A report on school drop-out rates, juvenile arrests, teenage pregnancies, and youth alcohol consumption set the stage for the Healthy Community Healthy Youth Symposium that was held recently in Champaign, Illinois. The symposium focused on what communities, families, and individuals can do to prevent delinquency. The Search Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping parents, adolescents, schools, and communities work together to promote positive youth development. Draayer noted that Search Institute research shows that instilling assets can create concrete, positive experiences and qualities that will have a positive influence on young people's lives. The theory of the Asset Approach is that certain internal and external assets can help children grow up healthy, caring, and responsible.
External assets are specific support systems found in a child's environment.
They range from giving children useful roles in the community to parents and other adults modeling positive responsible behavior. Internal assets help children develop inner strength such as self-control and a strong value system. These assets include motivation in a child to accomplish goals, the ability to stand up for their beliefs, and the ability to resolve conflict nonviolently. The Search Institute believes that asset building can protect youth from high-risk behavior as well as promote positive behavior. Asset building may be helpful in counteracting the messages children receive from the marketplace that challenge values needed for healthy and safe behavior.