and understand the theory of change and associated practices. Fostering learning and development to enact science-informed strategies, as Arnold and Gagnon have done in the 4-H Thriving Model, is critical to developing sound models of youth programming. However, to implement a model into practice, the real and human factors of implementation readiness are key to success.

In this article, Deborah Moroney and Jill Young from the American Institutes for Research interview Rebecca Goldberg and Alex Hooker, senior program officers from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. Rebecca and Alex describe their experience as members of the youth development workforce and how that experience inspired them to support the youth development workforce on the grantmaking side, focusing on adult practice and youth character development. As the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation sunsets in 2020, Rebecca and Alex also share their hopes for the youth development workforce going forward.

In “Moving From Risk to Hope: Count Us In,” the author describes the report entitled From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope released in January 2019 by the Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. The report and related brief, Building Partnerships in Support of Where, When, and How Learning Happens offer recommendations for how the education sector can support social and emotional learning and development. This article offers a reflection on the Nation at Hope report recommendations for the youth development field and professionals. There are significant opportunities for the youth development field to partner with other sectors, intentionally support social and emotional learning, train professional staff on strategies to support learning and development, and research our efforts in ways that are accessible and foster practice. It is a critical and hopeful time for the youth development field to honor our history, employ the recommendations in the report, and build our youth development knowledge and practice in light of what we now know about how to optimally foster learning and development.