Creating Caring Compassionate Youth: How Youth Development Programs Foster Prosocial Development
摘要
Navigating the ever-changing, dynamic, and complex world we live in requires youth to have strong prosocial skills. Prosocial skills are the social and emotional skills needed to have positive relationships with others and to be part of creating caring, compassionate communities. Importantly, prosocial skills are related to social, emotional, and academic outcomes for children, youth, and adults as well as for life satisfaction and well-being. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many youth missed opportunities to develop and practice prosocial skills outside of their families, which may contribute to heightened levels of sadness and anxiety. Youth development programs have the potential to be the caring community youth need to develop and practice their prosocial skills and for these skills to flourish. Intentionally embedding prosocial skills in youth programs can lay the foundation for youth to become active participants in co-creating a caring community—for themselves and for one another. In this chapter, we share research on prosocial skills as well as vignettes and practical strategies for intentionally embedding prosocial development into youth-serving programs.