Youth Development and Resilience

Opportunities, relationships, and experiences during adolescence critically shape youths’ trajectories through adulthood. This initiative focuses on how contextual experiences (e.g., families, schools, peers, and communities), normative developmental and psychobiological mechanisms, and the interaction between these two domains promote health, well-being, and resilience among adolescents and young adults. Initiative pursuits span from basic research that seeks to deepen and expand theoretical and guiding principles of adolescent and young adult development to applied science that seeks to enhance thriving and maximize positive development for all young people, particularly those who are members of oppressed groups.

 

Goals and activities:

  • Strengthen the intellectual environment: Develop and sustain an integrated group of activities that engage faculty and trainees, including an informal “brown-bag” seminar series (at least one invited speaker per year), ongoing graduate course, and hosting a national / international conference.
  • Establish a collaborative research committee that internally reviews grants to improve our grant success rate and provide insight into one another’s work. Faculty and senior graduate students could participate in such a committee.
  • Develop collaborative projects: Initiate externally funded research, outreach and training grants that support faculty and trainee professional development and highlight program expertise.
  • Seek funding and create a research infrastructure for proposed Center on Adolescent Health and Development: Seek funding; Dedicate physical space for operations and collaborative work; earmark research funds for pilot and trainee research projects; develop a long-term staffing plan that includes: administrative, business, and IT / web support; graduate and post-doctoral fellowships; outreach / research translation position; and research faculty positions.

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Resources needed:

  • Base funding from McClelland Institute to support initiative brown bag seminar series and collaborative research committee (funds to convene research meetings)
  • To be raised:
  • Resources for national / international conference
  • Resources for original individual or collaborative research in the initiative
  • Resources for research infrastructure for proposed Center

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Intended Inputs:       

  • Develop a graduate training grant (NIH or NSF): development of a conceptual outline, training plan, and identification of key UA faculty
  • Preparation of individual, collaborative research grants, and of training and conference grants

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Intended Outcomes:

  • Funded research projects
  • Funded training program
  • Contributions to field through research publications and other recognitions
  • Contribution to public understanding of adolescent health and development

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Resources Links for Youth Development and Resilience