The 4 H Study of Positive Youth Development, which is beginning its final year of a six-year longitudinal study, is being conducted by Dr. Richard Lerner, Bergstrom chair of applied developmental science, Tufts University. Lerner and his team are researching the successes of our young people today, and what they have found out so far is featured in this week's issue of Newsweek magazine focused on Your Family & Your Health.

In February, the initial conclusions of this study were published in The Journal of Early Adolescence, and now these findings are being presented to the general public.

This study is a great chance to show how 4-H and other youth development organizations are helping young people across America, says Donald T. Floyd, Jr., president and CEO, National 4-H Council. I commend Dr. Lerner and his colleagues for working so hard to research and share this information with the world.

For more than a century, psychologists have based their research on what goes wrong during adolescence, but Lerner and many other researchers have recently decided to focus on the successes of young people. Dr. Lerner is using this study to determine what it takes for a young person to make a successful transition from childhood to adulthood.

"Parents, and sometimes kids themselves, often talk about positive development as the absence of bad," says Lerner. "What we're trying to do is present a different vision and a different vocabulary for young people and parents."

You can read the article at: http://www.4husablogs.org/news_stories/newsweek_1.htm. The story is also on www.4husa.org. There's a link at the bottom of the 4HUSA.org web page to e-mail the story, so spread the word about how great our young people are to everyone!


The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development is featured in this week's edition of Newsweek magazine.