Provincial Consortium on Youth in Recreation

2011 Youth Friendly Community Recognition Program. 

Download the form, please click here.

To learn more about the communities who received recognition at the Youth Friendly Community Ceremony held in October 2010 at Queen's Park in Toronto, click here.

You can find some great information on the Play Works website, which will help your community complete its application. Click here to access that information.

And, lastly, any community representatives that would like to receive more information on the application process, be put in touch with one of the recognized communities' mentors, or receive a personal application orientation call for the members of your community who will be putting together the application process, please email pwp@playworkspartnertship.ca or call 416-426-7065.

Please note the application deadline is December 1, 2011.

This is an excellent report about youth and volunteering. While it originates in Australia, there is much that would help foster an understanding of youth and volunteering in North America.

Take a look at the Findings on pages 7 – 10 and you will find a variety of great hints on connecting with youth as volunteers, as well as ways to look at the place in which you work to assess how youth friendly it is for youth to be volunteers.

On pages 25 to 74 there are wonderful tidbits of information to be found both in the quotes from young people and in the commentary about the quotes such as…

• lack of confidence and skills
• poor public 
• working within legal and policy frameworks
• seeing young people as 'challenging'
• maintaining confidentiality in small communities
• embracing informal volunteering
• reaching the hard to reach…. and more!

It is a 120 page document, so you may want to sift through the stuff you want… You can access the document here

Here is a nice free online training about Positive Youth Development. 

It is in two modules (45 and 60 minutes respectively). A certificate is available upon completion. 

It is straight-forward in content and is a great primer for those new to the field, those who want more info to be able to share with others about what is meant by PYD, and/or to educate and/or advocate for the inclusion of a PYD approach in your youth programs.

You have to register for the course before you can access it but it is a very simple process and takes no time at all.

http://ncfy-learn.jbsinternational.com/course/category.php?id=3

Early next year UNESCO, in association with the International Association of Sports Newspapers (IASN), will launch a quarterly e-bulletin which aims to 'raise awareness of sport's power and potential in development and peace initiatives, and to encourage young people to become leaders of positive change in their communities'. 

The four main topics of the bulletins will be: sport as a development tool; youth empowerment and sport; sport and the fight against racism; and sport and violence prevention. Each issue will contain, among other things, an article written by a young person covering the main topic for that particular issue. To find out more, go to the UNESCO web page.

We are often asked if there is a course for training staff to be more youth friendly. 

The Search Institute has some 'easy to share' Asset-Building Ideas for Youth Workers. The good thing is that these are transferrable to any staff who come into contact with youth – not just those who work with them. 

You can find them here.

Here is a really neat and short video trailer created by the School Team of the Sudbury & District Health Unit in collaboration with area youth. This video on teen/youth resiliency was officially launched at the 10th Annual Healthy Schools Coalition Forum.

The Sudbury & District Health Unit School Health Promotion Team has embarked on a creative adventure with our community partners by developing the Can You feel It?: A School Community Resiliency Program. The goal of this program is to empower students and school communities to adapt to or bounce back from changes and challenges they face. The four key messages of the CYFI program are: change is constant, recognize stress in your life, you control your reaction, empower yourself – you can do it!

This video trailer is great to use as a sensitizer for any group/individual that might not be familiar with the stresses that youth face.

Any questions on this resource should be directed to the Sudbury and District Health Unit at Tel: (705) 522-9200 or at its website at www.sdhu.com.

While this information is not just related to youth, the new Benefits of Recreation databank has great information to help you when writing proposals, reports or preparing community presentations to support youth programming and lifelong learning. It helps embed the ‘soft service of recreation’ into ‘hard research.’

The Alberta Recreation and Parks Association (ARPA) in partnership with the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association is pleased to announce that the new Benefits DataBank (formerly the Benefits Catalogue) is now available online.

