Positive youth development (PYD)

What is PYD and where does it come from?

Positive Youth Development theory (PYD) tells us that rangatahi develop and thrive when they have positive relationships with adults. A PYD approach believes that all rangatahi can develop positively and aims to support them to do so.

A PYD way of thinking emphasises the skills and capacities rangatahi have used to adapt to their challenging circumstances as well as the wisdom they have gained in living these challenging lives. These capacities are key resources we draw upon when providing support (Case, 2006). In recognizing these skills, PYD sees young people as active contributors to their own development and supports them in decision making.

Key to PYD is knowing that there are many different pathways through adolescence and that our mahi needs to adapt so that we avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach. The pathway taken by a particular rangatahi reflects the way that their uniqueness combines with:

Within these individual pathways, rangatahi are seen to develop positively, when their unique strengths and skill are matched with relationships, strengths and resources in their environment (Lerner, 2005). PYD draws on a diverse set of ideas about development as a relational process including:

This wholistic way of seeing rangatahi is one of the important contributions it makes to RBP. It helps us make sure our mahi includes individual work with rangatahi as well as mahi with the important people in their lives, such as whānau, as well as action and advocacy with organisations, systems and communities so that we try to change the things that make rangatahi vulnerable in the first place

All of these ideas link PYD to psychology and psycho-dynamic theory; strengths-based practice and relationship-based practice (Lerner et al., 2019; Lerner, Sparks & McCubbin, 1999; Neal & Neal, 2013) (see Some ideas from psychology that help us understand RBP?; Strengths-based practice; What is relationship-based practice). It also connects PYD to structural and critical theories (see Structural thinking; Critical theory). This link is important. It means that PYD is very interested in rangatahi in their social and cultural contexts (Lavie-Ajayi & Krumer-Nevo, 2013). This wholistic way of seeing rangatahi is one of the important contributions it makes to RBP. It helps us make sure our mahi includes individual work with rangatahi as well as mahi with the important people in their lives, such as whānau, as well as action and advocacy with organisations, systems and communities so that we try to change the things that make rangatahi vulnerable in the first place (see Vulnerability, Māori centred approaches, RBP in Pasifika contexts).

Initially, PYD focused on patterns of ‘normal’ development. But now, PYD helps us understand how to work more effectively with vulnerable rangatahi who have been exposed to multiple risks (Gardner, Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2008; Scales, Benson & Mannes, 2006). The PYD emphasis on encouraging rangatahi to exercise personal agency (see Agency and voice) works well in this mahi (Umaña-Taylor, Updegraff, Jahromi, Zeiders, 2015). This is because vulnerable rangatahi often have had compressed childhoods and accelerated autonomy transitions (see Accelerated and compressed transitions) – that is they often have to grow up quickly (Stein, Ward & Courtney, 2011). They learn to make key decisions on their own from a young age, and so interventions that encourage and support rangatahi to make their own decisions and that actively involve them in planning for support, are likely to be more effective than interventions that seek to direct and control them.

What is the evidence?

There is growing evidence that links PYD practices with positive change because PYD emphasises respectful ways of working that are relevant and meaningful (Duncan, Miller & Sparks, 2007; Eccles & Barber, 1999; Eccles, Barber, Stone & Hunt, 2003; Gardner, Roth, Brooks- Gunn, 2008; Grossman et al., 2002; Heinze, Hernandez Jozefowicz & Toro, 2010; Larson, Hanson & Moneta, 2006; Scales, Benson & Mannes, 2006; Urban, Lewin- Bizan & Lerner, 2009). When kaimahi form positive relationships with rangatahi, encourage their active involvement and demonstrate respect for the individual, whānau and culture, good outcomes happen regardless of the characteristics and circumstances of rangatahi (Bastiaanssen, et al., 2014; DuMont, Widom & Czaja, 2007; Sanders, Munford, & Liebenberg, 2017; Ungar, et al., 2013) (see PARTH in practice reflection sheets - Respect; Relevant & Agency).

When rangatahi have positive relationships with people and organisations the evidence shows that they thrive (Heinze, 2013). This applies equally to rangatahi who have many supportive resources as it does to those who are facing significant challenges with little help (see Agency and voice).

What does PYD mean for our mahi?

PYD interventions are respectful of and respond to the uniqueness of each rangatahi. PYD interventions recognise that the circumstances of rangatahi include other relationships, the places they live, the access they have to things such as education and health services as well as structural factors like social and economic policies. Accordingly, PYD interventions are sensitive to the way that rangatahi circumstances impact on what is possible for them and the particular types of change pathways they can take.

