Based on the research conducted by Search Institute, there are 40 positive things that every young person needs to lead healthy and successful lives. These assets include personal traits as well as support, empowerment, and bonding to community, school, and family. This framework encourages communities to come together and promote and foster assets in all youth. The more assets a child has, the less likely they are to become involved in problem behaviors such as teen pregnancy, school dropout, violence, and substance abuse. At a time when there is great concern for crime prevention and the need to keep our young people occupied, it is important that our approach is not reactive and limited to specific challenging populations but rather proactive and targeted to all youth. This way we are preventing problems and issues in the future, thus having a better chance for a thriving community. Evidence-based programs or programs using evidenced-based strategies have proven to be most effective in other parts of the world and have
been mentioned in both Cayman’s Criminality Report and the National Anti-Drug Strategy. It is then
prudent that our already scarce resources be geared to more evidence-based programs.
ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS MODEL
Search Institute’s Developmental Assets (or asset) model is based on a set of theoretical hypotheses and
empirical evidence that helping youth experience healthy developmental resources and opportunities,
and helping them to successfully achieve developmental tasks is one of the best ways to prevent negative behaviors and outcomes and to promote positive behaviors and outcomes. The asset model is based on a synthesis of multiple lines of inquiry aimed at identifying the “building blocks” of development that contribute to three types of healthy outcomes.
The prevention of high-risk behaviors (e.g., substance use, violence, early sexual intercourse, school
failure); The enhancement of thriving behaviors (e.g., school success); and resilience, or the capacity to
function adequately in the face of adversity.
ABOUT CIYDC LEADERSHIP & RESILIENCY PROGRAMME
The Cayman Islands Youth Development Consortium has charted an intentional course towards youth development work in the Cayman Islands. Instead of taking the deficit approach to dealing with adolescent problem behaviors, CIYDC has adopted asset-building/strength-based programming, which aims to enhance the positive development of the students targeted.
WHY SUPPORT CIYDC?
CIYDC is the only organization in the Cayman Islands that has created its program components utilizing the asset-building framework to enhance thriving behaviors in students and reduce their risky behaviors, e.g., youth violence, drug use, delinquency, etc.
