Arrested development to agents of change: Understanding the relationship between youth worker conceptual frames of African-American and Latino adolescents and program strategies in youth development and youth organizing programs

Empirical support continues to mount regarding the valuable roles that community programs have played for adolescents. These programs have demonstrated success in minimizing the impact of exposure to health risk factors, promoting positive youth development, and enabling young people to contribute to the communities in which they live. The current study sought to understand the extent to which youth worker stereotyping and attributions (i.e., conceptual framing) about adolescents may inform program strategies.; Qualitative (semi-structured interviews and observations) and quantitative (descriptive questionnaires) methods were used. Results found that youth workers generally grouped youth in two categories: (a) resilient youth and (b) social change agents. To the former, workers said: You can do better than current conditions, to the latter, workers said: You can change current conditions. In general adolescents were viewed in a positive light despite perceived negative media characterizations. They were not scapegoated (by age), infantilized (by role), or demonized (by ethnicity). Youth workers generally attributed unrealized adolescent well-being to external causes such as minimal adult supports, unsafe and judgmental spaces, and limited opportunities for (a) positive youth development (naturally occurring trajectory) and (b) voice and agency toward helping shape their own health and well-being (self-influenced trajectory). Youth workers took on the role of ensuring the provision of absent supports and opportunities for participating adolescents. They sought to re-frame how adolescents were viewed, discussed, and engaged. Issues of gender and ethnicity issues were also prominent for programs, but inconsistent in their programmatic application.; This study's findings have implications for research and practice about the relationship between positive youth development strategies and the integrity of young people's developmental ecology. Findings substantiated other youth development, resiliency, and youth participation models. Value emerged for measuring conceptual frames with the constructs of stereotyping, attributions, and roles (SAR).; Current relational models of development that integrate person and context appear increasingly relevant. Further interdisciplinary inquiry into the optimal goodness of fit between adolescents and their developmental ecology can reinforce links between human development and dimensions of public health.