This resource, which will constantly be updated, summarizes more than 700 pieces of  evidence that recreation and parks services really do make a difference.  Validation is provided for 49 benefits or outcome statements organized around the eight marketing messages listed below. Recreation, parks, sport, arts, culture, and heritage:

• are essential to personal health and well-being
• provide the key to balanced human development
• provide a foundation for quality of life
• reduce self-destructive and anti-social behaviour
• build strong families and healthy communities
• reduce health care, social service and police/justice costs
• are a significant economic generator
• and green spaces are essential to environmental and ecological well-being, even survival

The intent is to provide you with an invaluable resource for policy development, planning, marketing, program/service development and/or evaluation. The Databank is updated on a regular basis and Facts, Trends and Promising Practices are being added for each benefit statement, to help you make a case for expanding related programs and/or services. On the site you will also find information on how to use the Databank, blogs and much more. When using the DataBank, please keep in mind that you can contribute by alerting us to new research and promising practices that should be added.

Benefits DataBank (formerly the Benefits Catalogue)

Here is a resource, an article and an application about Youth Friendly Communities.

Download the 2010 Good Practices resource from Youth Friendly Communities,  Learn more about the communities who received recognition at the Youth Friendly Community Ceremony held in October 2009 at Queen’s Park in Toronto. The 2010 Youth Friendly Community Application is now online, and helpful hints regarding your community’s application.

Research has shown youth are attracted to programs which meet their unique and diverse needs. Arts programs go a long way to do this (creativity, self-expression, meaningful engagement, positive relationships with peers and adults, etc.).

Here is a resource which provides great statistical and general information on why and how arts programs are good for youth. If you are interested in starting or expanding an arts program, this information will lend credibility to your grant application or discussion with a decision-maker. It is 114 pages long. Take a look at the shorter Executive Summary at the beginning to see what you might want to print/save.

Champions of Change

Whether you are new to programming with youth or have been doing it for years, here is a great easy-to-read resource that speaks to why teens are not involved in programs – from the youth perspective.  You can take this information and, if designing a new program, use these suggestions to help develop your program model. Or, you can take this information and, if you already have a program in place, cross reference what you are doing to determine if there are areas for potential improvement.

WHY TEENS ARE NOT INVOLVED IN OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME PROGRAMS: THE YOUTH PERSPECTIVE

A joint report from the McCreary Centre, Powell River and Tia’Amin Youth Advisory Councils.

This information is great for starting a youth council and for assessing how your council is functioning!

The four sections:

1. Why a YAC;
2. Getting it Started;
3. Keeping it Going; and
4. Adult Support

are all simply written, with easy-to-understand graphics and helpful notes (e.g. adults should be a ‘guide on the side not a sage on the stage’…. you have to love it!).

YAC Link – Tips and Tricks for Starting a Youth Advisory Council

Service Learning is a term often used in the States. In a nutshell, it is a strategy that many educational institutions and community-based organizations have embraced to challenge youth/students to address issues in their community through service, while at the same time learning on a personal, social and intellectual level. Here is a report, put out by the Points of Light Foundation, which speaks to how the Youth Voice could and should be reflected in service learning projects. Youth Voice is, in some ways, just a different term for youth engagement and there are a variety of different easy-to-understand and apply approaches to effective youth engagement in this resource. Youth Voices: A Guide of Engaging Youth in Leadership and Decision-Making in Service Learning Projects.

Youth Voice – A Guide for Engaging Youth in Leadership and Decision Making in Service-Learning Programs

Here’s a nice short article on how to better program with and for rural youth. It’s out of the States so its references on models, etc. are from there, but some of the ideas are easy and transferable to a Canadian context.

STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING OUT-OF-SCHOOL PROGRAMS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

The National Youth Advocacy Coalition has a training module around creating safe spaces for LGBTQ youth. You can access this training via iTunes video, YouTube or with slides (no narration) and handouts. The materials include pre and post tests. It’s easy to read and understand material suitable for staff and volunteer training as well as a participant orientation session.

Safe Spaces Training Module

Here’s an interesting newsletter about how youth use media and how to communicate with youth. While the newsletter is informative about how to get health topic communications to youth, the approaches adaptable to other topics such as recreation, education, or employment opportunities.

Audience Insights – Communicating to Teens (Aged 12–17)

Here’s a neat resource put out by the HeartWood Centre for Community Youth Development titled: Youth Volunteers at Your Library. While you may not have a library, two things are of interest in this document. The first is that, to help with positive youth development in your community, you can pass it on to your local library so that they can begin (if they haven’t already started) to meaningfully engage youth in their programs and services. The second thing is that much about youth engagement in this document relates to working with youth in other and general contexts, so it’s likely also applicable to your setting! Check out the appendices to find some nice and short helpful hints on ways to engage and work with youth. It’s easy to read, only around 30 pages long.

