WHAT ARE DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS?

EXTERNAL ASSESTS

• Support - To be surrounded by people who love, care for, appreciate, and accept them.
  
• Empowerment - To feel valued and valuable. This happens when youth feel safe and respected.
  
• Boundaries & Expectations - Clear rules, consistent consequences for breaking rules, and encouragement to do their best.
  
• Constructive Use of Time - Opportunities - outside of school - to learn and develop new skills and interests with other youth and adults.
  

INTERNAL ASSESTS

• Commitment to Learning - A sense of lasting importance of learning and a belief in their own abilities.
  
• Positive Values - To develop strong guiding values or principles to help them make healthy life choices.
  
• Social Competencies - The skills to interact effectively with others, to make difficult decisions, and to cope with new situations.
  
• Positive Identity - To believe in their own self worth and to feel that they have control over the things that happen to them.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. I don’t have kids, and I don’t work with kids—can I build assets?
A. Yes! One of the most important messages of asset building is that everyone plays a role, not just families, youth workers, and teachers. The assets offer ways everyone can provide the positive relationships and experiences young people need. For some, it may be as simple as smiling and saying hello to young people encountered during daily activities. For others, it could mean developing a significant relationship with a young person. Even using the asset framework to assess candidates for public office can be a way of supporting asset building.

Q. Are resources on the assets available in any other language?
A. Yes. Search Institute has several resources in Spanish, including the list of 40 assets. This list is also available in French.When distributing the list, consider using English on one side and Spanish or French on the other, depending on the languages spoken in your area.

Q.Do younger children need the same assets as teenagers?
A. The Developmental Assets framework applies to all ages. The core of each asset is important to children of all ages but experienced, built, and defined differently at different stages of development. Search Institute has developed frameworks for early childhood (ages 3 to 5), middle childhood (ages 8 to 12), and adolescents (ages 12 to 18), and researchers continue to work on defining the assets for children of all ages.

Q. How important is it that I focus on each individual asset?
A. While each individual asset is critical to development, it’s more important (and easier!) to pay attention to the eight categories of assets and the broader concepts of external assets and internal assets.

Q. What’s the best way to develop an understanding of the assets?
A. . Share your ideas, questions, suggestions, stories, and frustrations with others. Talk about how the 40 assets work in your own experience, and how they connect to your own values and ideals.

Q. Once a young person has a particular asset, does he or she have it forever?
A. No. Assets can come and go, based on current relationships and experiences. They need to be built throughout a person’s life.

Q. Is it important for asset-building initiatives to find ways to exemplify the asset focus in our structure, meetings, and planning?
A. Yes! This is a great way to reinforce people’s understanding of the assets, and it can also lead to stronger teams and organizations. For example, some organizations use the eight categories of assets to look at how they work together, asking questions like: How can we support each other? What should be our boundaries and expectations for meetings? and so on.

Q. Are some assets more important than others?
A. Don’t pick and choose assets—the power of this framework lies in how they work together. Young people need as many of the assets as they can get. If you want to focus specific attention on one or two assets at a time, do so with the reminder that they are only part of the larger framework.

Q. Is it OK to focus on just the assets that seem most critical for our kids?
A. Yes. You can use the asset framework to help set priorities in your community. For example, some communities have looked at the framework and realized they haven’t done much to address issues of boundaries. Others have found that there are few opportunities for young people to be involved in constructive activities.

Q. A lot of activities are “asset building,” but few people have heard of the concept. How can we get other “asset builders” on board?
A. Celebrate, affirm, and honor the ways people already build assets (even if they don’t call it that). A good way to first get people excited is to have them go through the list and mark what they’re already doing. People and organizations that build assets can also be acknowledged and featured in your community newspaper or other public forum.

Q. Does having more assets just reduce risk-taking behaviors?
A. No. The assets also promote positive outcomes and positive behavior, such as academic success, leadership skills, and healthy lifestyle.

Q. Do we have to create a new program based on asset building?
A. No.You can use the asset framework to help evaluate and improve existing programs and opportunities for young people. For example: How can a focus on assets improve meetings? How can it enhance what’s happening in a 4-H group? How can it impact a community-wide celebration?

Q. Can a single action help to build more than one of the assets?
A. Certainly! For example, a caring relationship with an adult (asset 3) can lead to many of the other assets, including Community Values Youth (asset 7), Adult Role Models (asset 14), and Self-Esteem (asset 38).

PRINCIPLES OF ASSET BUILDING
On average, young people surveyed by Search Institute experience only about 19 of the 40 assets. Thus, a commitment to asset building should become a top priority for every individual, every organization, and every community. Search Institute has identified six principles that can help shape our asset-building efforts:

• All children and young people need assets.
  Research shows that all young people, regardless of gender, age, family composition, race, or ethnicity, can benefit from having more assets. While we must continue to pay special attention to children and young people who are in crisis and high-risk situations, the central challenge is to generate the kind of attention that will help all young people.
  
• Relationships are key.
  Building assets calls upon every single person to build both formal and informal relationships with young people that are positive and caring.
  
• Everyone can build assets.
  In an asset-building community, everyone works at developing caring relationships with young people.
  
• Building assets is an ongoing process.
  Asset building begins before birth or adoption, by equipping parents-tobe with skills and knowledge to care for a baby or child. And asset building continues throughout childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. Young people need their assets nurtured every day during every year of their childhood and adolescence.
  
• Asset building requires consistent messages.
  For asset building to be woven into the fabric of community life, it needs to be reinforced everywhere. That means in homes, schools, congregations, places of employment, clubs. Everywhere.
  
• Duplication and repetition are good and important.
  Young people need as many asset-building experiences as possible.

THE ASSET BUILDING DIFFERENCE
For healthy development to occur for all children and youth, we need to rebuild communities where people and organizations feel connected, engaged, responsible, and committed to young people. In order to do this, some essential shifts in thinking need to happen.