Deficits or Strengths? Re-conceptualising Youth Development Program Practice

Abstract

This thesis is about the Queensland Youth Development Research Project (YDRP), a program of research I designed to respond to the absence of research on community youth development programs in Australia. The neglect in scholarly, policy and practitioner literatures of volunteer youth workers and community youth development programs has resulted in limited recognition of program diversity, the nature and impact of community-based programs, and the differences between strength-based and deficit-based approaches. Addressing this lacuna in the literature is important given the large number of young people from diverse social backgrounds who participate in organisations such as Surf Life Saving and Girl Guides. I address two research questions: (1) What are the core characteristics of youth development programs? (2) What are the characteristics of young people who participate in Queensland community youth development programs? I explore these questions through two separate, but linked studies. In the first I use a participatory action research model to examine how strength-based youth development approaches can be conceptualised in a program environment. In the second I use questionnaires (n=440) and interviews (n=37) to explore young member socio-demographic, involvement and developmental characteristics and their program engagement and practice experiences.