Youth Development

Youth development that works: Positive findings on the 4-H program

May 10, 2011 By sh648 1 Comment

On EBL, we’ve talked a lot about research evidence on problems affecting adolescents, from alcohol use, to video games, to social networking, to sex (I can hear teens who read this starting to hum the tune to “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things”…).

One might ask: Okay, what about the positive side? We’re glad to say that there’s very encouraging news about a program that really works.

One of the most popular and extensive youth programs in the United States is the 4-H program. There are over 6,500,000 members in the U. S. The 4-H program offers activities for kids from 5-19 who are organized in 90,000 4-H clubs. Throughout its history, 4-H has promoted leadership skills, good citizenship, and life skills development. In recent years, it has branched into health promotion programs (like obesity prevention and fostering physical activity) and science, engineering, and technology (“SET”) programming.

All this sounds great, right? But as EBL readers know, we look for the evidence. And now we have it, thanks to the ground-breaking work of Prof. Richard Lerner of Tufts university, one of the country’s leading experts on youth development. Lerner and colleagues expected that the mentoring from adult leaders and the structured learning that goes on in clubs might lead to number of desireable outcomes for children. This led them to do a longitudinal, controlled evaluation of the impact of being a 4-H member. Beginning in 2002, they have surveyed oaver 6,400 teens across the U. S.

The researchers have issued a major new report, looking at the findings on youth outcomes over nearly a decade. To really dig into the results, you should read the very accessible report. Among the many findings, according to the report summary, is that 4-H participants:

Have higher educational achievement and motivation for future education
Are more civically active and make more civic contributions to their communities
Are less likely to have sexual intercourse by Grade 10
Are 56% more likely to spend more hours exercising or being physically active
Have had significantly lower drug, alcohol and cigarette use than their peers
Report better grades, higher levels of academic competence, and an elevated level of engagement at school,
Are nearly two times more likely to plan to go to college
Are more likely to pursue future courses or a career in science, engineering, or computer technology

All in all, very impressive findings. So let’s join in the 4-H pledge (can you find the four “H”s?):

I pledge my head to clearer thinking,
my heart to greater loyalty,
my hands to larger service
and my health to better living,
for my club, my community, my country, and my world.

A pretty good approach to living, and one that seems to work for millions of children and teens!

Teens and alcohol: What can parents do?

May 3, 2011 By sh648 3 Comments

I will never forget the moment, even though it was years ago. My wife and I were chatting with the parents of one of our daughter’s friends, and the topic of a recent sleep-over came up. They told us that the kids – all young teens – had camped out behind their house, which surprised us. But our jaws progressively dropped as this couple went on to say how they had provided beer to the kids. When we expressed dismay, they responded along the lines of “Well, they’re going to do it anyway.” This seemed to us wrong to the core, but it indicates the dilemmas parents face in trying to control teen drinking behavior.

There is a mountain of scientific data about the dangers of teen alcohol use. Perhaps most frightening is that teenage drinking predicts alcohol abuse as an adult. Adolescent alcohol use is also related to driving accidents and fatalities, poor school performance, and engaging in other types of risky behaviors. In fact, there’s so much data on the negatives of teen alcohol consumption that EBL won’t even waste your time with a review.

But what’s a parent to do? That’s where information from a recent systematic review breaks new ground (for information about systematic reviews and why they’re so good, see here).

In their article, Siobhan Ryan, Anthony Jorn, and Dan Lubman conducted a state-of-the-art systematic review about what parenting strategies are associated with adolescent alcohol consumption. Two positive outcomes were examined: delayed onset of teen drinking (the later the better) and levels of alcohol consumption in adolescence. The review only looked at longitudinal studies, where data on parenting practices were collected early in adolescence and data on drinking at a later time point. These are very strong designs. Further, they carried out sophisticated statistical analyses to combine the results of studies.

