Youth Development Insight

By Joshua Kukowski I had my first “pay it forward” experience at a coffee shop recently and I was confronted with a choice: should I continue the trend?   I had no scientific evidence that paying it forward to the next coffee drinker would be a good thing to do. I just knew.  I bought the next person a cup of coffee. Mentoring is like that. There are now 15 years' worth of research proving that mentoring helps young people succeed.  But mentors do it because they just know.

By Anne Stevenson “What’s the most powerful question you know?” Children ask hundreds of questions a day as soon as they can speak. But in grade school, questioning “drops off a cliff,” according to data from the  2009 U.S. Nations Report Card. Why does this innate skill fall away as we move through school and into careers? If curiosity and the ability to ask good questions are essential to innovation and problem solving, why aren't we putting more emphasis on fostering and utilizing this essential, innate ability? How would you answer this question? This week is Question Week 2015 , a week ( and a great site! ) dedicated to inspiring more of us to become good question-askers! Various thought leaders in business, media, and psychology respond to this question on a fascinating website I recently viewed. Journalist and author Warren Berger has zeroed in on the power of questioning in our lives. He has interviewed and studied hundreds of the world's leading innovators...

By Margo Herman The simplistic answer to the question is that a high-quality youth program provides an environment conducive to developing social and emotional skills. Yet simplistic does not reflect the depth of the question. Researchers are immersed in defining the compatibility and the distinction in these two key areas of youth work practice. And practitioners naturally want to know more about how we will measure these outcomes and if measures for both SEL and program quality will be compatible.