Youth Volunteers at Your Library – Engaging Youth in Your Library

Here’s an interesting newspaper clipping about how England is refurbishing 3500 playgrounds by 2011 in order to promote ‘free play’ for children and youth with a bit of an adventure-based approach. May be of some interest to your community when you are looking at creative spaces and places for youth to play.

England is refurbishing 3500 playgrounds by 2011 in order to promote ‘free play’

This is an article out of Australia about youth gangs. Some interesting reading here, some of which includes characteristics for joining and leaving gangs (page 13/14). In looking at these, it is easy to make the case as to how youth development programs – if they are frequent, available and no/low cost – can be great diversions to youth entering the gang culture. Page 38 – 42 also specifically references the need for youth facilities whether it is stand alone or with designated youth space which is part of a community centre (this is one of the Youth Friendly Community Recognition Program criteria too).

Anti-Gang Strategies and Interventions

Active Healthy Kids Canada has released its fifth Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.  This year, the focus of the report is on the important role physical activity plays in facilitating learning and academic performance.   Children and youth who are more physically active showed improved memory, concentration and attention span – leading to better results in school.  The report card also highlights inequities in physical activity – especially for low-income children and youth and those with disabilities. Some findings to note are:

* 13% of Grade 10 girls and 27% of Grade 10 boys reported that they were "physically active" for 60 minutes every day (2005-2006 HBSC)

* There has been a decline in sports participation in youth aged 15 to18 years between 1992 and 2005, from 77% to 59% (General Social Survey, Statistics Canada).

*Canada ranks 23rd out of 40 developed countries in the proportion of youth accumulating more than 2 hours or more per day of screen time – that is, Canada is among the upper half of countries with the highest proportion of youth accumulating excessive screen time (2005-2006 HBSC).

This information is useful if you are looking to increase local investment in youth physical activity, sport and recreation programs and/or arts and culture programs (which offer creative alternatives to 'screen time'). Active Healthy Kids Canada has produced both the full report card and a "short form" which provides useful statistics and information.  To download the report card, please visit the Active Healthy Kids Canada.

Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth

Here’s an interesting read out of the University of Waterloo’s research department. While it is a review of school environments, it has a lot of good information that:

1. can be used by any group that operates out of a facility
2. can be used by any group that has physical activity and/or healthy eating programs
3. can be used by any group that is looking for cited information (referenced in a bibliography) to use in program development or expansion or funding to strengthen the case why and how physical activity and healthy eating benefit youth

While it’s not too long a report (35 pages), your best bets to get the info you are looking for are on pages 6, 7 and 15 on…. This one is for secondary schools.

Secondary School

(you can forward this one on elementary schools to your colleagues who work with children….

Elementary Schools

Here is a 48-page case study on the benefits of Youth and Adult Partnerships. It’s an interesting read with the salient points being summarized on pages 18 and 22 in a great check list format that you can use to either develop or assess your adult/youth partnership models. Enjoy!

Youth-Adult Partnerships in Public Action: Principles, Organizational Culture & Outcomes

This document looks at all forms of ‘new’ media and how youth use it to learn and socialize. It’s over 50 pages long so scan through the Executive Summary at the beginning and the Implications nearing the end on page 39.

Of interest are some of the adult assumptions that are challenged here about youth’s use of electronic devices. This information can be used to help defend the use of programs, such as FaceBook, or in looking to develop a case to fund a computer lab in a youth centre.

Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project

The National League of Cities has developed a resource on Creating a Master Youth Plan. It's not a long read, but it does have salient points for your community to consider when developing one. You could actually take the headings and create a check list which would act as a series of operation principals for developing the master plan.
And, to make life even easier, if you want to see some examples of Youth Master Plans that have been created (all references are American), just go to www.nlc.org/IYEF/youthdevelopment/ymp/examples.aspx and follow the links.  There are examples of communities with populations ranging from 10,000 and up, who have developed youth master plans.

Creating a Youth Master Plan

We are all looking for new and innovative ways to fight obesity and yet, as this article states, there are some easy ways right under our noses….