Let’s come back to our question: What’s a parent to do? It turns out that there are a number of parenting strategies that work to reduce teen drinking. Four of the most important of these are:

Parental modeling – and specifically children learning about alcohol by observing the parents’ responsible drinking behavior
Parental monitoring – the degree to which parents know where there children are and who they are with
Parent – child relationship quality – the level of warmth and affection in the relationship
Limiting availability of alcohol – not providing alcoholic beverages to the child

I was particularly glad to see that last one, because every once in a while I wonder if I was wrong to criticize those parents who created a beer party for young teens. It turns out I was right. An editorial accompanying the review article puts this issue succinctly:

Many parents consider that this is the best way to prevent negative alcohol outcomes in their children, i.e. by allowing drinking at home and directly supplying them with small amounts of alcohol when they go out to parties. In fact some parents go out of their way to inoculate their children with alcohol, sometimes before puberty, in order to break down any sense of alcohol being a taboo. This normalization of drinking alcohol is aimed at lessening the “big deal” of adolescent initiation rites involving alcohol. However, the evidence points in the opposite direction, that normalization of alcohol increases the risk of harm.

By being a good role model, monitoring one’s children carefully, and maintaining warm relationships, parents can make inroads into this very thorny problem, and perhaps keep their kids sober longer.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, evidence-based practice, Health and Wellness, research translation

Clear evidence: Breastfeeding is good for babies

March 22, 2011 By sh648 4 Comments

With my second child due any day now, I admit I’ve got babies on the brain at the moment. If there’s one thing the evidence clearly shows, it’s that breastfeeding is good for both moms and babies.

Review after review shows that breastfeeding protects against asthma, childhood obesity, ear infections, respiratory illness and more. It helps mothers avoid breast and ovarian cancer, and leads to quicker weight-loss after having a baby. (You can find a good review of that evidence and more from the U.S. Surgeon General’s office.)

In addition, there are economic benefits to families. Formula is expensive!

But across the U.S., less than half of women continue breastfeeding after six months. And among some populations, such as African-American women, those rates are much lower.

Luckily, there is also good evidence that educational programs are effective in promoting breastfeeding among new mothers. The best method seems to be in-person training –whether with a nurse at the hospital, at pediatrician’s offices or in a support group for new mothers all proved effective in increasing the number of infants who are breastfed at three months of age.

There are other interventions that help as well. In fact, the U.S. government has deemed this is such an important issue that the Centers for Disease Control has published a list of evidence-based guidelines to breastfeeding interventions. Among the recommendations are providing support in the workplace for breastfeeding women and creating media campaigns to improve attitudes toward breastfeeding.

I feel extremely lucky that the hospital where I plan to deliver and our pediatrician’s office have lactation consultants – people trained to teach women how to breast feed and address problems that come up in the process. I used their help when my son was born two years ago, and I certainly plan to take advantage of them again this time.

Update: Hannah May was born on Saturday afternoon and is currently enjoying the benefits of breastfeeding.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, Health and Wellness, nutrition

New York continues PROSPER Partnership to prevent substance abuse

March 8, 2011 By sh648 1 Comment

We heard some exciting news at EBL this week! New York families will soon have more access to evidence-based programs that prevent substance abuse among middle school students and their families.

You might remember that we wrote about PROSPER Partnerships – which stands for PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience – as an ideal model for implementing substance abuse prevention programming based on real evidence. The program links Cooperative Extension, public schools, and local communities to choose proven programs that serve the needs of individual communities.

Last month, New York was chosen as one of five states in that will continue the process of forming a PROSPER Partnership, with Cornell serving as the university partner.

The goal is for New York to become a full PROSPER State Partnership by August of this year.

Kim Kopko, Extension Associate in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and New York State Liaison for PROSPER, is excited to continue with the program.

“This is indeed a very positive development and an exciting opportunity to utilize the Cornell Cooperative Extension System to bring evidence-based programming to families and communities in New York,” she said.
As you might expect, PROSPER uses plenty of evidence to determine if a state is ready to enter a full partnership. PROSPER staff collected and analyzed data from a state survey, in-depth interviews with Cooperative Extension staff and partnering agencies, and information garnered from various activities in New York.

