Neighborhood Youth Centers and Families as Supportive Environments for Youth in High Risk Urban Settings

Abstract

Highlights of a study which examined the relationship between contextual assets within the lives of urban, poor, minority youth, and youth adjustment are discussed in this article. The assets studied were family support and supportive involvement in neighborhood youth centers. The results indicated that higher levels of family support and youth center involvement were associated with better youth outcomes. An absence of significant interaction effects indicated that strong involvement and support in one setting did not compensate for a low level of support or involvement in the other setting. Family support was found to be the most significant predictor of youth adjustment.

Guy Talk: A Gender-Specific Sexual Education Program to Reduce Sexual Risk Behaviors With High School Males

“…A modified version of the Sexual Consent Scale (selection of five consent statements) included 5-point Likert-type attitude statements about obtaining consent (Humphreys & Brousseau, 2010; α = .68), for example, “I wouldn’t ask for sexual consent verbally because it would feel too awkward.” This measure taps an individual’s beliefs and attitudes about obtaining sexual consent with partners. A 14-point Likert-type scale for social skills self-efficacy (α = .97; Sabatelli et al, 2005) asked about the degree of confidence on a Likert-type scale (including not at all , a little , some , and very ), for example, “Say no to peer pressure to have sex I don’t want.” A 10-point Likert-type scale on attitudes about women was also included (α = .91; adapted from Whatley, 2008—reduced to 10 items), for example, “Women try to get what they want by being manipulative.” Two measures were created for this study: perceptions of masculinity, which is a 5-point Likert-type scale ( strongly agree to strongly disagree ; α = .83), for example, “If a guy turns down sex it means he is less of a man” and attitudes toward sexual control, which is a 5-point Likert-type scale ( strongly agree to s trongly disagree ; α = .83), for example, “Girls always get turned on when a guy is rough with them.” These measures were included to further examine the extent to which the intervention might affect a desire for sexual control and a stereotypical attitude about masculinity. Two measures, attitudes toward condoms (DiClemente et al, 2009) and a modified version of contraceptive self-efficacy (Levinson et al, 1998), did not obtain acceptable reliability (α = .63 and .51, respectively) and are not included in the analysis.…”