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Research FACTs and Findings

• The Cutting Edge: Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Adolescence
  Janis Whitlock
  Friday, December 18, 2009
  This article offers a brief overview of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and provides starting points for proactively addressing and responding to NSSI among adolescents. It is adapted from the presentation by the same name, available on the ACT for Youth website or at: http://breeze.cce.cornell.edu/cuttingedge/
• A New Vision for Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
  John S. Santelli and Amy T. Schalet
  Monday, November 9, 2009
  Why are teen women in the U.S. eight times more likely to give birth than are teens in the Netherlands? In this edition of Research fACTs and Findings, John Santelli and Amy Schalet review historical and cultural contexts—particularly adult attitudes toward adolescent sexuality—to point us toward healthier outcomes in the United States.
• Mental Illness and Mental Health in Adolescence
  Janis Whitlock and Karen Schantz
  Thursday, December 18, 2008
  "Mental Illness and Mental Health in Adolescence" provides a very brief introduction to mental health with a focus on definition, assessment, and mental health disorders, then offers perspective on the role youth development approaches may play in promoting positive mental health and protecting against mental health disorders.
• Growing Up Transgender: Safety and Resilience
  Seth T. Pardo and Karen Schantz
  Wednesday, September 24, 2008
  Too often, transgender youth are left to face obstacles without the supports that foster both safety and healthy development. Adults may be unsure of how to respond to gender nonconformity, and how to help trans youth participate in society authentically and safely. This article provides an introduction to the pressures trans youth face each day, and suggests ways to create environments that encourage resilience for trans youth.
• Growing Up Transgender: Research and Theory
  Tamara Pardo
  Tuesday, March 18, 2008
  As more youth come out as transgender, those who work with and love trans youth try to understand what it all means. With little to guide us, many of us may fall back on outdated theories or confuse transgender and gay identities. Authored by Tamara Pardo, this issue of Research fACTs and Findings introduces current research and theory on transgender identity formation. (See also these links on transgender issues: http://www.actforyouth.net/default.asp?ID=transgenderResources)
• Service-Learning: An Overview
  ACT for Youth Center of Excellence
  Thursday, January 17, 2008
  Sharing many principles and goals, service-learning and positive youth development are especially well-suited to each other. Service-learning offers a powerful programmatic tool to schools and communities that are committed to the positive youth development framework. This article provides an overview of service-learning, including a summary of benefits to youth that effective programs may provide, and principles to guide the design of service-learning programs.
• Adolescents and Risk: Helping Young People Make Better Choices
  Eric Wargo
  Friday, September 28, 2007
  For decades, adolescents have been bombarded by facts about the risks they face. Yet efforts to scare young decision makers into safe behavior have met with limited success. To reduce adolescent risk taking, a different approach is needed: one that recognizes how adolescents reason. Drawing on the research of Valerie Reyna and colleagues, this article explores how adolescents consider risk, offering suggestions for new intervention strategies.
• Adolescent Romantic Relationships
  Sarah Sorensen
  Tuesday, July 10, 2007
  Adolescent romantic relationships can have long lasting effects on self-esteem and shape personal values regarding romance, intimate relationships, and sexuality. This article discusses the importance of romantic relationships to youth and youth development, including the benefits of healthy relationships, the risks romantic relationships may pose to adolescents, and the need for adults to support young people in developing healthy relationships.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Eating Disorders and Adolescents
  Dr. Richard Kreipe
  Friday, November 3, 2006
  An Internet search of “eating disorders” yields 15,000,000 websites and almost 20,000 images. As is often true, when there is a large amount of easily accessed information there is also a large amount of mis-information. The purpose of this article is to inform readers about the facts and recent and emerging research findings about eating disorders.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Adolescents and the Internet
  Nathalie Louge
  Wednesday, October 4, 2006
  Computer use among adolescents has skyrocketed. More than 80% of American youth use the Internet, and nearly half log on daily. In this new, often intimate social environment, adolescents may explore identity formation, sexuality, and self-worth in a virtual world. This fact sheet explores the benefits and risks of Internet use for youth, and offers strategies for safe navigation of the Internet.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Teen Dating Violence
  by Jane Powers and Erica Kerman
  Thursday, February 2, 2006