PYD is an ecological approach, that is, it focuses on the rangatahi, their social relationships and the factors in their world (like policies, systems, and structures) that impact on them. By adapting the mahi in response to the realities of these wider circumstances as well as their own uniqueness, the chances increase that the mahi will have a positive impact on rangatahi. This is because the mahi is more likely to be meaningful and relevant (Bottrell, 2009). Lasting change occurs when interventions build upon the ingenuity and creativity of rangatahi and the positive resources and relationships around them (Duncan, Miller & Sparks, 2007) (see PARTH in practice reflection sheet -Relevant).

PYD fits really well with relationship-based practice because of the importance of careful relationship building (Duncan, Miller & Sparks, 2007; Ruch, Turney & Ward, 2010). Key to this is being respectful, communicating positively, being sensitive to culture and context, and being consistent in practice. The relationship is the vehicle for drawing rangatahi into the mahi in ways that engage them as partners with common goals (see The helping alliance).

One of the key tasks for kaimahi is to locate the people within the everyday networks of rangatahi who can continue to awhi them once the mahi is done. This is about looking for the positive people in their lives and supporting these people to stay with rangatahi in the long-term. PYD occurs when opportunities are made available to rangatahi in meaningful ways and when relationships provide support to them to develop their own unique capacities and abilities.

When interventions and support build upon the resources around rangatahi, involvement with services and youth organisations become a potential resilience resource that can have long- term benefits (Berzin,2010; Mitchell, 2011).

While it is a positive way of engaging with rangatahi, PYD does not ignore the risks and challenges vulnerable rangatahi confront, the difficulties they face in adapting positively, nor the troubling behaviours they may exhibit. What it offers is a way of understanding these risks and behaviours as only one aspect of the rangatahi. Solutions are found when the causes of the risks are understood and addressed (see Vulnerability). To be effective in these situations kaimahi will identify the positive and resourceful dimensions of rangatahi and use these in their mahi so that the rangatahi becomes active and leads the change process (see Strengths-based practice; The helping alliance).

PYD is valuable to RBP because it redefines marginalised and disadvantaged rangatahi as resourceful and sees their actions as attempts to take control of their circumstances (see Understanding resistance). It does not define rangatahi as problems to be fixed (Bottrell, 2009; Haw, 2010). In a similar way to the concepts of transference and mirroring, in PYD troubling or disruptive behaviours are seen as positive attempts at coping given exposure to very high levels of risk, harm and challenge (see Some ideas from psychology that help us understand RBP; Systems thinking). Responding by attributing blame or responsibility to rangatahi, does not facilitate positive change. It locks rangatahi into identities that define them in negative ways and blames them for their circumstances. Lerner (2005, 10-11) suggests that PYD shifts the focus so that rangatahi are no longer understood as being:

PYD shifts the focus so that rangatahi are no longer understood as being broken, in need of psychosocial repair, or (as) "problems to be managed" (Lerner, 2005, 4).

We wrap safety around risk by looking for the strengths and capacities rangatahi can draw on while maintaining active awareness of the risks and challenges (Cheon, 2008; Dunst, Trivette & Deal, 1988).

Using these ideas, we understand vulnerable rangatahi as exposed to risks in their environments that compromise their capacity to develop well and thrive, rather than being perceived as difficult, dysfunctional, or disordered and in need of adults to ‘fix’ them.

By using PYD approaches we can redefine the risks vulnerable rangatahi confront as areas of challenge. These challenges can be dealt with more positively if relevant and meaningful support and resources are provided to rangatahi.

This does not mean that risks are ignored. It means we need to understand them as one part of the life of each rangatahi. We wrap safety around risk by looking for the strengths and capacities rangatahi can draw on while maintaining active awareness of the risks and challenges (Cheon, 2008; Dunst, Trivette & Deal, 1988). This way of thinking means that our mahi adds to the resources and supports already present (Munford & Sanders, 2015; Ungar, Liebenberg, Dudding, Armstrong & Van de Vijver, 2013).

How do I use these ideas in my mahi?

These two case examples illustrate two different perspectives on using PYD approaches in our mahi. The first looks at how organisational processes, such as team meetings can be used to apply PYD principles to practice. The second explores application of PYD principles of responding to the unique circumstances of a rangatahi in daily work.

In our agency positive youth development means placing rangatahi at the centre of our relationships and supporting them to lead decision making. We work in partnership with rangatahi and we pace the relationship to suit their needs. Ecological approaches help us understand their world, their experiences, and who is important to them. We learn who has been helpful as well as who has got in the way of rangatahi being able to achieve their goals. We learn about their contexts and how these have impacted on their circumstances; for example, living in poverty, not being able to remain at school; having key people in their networks who have substance abuse issues and this situation making it more difficult for rangatahi to confront their own substance abuse issues. In our team meetings we monitor how we are using PYD approaches and what this looks like in our agency. We explore how ecological approaches can be used as some of us felt unclear about how to apply these ideas.

