Exploring the Impact of a Wilderness-Based Positive Youth Development Program for Urban Youth

Abstract

Young people today face a multitude of challenges, especially when growing up in an urban environment. Risk factors such as poverty, exposure to gangs, drugs, and community and family violence threaten healthy development. The positive youth development (PYD) approach attempts to combat these personal and environmental challenges by providing youth with positive, asset-building experiences and meaningful, supportive relationships. There is a need for creative youth development programming that brings these two elements together in a structured and voluntary context, such as a wilderness-based program. This study explored the impact of a PYD program that utilizes mentor-supported wilderness expeditions to build developmental assets among a diverse sample of 159 urban youth in the United States. The Developmental Assets Profile was administered pre- and post-program, as well as 90 days post-program. Quantitative findings show that this type of programming can be an asset-building experience for youth facing multiple risk factors.

Flourishing in nature: A review of the benefits of connecting with nature and its application as a wellbeing intervention

“…In qualitative research, adults who had spent time in the wilderness reported that what made their experiences especially meaningful was the fact that "there was virtually no reason to be anyone but themselves" (Fredrickson & Anderson, 1999, p. 30). Research from the outdoor education and experiential learning literature describes similar benefits of wilderness and nature immersion experiences on autonomy and other measures of psychological wellbeing like personal growth, self-esteem, self-regulation, and social competency (e.g., Norton & Watt, 2014;Passarelli, Hall, & Anderson, 2010;Ray & Jakubec, 2014).…”

TIC, desarrollo y jóvenes. Un estado de la cuestión

“…Los problemas que enfrentan los jóvenes han sido abordados por una línea de investigación e intervención nombrada Youth Development, o Desarrollo Juvenil. Esta perspectiva surgió a partir de una crítica hacia las intervenciones dirigidas a jóvenes que sólo respondían a situaciones de crisis con poca atención a la prevención, ampliando este marco hacia el estudio longitudinal que identifica múltiples e interrelacionados elementos predictivos del comportamiento juvenil problemático, como factores de protección que contribuyan a un desarrollo juvenil saludable (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak & Hawkins, 2004;Lynn & Terling, 2014). Varios estudios confluyen en esta perspectiva (Borden, Perkins, Villaruel, Carleton-Hug, Stone & Keith, 2006;Christens & Dolan, 2011;Furlong & Cartmel, 2007;Sy, Greaney, Nigg & Hirose-Wong, 2015;Zeldin, Camino & Calvert, 2007).…”

Urban Youth Perspectives on the Benefits and Challenges of Outdoor Adventure Camp

“…Outdoor adventure camps (OACs) can serve as developmental turning points to expose youth to new and diverse people and experiences (Rose-Krasnor & Ramey, 2018), helping them meet developmental needs and strengthening their connection to nature. These camps exemplify many characteristics of positive youth development (PYD) programs (Sibthorp & Morgan, 2011), fostering personal growth in outcomes such as empowerment, positive values, and positive identity (Norton & Watt, 2014;Thurber, Scanlin, Scheuler, & Henderson, 2007) and creating experiences that promote life skills (e.g., Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997). However, not much is known about the conditions that promote positive outcomes in adventure programming (Deane & Harré, 2014), especially for diverse groups of youth (Browne et al, 2019).…”