  Over the last several decades, dating violence has emerged as a significant public health issue. However, until recently most dating violence research has focused on adult couples or college students, not on adolescents. Evidence suggests that dating violence among high school students is more widespread than previously believed, and may have serious developmental consequences. This article summarizes research on the scope of the problem, the role of gender, risk factors for victimization and perpetration, and prevention strategies.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Mentoring
  By Mary Agnes Hamilton and Stephen F. Hamilton
  Wednesday, August 24, 2005
  Mentoring has become a visible and popular strategy for supporting the development of disadvantaged youth (Walker, 2000). Adults who can identify a mentor in their own lives need no convincing that a mentor can be important, even life-changing. This FACT sheet: 1) summarizes current research on mentoring, 2) provides ideas on how to increase mentoring opportunities and 3) identifies web based tools for mentor training.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Promoting Youth Development in Workplaces
  Stephen F. Hamilton and Mary Agnes Hamilton
  Wednesday, March 23, 2005
  Working is part of life for most youth, not just something they are preparing to undertake as adults. The “transition from school to work” is not a onetime step. Rather, school and work are likely to be combined in various proportions over a decade or more. The growing need for lifelong learning means that managing this combination is an important skill. Adults must recognize the place of work in young people’s lives and help them make good decisions about work.
• Research FACTs and Findings: The Changing Face of NYS- Immigrant Youth in Every Community
  Maud Easter and Dina Refki
  Friday, November 12, 2004
  The 2000 Census shows that immigrants have settled upstate and downstate, in rural, suburban and urban New York communities. Understanding the rapidly growing and geographically expanding population of immigrant families all across the state is critical to designing effective youth development programs, with the cultural and linguistic proficiencies needed to help immigrant adolescents thrive. This fACT sheet provides detailed statistics on NYS immigrant youth and their families.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Understanding Youth Development Principles and Practices
  Janis Whitlock, Ph.D
  Tuesday, September 28, 2004
  YD stresses the role of communities in creating what has become widely known as “SOS”: Services, Opportunities, and Supports (Pittman, et al 2001). However, although SOS has become common place in YD, it is not always clear what “services, supports, and opportunities” look like or how they differ from what most communities already have in place. This fACT sheet is designed to review key features of the YD framework in hopes of fostering a clearly defined youth development language.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Self Injury
  Amanda Purington amd Janis Whitlock
  Monday, August 30, 2004
  The Youth Development framework focuses primarily on understanding how to help young people thrive. To do this, however, it is important to also understand young people’s expressions of discomfort and malady. Although not a new phenomenon, “self-injury” is a practice that hampers efforts to promote thriving and which may reflect toxic conditions in the social environments youth inhabit. Self-injury is the most common label for behaviors in which a person deliberately harms him or her body. Precisely what constitutes self-injury is a matter of some debate, but it is most commonly associated with intentional carving or cutting of the skin and sub-dermal tissue, scratching, burning, ripping or pulling skin or hair, bruising, or breaking bones. Some researchers include excessive piercing and tattooing. Recent films such as Thirteen and Girl, Interrupted along with disclosures of self-injurious behavior by well known people such as Johnny Depp and Princess Diana have begun to draw attention to this difficult to understand behavior. Since there are signs that self-injury is becoming increasingly prevalent, it is important to understand both the practice of self-injury and the conditions that contribute to the seemingly increasing popularity of the behavior in the general youth population. This fACT sheet is designed to briefly summarize what is known. Go to the Cornell Research Program on Self Injurious Behavior in Adolescents and Adults: http://www.crpsib.com/default.asp for more information.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Adolescent Development
  Sedra Spano
  Friday, May 14, 2004
  Adolescence is a time of great change for young people. It is a time when physical changes are happening at an accelerated rate. But adolescence is not just marked by physical changes—young people are also experiencing cognitive, social/emotional and interpersonal changes as well. This fACt sheet summarizes the physical and psycho-social markers of healthy adolescent development.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Bullying
  Jane Powers and Amanda Cohen
  Thursday, April 1, 2004
  Awareness of the negative effects and long-term consequences of bullying on school-aged youth has grown substantially in the past few years. Contrary to common belief, bullying is not a ‘natural’ part of growing up or a relatively harmless behavior that helps build character. Research has shown that bullying can have long-lasting harmful effects for both the victim and the bully. In response, prevention and intervention programs designed to reduce bullying have proliferated, many of which have proven to be quite successful. This fACT sheet will discuss this pertinent topic.