We found ecological ideas helped us to identify key people in the social and cultural networks of rangatahi. As a result, we made sure we found key people rangatahi connected with who enhanced their sense of belonging and connection. We also talked about other aspects of PYD approaches such as working in partnership with rangatahi and keeping them at the centre of decision making. We explored ways of supporting rangatahi to feel comfortable in meetings and leading out decision making. One action that came from this was a group for rangatahi where they developed their skills in speaking on their own behalf and on goal planning. This group work reinforced the things they were doing in their individual meetings with kaimahi. We did role plays where they could practice talking to kaimahi in other agencies about their needs and what support they required, for example, talking to mental health practitioners.

Alongside these team reflections, we also gathered feedback from rangatahi on support processes to check that we were promoting PYD processes, such as working in partnership with them and whether this was their experience and their perspective on the support relationship. These feedback processes helped us to continually improve our support processes for rangatahi to ensure that they had a positive engagement with our agency and that this involvement actually made a difference in their lives.

Josie was 15 when she was referred to our agency. She had been running away from her mum’s house consistently over the past three years. In order to survive on the street, she had become involved in sex- work and was using drugs to self-medicate. Her father had left the family when Josie was still a baby, and they no longer had any contact with him. Josie now lived officially with her mum. Given bouts of neglect by her mum, Josie had been involved with Oranga Tamariki from a young age. Because of her running away, this involvement had increased significantly. To address her concerns with not feeling safe at home she had also been placed in a group home and foster care for a while. She had run away from these placements.

At her first meeting with me, Josie kept her head down and didn’t talk to me. After a few moments, I asked her if she would like to get out of the centre and get a coffee. She said yes, and we walked in silence down the block to the coffee cart. Once we had our coffee we sat on a nearby park bench drinking, in silence. On our way back to the office, Josie mentioned that nobody who had been “tasked” with her had ever just let her be, and she appreciated that I had done this. At the start of the next session, I asked Josie the miracle question, “if you could wake up tomorrow and everything was good, what would your life look like?” She seemed surprised but answered that she would be living with her aunt and going to school. I followed up on her response and found out that living with her mum was extremely challenging because she frequently changed boyfriends. Josie felt the men her mum dated were “jerks” and didn’t want to be around them.

She had asked her mum if she could move in with her aunt, but her mum had “nutted off!” Josie said her aunt lived in a quiet, safe neighbourhood, didn’t have random men around, and had the cutest dog. Josie got along with her aunt and being with her made everything feel safe and okay. I asked Josie if she had ever mentioned this to her social worker and she said no, “she doesn’t listen, and if I do tell her, mum will get into trouble. And that will bring more drama. I don’t need more drama, I just need to not live with her!” In our next session, we explored why Josie was using running away, living on the streets, engaging in sex-work and using drugs as a solution to her situation. Josie felt that she didn’t have any other options. She couldn’t get her mum to listen to her, she didn’t want to get her mum or her aunt into trouble, and she didn’t trust her social worker to handle the situation in a “non-explosive” way.

In the absence of all else, all she believed she could do was run away. But in doing this, she had to fend for herself. Our work focused on her strategies for keeping herself safe and for sustaining her relationship with her aunt as we worked on a plan to bring her mum to a point where she would accept that Josie was going to be safer and happier with her aunt. My approach was always to start what Josie said was most important right now and build out from there, while making sure that she had good strategies to keep herself safe.