PROSPER has also plenty of evidence to prove that their system yields results. PROSPER Programs typically recruit 17 percent of eligible families in their communities, compared to less than six percent for other community programs.

Students who participate in the program are better at problem solving, more likely to refuse offers of alcohol and other drugs, less likely to believe that substance use has positive effects and more likely to delay initiation of substance use. And each $1 invested in the program yield about $9.60 of savings.

All of that is great news for New York families, who will soon have even greater access to evidence-based programming.

Filed Under: Cornell Cooperative Extension, Evidence-Based Living, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, Community, Cooperative Extension programs, evidence-based programs, research translation

What we know about gay teenagers

February 9, 2011 By sh648 Leave a Comment

Over the past year, the news has been filled with stories of the suicide among gay teenagers who’ve suffered bullying from their peers. The stories are tragic. And there’s no doubt that some gay teenagers suffer more emotional distress than straight ones. But what do we really know about their lives? Is the discrimination overplayed in the news media?

Ritch Savin-Williams, professor of Human Development at the College of Human Ecology and director of Cornell’s Sex and Gender Lab, has written a book that covers these topics called The New Gay Teenager.

In the book, Savin-Williams makes the point that it is much easier to get grants to study clinical problems and treatment, meaning that gay teenagers without health or emotional problems have fallen under the radar of most academic studies.

“We hear only the negative aspects from research. We don’t hear about normal gay teens,” he told the New York Times for an article earlier this year. “It’s hard to get studies published when researchers don’t find differences. A large number of studies found no group differences between gay and straight youth, but these have not been published.”

Hi main concern is that the media presents a negative picture to teenagers who are questioning their sexuality.

“I’m concerned about the message being given to gay youth by adults who say they are destined to be depressed, abuse drugs or perhaps commit suicide,” he said. “I believe the message may create more suicides, more depression and more substance abuse. I worry about suicide contagion. About 10 to 15 percent are fragile gay kids, and they’re susceptible to messages of gay-youth suicide.”

More recent studies have found that straight youths are just as much at risk of being bullied if they exhibit atypical behavior.

“Bullying is less about sexuality than about gender nonconformity,” Dr. Savin-Williams said. “There are straight youth who are gender-atypical and they suffer as much as gay kids. But whether there’s a direct link between bullying and suicide among gay teens has not been shown.”

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, In The Media, Youth Development

Video feature: Psyche 101 with Professor Stephen Ceci

January 26, 2011 By sh648 Leave a Comment

To follow-up our post on Professor Stephen Ceci’s work on child testimony, we thought it would be useful to share a recent lecture Ceci gave to a Psychology 101 class at Cornell.

In the lecture, he discusses five factors that can damage or change a child memory:

Suggestive questioning.
Giving false expectations or stereotypes.
Confirmatory bias, or tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions.
Visually-guided imagery.
High levels of stress

“How can children come to believe something that’s wrong?” Ceci asked.

“When young children, ages 3 and 4, are questioned by neutral interviewers, they do very well. They recall events with 90 percent accuracy,” he explains. “However, when children are repeatedly interviewed over the course of weeks and months with misleading suggestions which sometimes occurs in forensic cases many come to remember the false events as true and provide detailed and coherent narratives about these false events. So compelling did the children’s narratives appear that we suspected that some of the children had come to truly believe they had experienced the fictitious events. Neither parents nor researchers were able to convince 27 percent of the children that the events never happened.”

You can view the entire lecture by clicking here.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, policy, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, policy, research translation

Video Feature: How the physical environment affects children

January 12, 2011 By sh648 Leave a Comment

Here at Evidence-Based Living, we’ve written before about the research of Gary Evans, a Cornell professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis who has spent much of his career researching how the physical environment impacts child well-being – especially for children in poverty.

Evans, an environmental psychologist, has completed a large body of research that examines the relationship of crowding, noise, housing and neighborhood quality on the lives of children. His research reveals that these factors can have a lot of impact on a child’s academic achievement, as well as cognitive and social development.