• Research FACTs and Findings: School Connectedness
  Janis Whitlock
  Friday, November 14, 2003
  School connectedness refers to the extent to which youth perceive positive support or caring from individual adults in their school setting. Overall, school connectedness revolves around the idea that when young people consistently receive empathy, attention, and praise at school they feel a sense of belonging and support that is the springboard for healthy growth and development. Connectedness to school has been shown to protect against violence, risky sexual behavior, drug use, and dropping out of school. Moreover, youth at school who feel good, perceive meaningful attachment to adults, and possess a sense of belonging are also more likely to feel engaged, to work harder, and to be involved with positive activities in and outside of school time.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Childhood Obesity
  Sedra Spano
  Friday, August 1, 2003
  Over the past few years, much has been written about childhood and adolescent obesity. A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 15% of 6-19 year olds (almost 9,000,000) in the U.S. are overweight, and that rates of childhood obesity have been steadily increasing since the 1970’s (Ogden, et. al., 2002). This increase in obesity has raised concerns regarding both the physical and psychological health of our nation’s youth.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Self Esteem
  Loren Frankel
  Tuesday, July 1, 2003
  Is adolescence a time of decreased self-esteem? Many teens, their teachers, their parents, and others think so, and many adults recall adolescence as a time of increasingly heightened self-scrutiny and greatly fluctuating self-esteem. But the answer is not entirely clear, as self-esteem is a subjective state, and therefore very hard to measure.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Best Practices
  Sedra Spano
  Thursday, May 8, 2003
  While it is true that research in the field of Youth Development has lagged behind practice, a lot of good information is now available. In 2002, the National Research Council published Community Programs to Promote Youth Development, a comprehensive review of available data on community interventions and programs that promote adolescent health and development.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Social Capital
  Janis Whitlock, Ph.D
  Friday, April 4, 2003
  The term "social capital" suggests an analogy between the financial "investments" made by individuals and corporations and the "investments" people make in social relationships.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Risky Sexual Behavior
  Loren Frankel
  Saturday, March 1, 2003
  The clearest risks of adolescents' sexual behavior are pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The surest way to avoid the risks of sexual behavior is not to engage in it. Short of abstinence, condoms and other forms of protection can reduce the risks.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Identity Formation in Adolescence
  Loren Frankel
  Monday, November 25, 2002
  The question, "Who am I?" is especially pertinent during adolescence. The combination of physical, cognitive, and social changes that occur during that time, plus the serious life choices to be faced (occupation, life partner) spur what Erik Erikson (1968) famously called an identity crisis.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Adolescent Delinquency
  Lyscha Ann Marcynyszyn
  Tuesday, September 24, 2002
  Adolescents are commonly viewed as both a source of hope -- "the leaders of tomorrow" -- and a threat. One survey conducted in the late 1990s showed that nearly 75% of Americans believe that youth with poor education, limited opportunities for employment, and problematic values pose a greater threat to the nation than any threat from abroad (Princeton Survey Research Associates cited in Farkas & Johnson, 1997).
• Research Facts and Findings: Adolescent Brain Development
  Sedra Spano
  Wednesday, May 1, 2002
  Research now supports what parents have long suspected—that the teenager’s brain is different than the adult brain. Recent research by scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has found that the teen brain is not a finished product, but is a work in progress.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Parent Child Relations
  Loren Frankel and Steve Hamilton
  Friday, March 1, 2002
  Parent-child conflict increases as children move into adolescence. Although this trend is not inevitable, it is common and can be quite distressing for parents and adolescents.
• Research FACTs and Findings: Risk, Protection, and Resilience
  An ACT for Youth Upstate Center of Excellence Publication with special thanks to Sedra Spano
  Friday, September 28, 2001
  Why is it that some youth are able to survive difficult upbringings that place them at-risk and become productive, responsible adults, while others cannot?