Let kids skateboard, rollerblade and/or bike more than four times a week and those activities will be the most likely ones that will not lead that young person into being obese as an adult. So, for those communities who are having a challenge getting local decision-makers to support skateparks, bike lanes and/or BMX tracks, feel free to strengthen your case by quoting from the attached article.

Physical Education and Active Play Help Teens Maintain Normal Weight as Adults

Here is an interesting article on one person’s take on the concept ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ The good information in this resource is that it has some very salient points about youth and working with youth, points that can be used when speaking with decisiosn-makers or in writing funding proposals…..

If it Takes a Village to Raise a Child, How Many Children Does it Take to Raise the Village?

This research, from Statistics Canada, speaks to the change in sport participation between 1992 and 2005 for those ages 5 – 14, and also to the role that the family plays in sport involvement. While this is a ‘younger than usual’ Sprynt age, the research does break out 11 – 14 year olds, and it does speak to male and female differentials. There is also a very interesting piece that references adolescents (whose parents are involved in sport) as the group with the highest involvement in organized sports (ages 15 – 19 years).

A nice and easy read, and a great bunch of research to build the case for looking for ways to create sport opportunities that meet the needs of adolescents relative to children and/or to market sports to adults as a means to encouraging the involvment of their children in sport.

Canadian Social Trends – Kids’ Sports

Here is a research paper “More Time for Teens: Understanding Teen Participation – Frequency, Intensity, Duration – in Boys and Girls Clubs.” While this paper speaks to the Club experience, the learnings are representative of youth centres in general – places which are dedicated to youth and/or children and youth.

Of specific note are the Lessons Learned in the Executive Summary and the chapter on the Factors That Contribute to Teen Participation. The youth at these clubs represent diverse cultures and are generally from the lower economic strata however the information is quite transferrable to main stream youth. Good information for program development and recommendations for program expansion (reference the information on frequency and duration). An easy read if you skip through the theoretical and research information.

More Time for Teens: Understanding Teen Participation – Frequency, Intensity, Duration – in Boys and Girls Clubs

Here is a resource out of the States on Positive Youth Development (PYD). Some of it speaks just to iniatives that are happening south of the border, however there are a number of pages you might want to check out, including (and these are the page numbers as referenced in the document)

9 – check list for PYD
16 – how to work with the media to get your PYD message out

19 on – check list of if you have PYD strategies in your progmam

24 – strategies for working effectively with youth

27 – listing of groups to collaborate with

33 on – how to team up with business, schools, service providers, media and government (really good and easy check list of what you might want to do to develop your relationships with these groups)

And, there are some really nice appendices you might just want to take a look at too.

Great resource for understanding PYD, sharing that message with those who may not yet understand it (decision-makers, politicians, business), creating new approaches, assessing existing services, and/or engaging others in your community with the enhancement services.

Putting Positive Youth Development Into Practice – A Resource Guide

Reaching for the Top Hits the Mark for Healthy Children and Youth
Last week, Dr. Kellie Leitch released her report on the health of Canada’s Children and Youth. She calls on all orders of government to work with community recreation providers to implement those recommendations. To view a summary of Dr. Leitch’s report, please visit the Health Canada Website.

Report on the Health of Canada’s Children and Youth

Research has been undertaken over the past 25 years on the brain development of adolescents. It’s now understand that it is during adolescence that the brain undergoes the second most rapid and complex change after the first few years of childhood development. You can use this information to help inform those with whom you work as to why diversity in programs is needed, why safe risks are needed, why youth need ongoing physical, intellectual, emotional, social and moral stimulation.

Here is a nicely done interview with a researcher, who had a show done on PBS. It gives a good and understandable explanation of the process of the development of the adolescent brain.

Inside the Teenage Brain

Some of you may be involved with youth mentor programs, or may be considering starting them. Rather than starting from scratch, here is an excellent set of resources to help you on your way. In addition to the resources on this particular page, there are additional resources on this site that you might want to wander around to.

Mentoring.org

This nicely presented document was put out by Quebec as a consultation paper on its Youth Action Strategy 2005 – 2008. It was just released in April and lays out a series of points that include a brief description of each section, a short presentation of the strategic choices relative to that section, and questions related to the strategic choices that help the reader consider what might or could be done. It’s just a nicely framed and engaging style of report. The part in which you might be interested is Orientation 2: Improve the Health and Well-being of Youth.