Here are some places to look for more information

This is an excellent website with many references on PYD and work with rangatahi across different settings: https://knowpyd.nz/
Bastiaanssen, I., Delsing, M., Kroes, G., Engels, R., & Veerman, J. (2014). Group care worker interventions and child problem behavior in residential youth care: Course and bidirectional associations. Children and Youth Services Review, 39, 48–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.01.012
Berzin, S. (2010). Vulnerability in the transition to adulthood: Defining risk based on youth profiles. Children and Youth Services Review, 32, 4, 487–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2009.11.001
Berzin, S. & De Marco, A. (2010). Understanding the impact of poverty on critical events in emerging adulthood. Youth & Society,42, 2, 278-300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X08327518
Bottrell, D. (2009). Dealing with disadvantage: Resilience and the social capital of young people’s networks. Youth & Society, 40, 4, 476-501. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X08327518
Case, S. (2006). Young people ‘at risk’ of what? Challenging risk-focused early intervention as crime prevention. Youth Justice, 6, 171–179. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225406069491
Cheon, J. (2008). Best practices in community-based prevention for youth substance reduction: Towards strengths-based positive development policy. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 6, 761–779. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20256
DuMont, K., Widom, C., & Czaja, S. (2007). Predictors of resilience in abused and neglected children grown-up: The role of individual and neighbourhood characteristics. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 255–274. https://doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2005.11.015
Duncan, B., Miller, S., & Sparks, J. (2007). Common factors and the uncommon heroism of youth. Psychotherapy in Australia, 13, 34-43. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.545300571675378
Dunst, C., Trivette, C., & Deal, A. (1988). Enabling and empowering families. Brookline Books. Cambridge MA.
Eccles, J., Barber, B., Stone, M., & Hunt, J. (2003). Extracurricular activities and adolescent development. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 865−889. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00095.x
Gardner, M., Roth, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2008). Adolescents' participation in organized activities and developmental success 2 and 8 years after high school: Do sponsorship, duration and intensity matter? Developmental Psychology, 44, 814–830. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.3.814
Grossman, J., Price, M., Fellerath, V., Juvocy, L., Kotloff, L., Raley, R., & Walker,K. (2002). Multiple choices after school: Findings from the extended-service schools initiative. Philadelphia, Public/Private Ventures. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED468056
Haw, K. (2010). Risk and resilience: The ordinary and extraordinary everyday lives of young people living in a high crime area. Youth & Society, 41, 4, 451-474. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X09351791
Heinze, H. (2013). Beyond a bed: Support for positive development for youth residing in emergency shelters. Children and Youth Services Review, 35, 278–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.10.018
Larson, R., Hansen, D., & Moneta, G. (2006). Differing profiles of developmental experiences across types of organized youth activities. Developmental Psychology, 42, 849−863. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.849
Lavie-Ajayi, M. & Krumer-Nevo, M. (2013). In a different mindset: Critical youth work with marginalized youth. Children and Youth Services Review, 35, 1698-1704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.07.010
Liebenberg, L., Sanders, J., & Munford, R. (2016). A positive youth development measure of service use satisfaction for youth: The 13-item youth services satisfaction (YSS-13). Children and Youth Services Review, 71, 84-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.10.031
Lerner, R. M. (2005). Promoting positive youth development: Theoretical and empirical basis. National Academy of Sciences.
Lerner, R. M., Almerigi, J. B., Theokas, C., & Lerner, J. V. (2005). Positive youth development: A view of the issues. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 10-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431604273211
Lerner, R., Sparks, E., & McCubbin, L. (1999). Developmental contextualism and the developmental systems perspective. In R. Lerner, E. Sparks, & L. McCubbin, L. (Eds.) Family diversity and family policy: Strengthening families for America's children (pp. 25–42). Kluwer, Norwell, MA.
Lerner, R., Tirerell, J., Dowling, E., Geldhof, G., ….Sim, A. (2019). The end of the beginning: Evidence and absences studying positive youth development in a global context. Adolesecent Research Review, 4, 1, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-018-0093-4
Mitchell, P. (2011). Evidence-based practice in real-world services for young people with complex needs: New opportunities suggested by recent implementation science. Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 207–216.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2010.10.003
Munford, R. & Sanders, J. (2015). Understanding service engagement: Young people’s experience of service use. Journal of Social Work, 16, 3, 283–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/14680173155696
Neal, J. & Neal, Z. (2013). Nested or Networked? Future Directions for Ecological Systems Theory. Social Development, 22, 4, 722-737. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12018
Overton, W. F. (2013). A new paradigm for developmental science: Relationism and relational-developmental systems. Applied Developmental Science, 17(2), 94-107. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2013.778717
Roth, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., Murray, L., & Foster, W. (1998). Promoting healthy adolescents: Synthesis of youth development program evaluations. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8, 4, 423–459. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327795jra0804_2
Ruch, G., Turney, D., & Ward, A. (2010). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice. Jessica Kingsley, London.
Sanders, J., Munford, R., & Liebenberg, L. (2017). Positive youth development practices and better outcomes for high risk youth. Child Abuse and Neglect, 69, 201-212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.04.029

We thank the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for funding the research that created this resource (MAUX2006).

This resource was developed by Professor Jackie Sanders. It was refined with input from Donna MacNicol, Te Aroha Noa Community Services, Justina Webster, Dr Linda Liebenberg, Professor Robyn Munford, Dr Jayne Mercier, Davinia Abbott and the team at Dingwall Trust Launch Programme

Citation: Sanders, J. with MacNicol, D., Webster, J., Munford, R. Liebenberg, L., Mercier, J., Abbott, D. and the Dingwall Trust Launch Team (2023). Positive youth development. Relational Resources for Change, https://youthsay.co.nz/rbp-theories/positive-youth-development/

CC BY-NC-ND Licensed using Creative Commons Licensing. Relational Resources for Change Project. You are welcome to use this resource individually, in your teams and in supervision/coaching/critical reflection, you should acknowledge the source using the above citation. You may not change this document, use it to develop your own external training, or for commercial purposes (e.g by charging a fee).