Search Institute

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We offer many resources that you can download, copy, and distribute for free. See the categories below to find the resources you’re looking for.

Developmental Assets®

See our Developmental Assets Tools page.

Communities

• Asset Builder’s Guide to Youth Leadership
• How to Hold a Youth Summit
• Asset Approach to Community Change
• Taking Asset Building Personally: A Guide for Planning and Facilitating Study Groups

• What’s Working?: Tools for Evaluating Your Mentoring Program
• Mentoring Tools (excerpted from Mentoring for Meaningful Results)
  • What is My Role as a Mentor?
  • My Mentor’s Role in my Life
  • Setting and Reaching Goals
  • Supporting Your Child’s Relationship with a Mentor

• Getting Started in Your Community
  • Principles for Asset-Building Communities
  • Five Action Strategies for Community Change
  • Getting Started in Your Own Community
  • The Dynamics of Complex Community Change

• Insights from the Building Strong Families research study
  • Social Support for Parents: An Important Resource for Families
  • Parents Expect a Lot from Themselves . . . and Little from Anyone Else
  • Attitudes toward Parents: Mixed Messages
  • Who Are Today’s Parents?
  • The Influence of Parents on Children’s Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors

• Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth

• Grant Template
  You can find more information on grants and grant writing on our Grant Writing Resources page.

For more community-related resources, visit the Search Institute Store.

Youth-Serving Organizations

• Asset-Building Ideas for Youth Workers
• Asset-Building Practices for Youth Workers

• Tools for Mentoring Adolescents (Developed in cooperation with the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota.)
• Service-Learning and Asset Building
• Service-Learning in Community-Based Organizations
• Peer Helping and Asset Building
• Creative Activities and Asset Building
• Sports and Asset Building
• Camping and Asset Building

For more youth-service-related resources, visit the Search Institute Store.

Faith Communities

• What is Spiritual Development?
• An Introduction to Asset Building in Congregations
• Should Participation in a Faith Community Be a Developmental Asset?
• Asset Building Toolkit for Congregations

You can also find many more resources on our Asset-Building Tips and Tools for Faith Communities page.

For more information on Search Institute’s research and action on spiritual development, visit the Center for Spiritual Development.

For more spiritual development-related resources, visit the Search Institute Store.

Parents and Families

• Raising Kids Who Read
• Pass the Torch Facebook Contract (Adapted with permission from Pass the Torch.)

For more parenting and family resources, visit our parenting website, ParentFurther.com, where you can find out about the issues that matter to you most, or sign-up to receive the popular Everyday Parenting Ideas e-newsletter.

For more parenting- and family-related resources, visit the Search Institute Store.

Evaluation

• First Steps in Evaluation

For more evaluation- and research-related resources, visit the Search Institute Store.