Here is an interesting, and quick read, on youth, extreme sports and how these activities begin to meet the developmental needs of youth. The host site, Youthography, deals in youth culture and issues out of the US. This URL is for the on-line version of the document but it’s easier to read in the ‘print ready’ option.

Youthography

Here is the latest Evaluation Exchange reviews findings which speaks to outcomes for youth in ‘out of school time’ activities [anything from sports, community programs, arts, etc.] . This issue also includes articles on what is known from existing research and evaluation about the results that are possible from out-of-school time programming, expert commentary on what the future out-of-school time research and evaluation agenda should look like, and information about hands-on research and evaluation tools and resources.

Evaluation Exchange – Evaluating Out-of-School Time

VECTOR means Video Exploration of Careers, Opportunities and Realities. There are around 20 portals on the main page to other websites on mentoring, money, careers, support groups, etc. Use this as a reference to inform your work with youth or let youth know that this resource exists for them too.

VECTOR: Video Exploration of Careers, Opportunities and Realities

he Laidlaw Foundation has just released 3 new working papers on social inclusion. One may be of particular interest to you and it is “The Role of Recreation in Promoting Social Inclusion” by Peter Donnelly. A synopsis of all 3 papers can be found at http://www.laidlawfdn.org/  (go to the Children’s Agenda Resource Section) and this synopsis is 30 pages long. Peter’s report is around 38 pages in length and can be also be found in full on that page.

Social Inclusion Working Papers

In 1996, the Innovation Center in partnership with National 4-H Council began a journey with partners in diverse communities across the United States to find, test, adapt, and document tools and approaches for creating positive community change and building partnerships between young people and adults. This experience is shared in the form of the Building Community Tool Kit. For free sample excerpts of this resource, or for other great resources from the Innovation Centre.

A TOOLKIT FOR YOUTH & ADULTS IN CHARTING ASSETS AND CREATING CHANGE

Released by The Youth Development and Research Fund Inc. The report is available FREE in PDF format on or you can order a hard copy. The report is based on in-depth research of ten programs that are effectively recruiting, retaining and engaging youth in workforce development, education and arts programming. The report provides a detailed look at how YCC is being used to enhance program design and outcomes. If you don’t want to print out the whole thing, then just print out Part Five which gives you a great youth cultural competence self-assessment tool.

Youth Cultural Competence (YCC): Using the Power of Youth Popular Culture, Youth Involvement and Positive Peer Influence to Reach and Engage Youth

Interested in what girls and young women are thinking about? Here are some sites which can provide some inside into this generation. In some cases, the site is designed specifically for use by girls/young women (good in that it can give you some ideas about what’s hot and what’s not). In others, it’s also designed as a resource for adults with research and other information you may find helpful. The first site is Canadian, the others American but, as you will find when reviewing them, a border doesn’t make all that much difference!

www.caaws.ca

www.girlpower.com

www.girlsinc.org

You’ve probably all heard the news about Canada’s scorecard on children and youth in poverty over the past ten years. Of note is the increasing concern that children and youth from lower income backgrounds have less access to affordable and accessible recreation opportunities.

Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD)

A 32 page document that outlines a Resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on March 13, 1996. If you are looking for some nice information to strengthen a presentation or proposal you are preparing, consider the following…. – The United Nations considers youth to be ages 15 to 24 – 10 priority areas were identified in 1996, with Leisure-time activities being one of those ten – Members of the United Nations are working to see ‘young people…. aspire to full participation in the life of society…. including participation in decision-making process; …. places and facilities for cultural, recreation and sports activities to improve the living standards of young people in both rural and urban areas – Under the educational priority, one of the proposals for action is an infrastructure for training youth workers and youth leaders – Under the employment area, one of the proposals is to provide voluntary community services involving youth and, where none exist, to have youth organizations involved in the designing, planning, implementing and evaluating of the programs – Under the hunger and poverty area, one of the proposals is to make farming more rewarding and life in agricultural areas more attractive – Under the drug abuse area, one of the proposals for action is to give priority to preventative measures….rural areas should be provided with adequate social-economic opportunities and administrative services which could discourage young people from migrating to urban areas….youth from poor urban settings should have access to specific education, employment and leisure programs, particularly during long school holidays – Under Leisure-time activities, there are four separate proposals for action. These are located on pages 23 and 24 of the document.

