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Reports and Publications :: The World According to Our Kids
Background
What is the Partnership?
The Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families is an advisory group made up of 16 citizens and eight senior
School and County staff who work with youth. The Partnership makes recommendations to the County and School Boards on how to improve
the health, well-being and safety of children, youth, and families in the community.
As part of its mandate, the Partnership is responsible for reviewing and disseminating data on the status of county youth.
The surveys give County decision makers a source of reliable, comprehensive information on the needs, characteristics, and behaviors of
young people. The Partnership expects to repeat the surveys on a recurring basis.
The Assets Framework: Identifying the Building Blocks Children
Need to Grow into Healthy Adults
Much of the Partnerships work has been guided by a philosophical foundation known as the Assets Framework. This framework emerged
from research by Search Institute (Search) that attempts to identify the building blocks that all children need to become healthy,
productive, and caring adults. The Assets Framework gives Arlington a common language for understanding what makes a family-friendly
community and how to support young people so they grow in positive ways.
Search has identified two broad types of developmental assets:
- External assets are the expectations and opportunities provided by families, individuals, and organizations within
the community. Examples are caring neighborhood, family support, and school boundaries.
(The Appendix contains detailed definitions of the 40 developmental assets)
- Internal assets are personal qualities, skills and values that youth need to become independent, competent, purposeful and caring
adults. include achievement motivation, honesty, and cultural competence.
Both types of assets were chosen because research convincingly demonstrates that they help all youth develop positively. Both types of assets help
promote positive outcomes, cushion the impact of negative influences on our childrens lives, and allow our youth to thrive, rather than merely
survive. The lack of assets, in contrast, is associated with behaviors that jeopardize the health, safety, or development of our youth.
The Assets Framework does not cover every community resource or problem. In its research, Search focuses on the relationships, social
experiences, and behavioral norms that shape our youths development. Communities must also consider and shape the effect of economic conditions,
human services availability, and social forces such as racism on our youths passage to adulthood.
But the Assets Framework gives communities a place to begin that acknowledges the clear and important role played by parents, teachers,
neighbors, coaches, religious leaders, and other caring individuals who come into daily contact with our younger citizens.
Collecting the Data: Surveying County Students
The Partnership administered the two questionnaires in June of 2001 to a random sample of about 3400 students in grades six, eight,
ten and twelve. The sample included students from all public middle and high schools in Arlington County. The sample was split between
the surveys:
- The Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors Survey
Search Institute designed this questionnaire specifically to determine the level of developmental assets in a community. The 156
questions ask about the 40 different assets and five deficits that interfere with healthy development. see how assets and deficits are
affecting youth, other questions ask about thriving behaviors (such as school success and delaying gratification) and risk behaviors
(such as drinking alcohol and getting into fights.)
- The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)
YRBS, which was developed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), provides more detailed information on health-related behaviors, including risk
behaviors, exercise and nutrition, and safety.
The CDC asks questions related to the major causes of death among teenagers and adults. For example, among teenagers, the leading cause of death
is motor vehicle crashes and so the survey asks youth how often they wear safety belts.
The Partnership took a number of steps to ensure that the results of the survey would be reliable and valid.
- We consulted with cultural experts and hired translators to ensure that each eligible student understood the survey.
- We conducted an information session for all teachers administering the survey and gave them a detailed script to ensure that
uniform procedures were followed in the classrooms.
- We had on-site representatives from the Partnership at each school to assist with problems and to ensure that confidentiality
was maintained at all times.
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