U. S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation Fund (I3), with matching support from Cargill Foundation, Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation, Minneapolis Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation, Rural School and Community Trust, and Target Corporation.

This project is systematically studying the efficacy of Building Assets Reducing Risks, a comprehensive program to reduce academic failure during students’ first year of high school. The federally funded development project involves expanding the program in the high school where it was developed (St. Louis Park, Minnesota) and replicating it in three additional high schools: Bucksport District, Maine; Sanford School Department, Maine; and Hemet Unified School District in Hemet, California. Independent evaluators are examining the impact of the Building Assets Reducing Risks program on student achievement.

Save the Children Canada

This partnership uses the Developmental Assets Profile and other measures to examine how experiential and non-formal learning opportunities contribute to improving the socio-economic status of vulnerable, rural youth in five African countries: Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda. Search Institute is a partner in the monitoring, evaluation, and learning strategies, including conducting a longitudinal study that will link developmental assets and young people’s workforce and livelihood opportunities and readiness.

World Vision International

This collaboration seeks to integrate a holistic, asset-based approach to child development into World Vision’s work with vulnerable children, youth, and families around the world. A core strategy is to culturally adapt and translate the Developmental Assets Profile as a primary measure of subjective child well-being that can be consistently used across nations and program areas.

The Salvation Army

Search Institute provides training, technical assistance, and evaluation support to the Salvation Army’s strategies to integrate youth development principles and practices into its network of Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers across the United States.

Capital One

Bank It is a collaboration between Capital One and Search Institute to offer real-world financial education that help children, teens, and parents to understand, talk about, and manage money so they can live out their priorities and values in everyday life. It integrates financial literacy and capability with a focus on building the developmental assets that contribute to responsible money management. The website includes information for parents and teens as well as numerous ready-to-use workshops for youth and parents. Visit Bank It to access and use this free resource.

2008

Promoting Positive Development in Early Childhood: Building Blocks for a Successful Start, Karen VanderVen.

2006

All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must Do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents, Peter L. Benson

2004

Developmental Assets: A Synthesis of the Scientific Research on Adolescent Development (2nd ed.), Peter C. Scales and Nancy Leffert

2003

Coming into Their Own: How Developmental Assets Promote Positive Growth in Middle Childhood, Peter C. Scales, Arturo Sesma Jr, and Brent Bolstrom

Developmental Assets and Asset-Building Communities: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice, Richard M. Lerner and Peter L. Benson (Editors).

2012

Do Developmental Assets Make a Difference In Majority-World Contexts? Peter C. Scales, Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, and Kathie Fraher

2011

A Fragile Foundation: The State of Developmental Assets among American Youth (2nd Ed.), Peter L. Benson, Peter C. Scales, Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, and Nancy Leffert

2006

Keeping America’s Promises to Children and Youth: A Search Institute-Child Trends Report on the Results of the America’s Promise National Telephone Polls of Children, Teenagers, and Parents, Peter C. Scales, Peter L. Benson, Karen Bartig, Katherine Streit, Kristin A. Moore, Laura Lippman, Brett Brown, & Christina Theokas

2003

Signs of Progress in Putting Children First, by Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, Peter L. Benson, and Arturo Sesma Jr.

1990

The Troubled Journey: A Portrait of 6th- to 12th-Grade Youth, Peter L. Benson

2007

Developmental Assets: A Framework for Enriching Service-Learning, Eugene C. Roehlkepartain and Peter C. Scales

2003

Unique Strengths, Shared Strengths: Developmental Assets among Youth of Color, Arturo Sesma Jr. and Eugene C. Roehlkepartain

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Boosting Student Achievement: New Research on the Power of Developmental Assets, Peter C. Scales and Eugene C. Roehlkepartain

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Benson, P. L. (2007). Developmental Assets: An overview of theory, research, and practice. In R. K. Silbereisen & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Approaches to positive youth development (p. 33-58). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Benson, P. L. (2003). Developmental assets and asset-building community: Conceptual and empirical foundations. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson, Developmental assets and asset-building communities: Implications for research, policy, and practice (pp. 19–43). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

Benson, P. L. (2001). Developmental assets. In J. V. Lerner & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Adolescence in America: An encyclopedia (pp. 208-217). Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.

Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., Scales, P. C., & Blyth, D. A. (1998). Beyond the 'village' rhetoric: Creating healthy communities for children and adolescents. Applied Developmental Science 2(3), 138–159.

Benson, P. L., Mannes, M., Pittman, K., & Ferber, T. (2004). Youth development, developmental assets, and public policy. In R.M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (2nd ed., pp.781-814). New York: John Wiley.

Benson, P. L., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2011). When ‘good enough’ isn’t really good enough: Aiming for the ‘best’ for all young people. In T. P. Jackson (Ed.). The best love of the child: Being loved and being taught to love as the first human right (pp. 19 – 46). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Benson, P. L., & Scales, P. C. (2011). Developmental assets. In R. J. R. Levesque (Ed.), Encyclopedia of adolescence (pp. 667–683). New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2

Benson, P. L., & Scales, P. C. (2009). Positive youth development and the prevention of youth aggression and violence. European Journal of Developmental Science, 3, 218–234.

Benson, P. L., & Scales, P. C. (2005). Developmental assets. In C. B. Fisher & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Encyclopedia of applied developmental science (pp. 340-343). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Hamilton, S. F., & Sesma, A. Jr. (2006). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and application. In W. W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed.), volume 1, Theoretical models of human development (894–941). New York: John Wiley.

Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., & Syvertsen, A. K. (2011). The contribution of the developmental assets framework to positive youth development theory and practice. In R. M. Lerner, J. V. Lerner, & J. B. Benson (Eds.). Advances in child development and behavior, vol. 41 (pp. 197-230). Burlington: Academic Press.

French, S. A., Leffert, N., Story, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., Hannan, P., & Benson, P.L. (2001). Adolescent binge/purge and weight loss behaviors: Associations with developmental assets. Journal of Adolescent Health, 28, 211-221.

Leffert, N., Benson, P. L, Scales, P. C., Sharma, A., Drake, D., & Blyth, D. A. (1998). Developmental assets: Measurement and prediction of risk behaviors among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 2(4), 209–230.

Mannes, M., Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Sesma, A., & Rauhouse, J. (2010). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and application to sexual violence prevention. In K. L. Kaufman, Ed., The prevention of sexual violence: A practitioner's sourcebook (pp. 85-106). Holyoke, MA: NEARI Press.

Scales, P. C. (1999). Reducing risks and building developmental assets: Essential actions for promoting adolescent health. Journal of School Health, 69(3), 113–119.

Scales, P. C. (2000). Building students' developmental assets to promote health and school success. The Clearinghouse: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues, and Ideas, 74(2), 84–88.

Scales, P. C. (2011). Youth developmental assets in global perspective: Results from international adaptations of the Developmental Assets Profile. Child Indicators Research, 4, 619–645. doi:10.1007/s12187-011-9112-8

Scales, P. C. (in press). Developmental assets and the promotion of well-being in middle childhood. In A. Ben-Arieh, F. Casas, I. Frones, & J. E. Korbin, (Eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being. Theories, Methods and Policies in Global Perspective. Dorcrecht: Springer.

Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Dershem, L., Fraher, K., Makkonen, R., Nazneen, S., Syvertsen, A. K., & Titus, S. (2013). Building developmental assets to empower adolescent girls in rural Bangladesh: Evaluation of Project 'Kishoree Kontha. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 23(1), 171–184. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2012.00805.x

Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science 4(1),27–46.

Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Moore, K. A., Lippman, L., Brown, B., & Zaff, J. F. (2008). Promoting equal developmental opportunity and outcomes among America's children and youth: Results from the National Promises Study. Journal of Primary Prevention, 29 (2), 121–144.

Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Roehlkepartain, E. C., Sesma, A., & van Dulmen, M. (2006). The role of developmental assets in predicting academic achievement: A longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescence 29, 691–708.

Sesma, A., Jr., Mannes, M., & Scales, P. C. (2006). Positive adaptation, resilience, and the Developmental Asset framework. In S. Goldstein & R. B. Brooks (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children (pp. 281–296). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

Wilson, D. S., O’Brien, D. T., & Sesma, A. (2009). Human prosociality from an evolutionary perspective: variation and correlations at a city-wide scale. Evolution and Human Behavior 30, 190–200.