The World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond

The Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute released a document in 2005 titled ‘A municipal perspective on opportunities for physical activity: Trends from 2000 – 2004.’ It may sound like a heady title, and it’s not a light scan at 103 pages, however it does contain some interesting information that can help inform our work with youth and physical activity, and can give us an idea of what challenges may life ahead. For example, those in municipalities of greater than 100,000 are finding it harder in 2004 to find information on physical activity opportunities than they did in 2000, yet those in communities smaller than that size are finding it easier (page 5). Hmmm. The perceived usefulness of the information in the larger centres has also decreased during that four year period, while it has increased in the smaller settings (page 7). Since 2000, more municipalities have been working with more schools, the workplace, health settings and not for profit groups to increase reach to and deliver physical activity programs (page 15). So, if your municipality is not, you will soon be in the minority. And, what might this information tell you… programs that support children to be active have decreased, subsidies for children’s programming has decreased, and programs for children and youth at-risk have increased (page 16. Another hmmmm. And, while there has been good work done in order to increase access to community use of schools, municipalities in Ontario as less likely that the average Canadian municipalities to indicate they have an agreement regarding shared use of facilities with schools (page 30).Overall, lots of interesting information. You can look at, or print off, various portions of the document at http://www.cflri.ca/eng/statistics/surveys/capacity2004.php

A municipal perspective on opportunities for physical activity: Trends from 2000 – 2004

Here is a document that helps those in the business of hiring and supervising youth development staff be better informed and prepared when doing. Put out by the National Youth Development Learning Network, it provides a nice breakdown of how to recruit and how to retain staff. The full report is broken into easy-to-download individual files.

Capturing Promising Practices in Recruitment and Retention of Frontline Youth Workers

Here is some great research from the Harvard Family Research Project on the benefits of out of school programming for youth. The content of the research is listed in the body of the article, with hot linked footnotes to the research from whence it came. A great way to build up any presentation to council or funding proposal in support of youth work.

Moving Beyond the Barriers: Attracting and Sustaining Youth Participation in Out-of-School Time Programs

Here are some excellent resources on peer education models. They include a Training of Trainers Manual (200 pages), Standards for Peer Education Programmers (80 pages), and Theatre-Based Techniques for Peer Education (100 page training manual). These are through the Family Health International group out of the States. While the information is based on youth working on peer education around HIV AIDS topics, the materials and resources are excellent and highly transferable to other topics.

Youth Peer Education Toolkit

The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) has been producing Progress since 1996. This magazine-style publication provides a wealth of information on different factors that influence the health and well-being of Canadian children and youth. This 7th edition reports on many indicators, including family life, economic security, physical safety, learning, and more. Because the report tracks this information over time, it helps identify trends, successes, and challenges. Specifically, you might want to check out the chapters on Community Resources (includes recreation), social inclusion, and tools (which include some fact sheets). You can find the full report, in downloadable chapters.

The Progress of Canada’s Children & Youth

Here is a 12 page article in the Juvenile Justice Bulletin (US Department of Justice) about factors and prevention strategies related to youth gang involvement. Examples of prevention programs are provided, with a brief overview of each program’s components. It’s an easy read and has some good basic information that can be used in reports, presentations and proposals.

Preventing Adolescent Gang Involvement

Here is an easy 13 page research read about donors to arts and culture in Canada. Many organizations have arts and culture as part of their big R recreation mix, and it is good to see who is supporting those activities and there may well be cross over to the other pieces of the big R recreation. This report is based mainly on the 1997 and 200 National Surveys on Giving Volunteering and Participation (NSGVP).

Donors to Arts and Culture Organizations in Canada

This resource is put out by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. It explains how teens’ (12 – 19) experiences can influence their health later in life. It’s a lengthy article (107 pages) but the information is useful when building the case for funders to support youth development programs. Scroll down to the Report piece. Click on that and then on the next page click on the Full Report. If you don’t want to print out the whole thing, interesting parts include three or four bullet points about youth relative to: their income and socioeconomic status, education, social networks and support environment, employment and working conditions, early child development, physical environment, personal health practices and coping skills, biological and genetic factors, health services, gender, culture, and mass media and technology. There is some good discussion that links asset development with positive youth development. All in all a good resource.

Canadian Population Health Initiative (CPHI)