Search Institute

In an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, parents of students in kindergarten, first, and second grades have the opportunity to get involved with their children’s education through a unique program. Known as Bake and Take, the program shows parents how they can support their children using the Developmental Assets, and allows them to help them engage in their children’s school, bake something together, and share a lunch.MORE

Engaging Parents as Asset Building Champions
Engaging parents has long been a part of Project Cornerstone’s asset-building efforts in Santa Clara County, California. The project began in late 2001 with a twelve-parent study group reading Taking Asset Building Personally. The following fall, four parents from the group were trained to become facilitators and went on to lead several more parent groups, bringing the total number of parents involved to over 300.MORE

For the past four years, Hoang-Anh Nguyen has been one of 1,100 elementary school parent volunteers for Project Cornerstone’s ABC Program. She helps with the program every month by reading asset-building children’s books in classrooms, holding reflective discussions, and doing activities to empower students to deal with bully behavior they may face at school, in their neighborhood, or even in their home.

Last summer, during a visit to her homeland of Vietnam, Anh told her niece about the ABC Program and how much she enjoys volunteering because she sees the impact and influence it has on the children. Anh’s niece shared with her that bullying also goes on in the rural village school where she teaches, and asked how she could bring the ABC Program to the 330 students at her school.MORE

High school students in Luce, Chippewa, and Mackinac Counties want to help local young people make better decisions about alcohol, drugs and sex, and they are looking to adults around them to for help in gaining an understanding of what life is about as well as their place in the community.

Thirty-three young people gathered for the inaugural Eastern Upper Peninsula Youth Asset Summit at Lake Superior State University on September 24. During the summit, students reviewed the results of the “Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors” survey taken by 1,135 8th, 10th and 12th graders in Chippewa and Mackinac Counties in 2007 and by 271 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th graders in Luce County in 2006.

The survey measures the 40 Developmental Assets® identified by Search Institute® as strengths that all youth need for successful development.MORE

Staff and youth volunteers from the Great Lakes Center for Youth Development are visiting local organizations with a presentation titled “Youth Priorities 08-09: What Youth In Marquette and Alger Counties Want You to Know about Their Healthy Development.”MORE

Family and Children’s Service, a nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has developed The Family Project Model, which focuses on using a strength-based approach to build parent capacity.MORE

Team Kids is built upon a close partnership with police and fire departments to inspire and empower students as active leaders in their community.MORE

Getting youth involved in volunteer service is one of the best ways to promote healthy development, so the YMCA Center for Asset Development teaches others about best practices in service-learning.MORE

In Juneau, Alaska, preschoolers in the Salmon Creek Head Start program have an invaluable opportunity to be immersed in an intergenerational learning environment. Located in the Juneau Pioneers’ Home, Salmon Creek Head Start is one of fifteen programs across southeastern Alaska that is part of the Tlingit and Haida Head Start. Each program is unique—some are set in schools, some in churches, but Salmon Creek is the only program set in a Pioneers’ HomeMORE

Following the publication of Helping Kids Succeed — Alaskan Style, the Association of Alaska School Boards—Alaska Initiative for Community Engagement (Alaska ICE) wanted to promote the message of Developmental Assets to early childhood educators. In a similar manner to what was done for the first book, staff went out into communities and asked people how they thought families, caregivers, faith communities, and the community at large could build Developmental Assets for young children.MORE