Developmental assets: framework and outcomes

Developmental Assets

One of the most important and critical information that educators must be armed with as they pursue teaching and instill learning to young individuals is an understanding of both social and individual factors that could significantly influence a young individual's learning development. In order to accomplish this, these factors -- both external and internal -- must be identified and responded to appropriately and correctly.

Learning frameworks such as the Developmental Assets address this information need among educators. Developmental Assets (or DA) is a framework that helps educators identify the "relationships, opportunities, skills, values and commitments" needs of young individuals for them "to grow up healthy, caring, and responsible" (Scales, 2007). This framework illustrates how developmental needs of young individuals are categorized into two, external and internal developmental assets. External assets provide a comprehensive scan of the relationships and social support systems that are critical to the development of the individual. Meanwhile, internal assets are "capacities, skills and values" that will help young individuals develop into healthy individuals, both mentally and emotionally.

The framework posits that the more developmental assets that a young individual has, the lesser the chance for the individual to deviate from normative development and adopt high risk deviant behavior and actions. The Developmental Assets framework, in effect, through its qualitative groupings or categories, can best assess and diagnose the developmental needs of a young individual, allowing the educator to develop measures and action plans that will be responsive and appropriate to the characteristics and social situation of the individual.

For the analysis of specific characteristics relevant to the DA framework, the Adolescents (with ages 12-18 years old) are chosen as the group of interest. Primary reason for selecting this specific group for the Developmental Assets analysis is that Adolescents provide an interesting and challenging case of how the categories and items contained in each DA category will be evaluated. The challenge will stem from the reality that the adolescence period is a borderline stage, wherein the young individual 'crosses over' from childhood to adulthood. Thus, as this group is evaluated using the DA framework, the educator will be challenged in identifying the appropriate and responsive action plan for the group or individual under study. That is, the educator will assess whether the action plan developed and recommended will be responsive to the changes that the young adult is undergoing, without polarizing these actions towards a response for children or conversely, for adults.

Indeed, the educator plays a significant role in shaping the individual's development; similarly, the educator also has an important role in addressing and providing young individuals with their developmental needs. Failure to provide young individuals with these much-needed developmental assets would increase the likelihood that they will develop behavior and commit actions considered to be deviant or further away from normative behavior or action for their age group. These risks could be any of the following behaviors, considered to be at high-risk level under the DA framework: alcohol use (used alcohol three or more times in the past month), sexual activity (engaging in sexual intercourse three or more times in lifetime), violence (engaged in three or more acts of fighting or threatening physical harm in the past year), and school problems (skipped school two or more days in the past month or has a below C. average) (Scales, 2007).

Alcohol use, violence, and sexual activity are the most salient and interdependent high-risk behaviors encountered by educators among adolescents presently. These activities are co-dependent on each other, and ultimately lead to school problems -- in effect creating also a challenge for the educator. Using the DA framework, these high-risk behaviors can be alleviated by developing an action plan that shall focus on harnessing the individual's social skills and personal development, through the external and internal assets, as well as increased thriving factors. Thriving behaviors can be any of the following interventions: school success (achieving high grades), valuing diversity (puts high value on interacting with people of different ethnic or racial background), leadership, and maintaining good health. Each of these interventions can help supplement recommended external and internal assets to be developed by the educator, parents/guardians or mentors, and young individuals.