40 Developmental Assets
Building A Foundation for Youth Development
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What Is Asset Building?
Asset building is a positive approach to working with children and youth that focuses on cultivating the relationships, opportunities, skills, values, and commitments they need to grow up healthy, caring, and responsible. It is based on Search Institute’s research-based framework of 40 Developmental Assets.
Benefits of Asset Building
- The more assets young people experience, the better. Youth with high asset levels are the likely they are to engage in high-risk behaviors and are more likely they are to engage in thriving behaviors. For example, youth with high asset levels (31–40) are 15 times less likely to use alcohol than those with 0–10 assets. Learn more about the relationship between assets and youth outcomes.
- Assets matter for all groups of youth. These kinds of relationships hold true across all groups of youth studied, including those from many racial-ethnic backgrounds, communities of all sizes, and different socioeconomic backgrounds.
- Asset building offers common ground and a shared vision for what young people need to succeed. The framework is used by people from all sectors of society, across the ideological spectrum, and from a wide range of religious traditions, including people who are not religious.
- Being intentional about building assets in interfaith service-learning activities ensures that the effortscontribute to young people’s social, emotional, and spiritual growth.
- The research base that grounds the framework of Developmental Assets is useful for intentional program design and evaluation, and for speaking with potential funders.
- Though the assets were developed based in social science research, people from many different religious traditions find that the framework resonates with their own beliefs, values, and priorities.
What Makes Asset Building Work?
- The focus is on strengths, not problems or deficits. Asset building recognizes that young people are resources to their communities, not problems to be fixed or pushed aside.
- Young people are recognized as resources for asset building, and their involvement as leaders is vital.
- Everyone can build assets, not just professionals. Asset builders can include young people, parents, extended family members, youth workers, neighbors, and teachers.
- Cultivating meaningful, sustained relationships is a major focus. Assets are built through enduring relationships across generations, within families, among peers, and throughout community and society.