Expert to Tell How Communities and Families Together Can Build Strong Youth
Published: Nov. 14, 2005
URBANA - "It takes a village," says Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "It takes a family," counters Republican Senator Rick Santorum. On Thursday, December 1, Peter L. Benson, president of Minneapolis's Search Institute, will visit the University of Illinois and make the case that family and community are both vital components in producing successful youth.
"Growing Strong and Successful Youth: Families and Communities Working Together," this fall's Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency Program lecture, will take place on Thursday, December 1, at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the U of I's Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, 405 North Mathews Avenue, Urbana.
Under Benson's leadership, the Search Institute has developed a research-based model for the creation of environments crucial to raising healthy, successful, and caring children and adolescents.
Benson offers practical, research-based strategies for uniting and mobilizing communities around a shared vision of healthy child development. He identifies 40 developmental assets--such as family support, intergenerational relationships, clear and consistent boundaries and expectations, participation in constructive activities, and community focus on values--that are essential for all youth, regardless of their background. Benson maintains that too few young people have these support structures in their lives.
When young people experience more of these assets, Benson said, many forms of high-risk behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, early sexual activity, violence, and school failure, sharply decline.
Benson has authored or edited more than a dozen books on child and adolescent development, including All Kids are Our Kids: What Communities Must do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents. In 1989, he received the William James Award for Career Contributions to Psychology from the American Psychological Association.
The Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency Program is a partnership between The Pampered Chef, Ltd., and the Department of Human and Community Development in the U of I College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. Doris Kelley Christopher, a U of I alumnus, is the founder and chairman of The Pampered Chef, Ltd. The Family Resiliency Program, directed by Professor Laurie Kramer, supports the lecture series, faculty research grants, and graduate fellowships in the area of family resiliency. The lecture is free and open to the public.
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