Last year, Human Ecology undergraduate student Kyler Wilkins earned a first place finish in the College of Human Ecology’s 2010 Elsie Van Buren Rice Awards public speaking competition for his presentation of Evans research entitled “The Hard Knock Life: The Environment of Poverty and Children’s Development.” In it, Wilkins describes how Evans research is being used by policy-makers to improve children’s access to healthy foods in schools and conduct cognitive interventions in to improve the memories of children in poverty. You can see it here:

To learn more about Evans’s work, you can also view a one-hour lecture he delivered to extension professionals by clicking here.

Filed Under: Cornell Cooperative Extension, Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, policy, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, evidence-based practice, Health and Wellness, policy, research translation

Video games: Helpful or harmful to the brain?

January 6, 2011 By sh648 5 Comments

It’s January, the month when children across the country spend hours in front of the television playing with the millions of video game counsels sold over the holidays. In fact, you probably personally know a “gamer” yourself. According to the Entertainment Software Association, more than 68 percent of American households play computer or video games.

We hear often about studies demonstrating that too much screen-time – whether television, video games or computers – is associated with attention problems in children. But it turns out there are some benefits to playing video games, too.

A cadre of researchers in cognitive sciences, psychology and neuroscience are building a body of evidence that shows video gaming (in moderation, of course) helps improve attention, vision, multitasking and other cognitive skills.

A systematic review by researchers at the University of Rochester’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences found that playing action video games significantly reduces reaction times without sacrificing accuracy across a variety of real-world tasks, including looking for a letter in a field of other letters and indicating the direction of an arrow while ignoring arrows pointing in the other direction.

Another study found that video games help improve contrast sensitivity, or the ability to see subtle shades of gray.

“And this is a skill that comes in very handy if you’re driving in fog,” explained Daphene Bavelier, a cognitive researcher at the University of Rochester, who spoke to reporters from National Public Radio for a recent story. “Seeing the car ahead of you is determined by your contrast sensitivity. We looked at the effect of playing action games on this visual skill of contrast sensitivity, and we’ve seen effects that last up to two years.”

Lauren Sergio from York University in Toronto used functional brain scans to find that skilled gamers mainly an area of the brain specialized for planning, attention and multitasking, meaning that they don’t activate as much of their brain to do complex tasks with their hands. Non-gamers, in contrast, predominately use an area called the parietal cortex, the part of the brain specializing in visual spatial functions.

“The non-gamers had to think a lot more and use a lot more of the workhorse parts of their brains for eye-hand coordination,” she says. “Whereas the gamers really didn’t have to use that much brain at all, and they just used these higher cognitive centers to do it.”

In fact, employers including hospitals, the U.S. armed services and many police departments are using video games to help doctors, soldiers and police officers work on skills they use in their jobs everyday.

The bottom line: video games, played in moderation, actually help kids develop some important life skills. Just make sure to set a timer, or find another way to limit screen-time.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, In The Media, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, research translation, science in the media, social trends

Does reading aloud to young children make a difference?

December 23, 2010 By sh648 2 Comments

One of my earliest memories as a child was sitting on a wooden porch swing reading books with my mom. My mom tells me that she started reading to me from day one, and even read to her belly while she was pregnant. Needless to say, books have always held an important place in our home.

When my son Aaron was born, my husband and I started reading to him right away too. In the beginning we had some children’s books, but we would also read aloud whatever each of us happened to be reading at the time. Aaron heard a little Harry Potter and some Bicycling magazine, and even a few academic studies that I had to read for work. Now that he’s two years old, we read at least three or four children’s books together each day. Currently, his favorite stall tactic is, “Mama, how about we read a book?”

A few weeks ago, when a friend passed along a book to me about the benefits of reading to children, I was eager to learn about the tangible benefits. The book, called Reading Magic, makes the case that reading aloud to children helps them develop an interest in books, encourages those first words, inspires them to learn to read themselves, and creates a special bond between child and parent.

While I found the book interesting, it doesn’t offer any systematic, concrete evidence about reading aloud to children. So, of course, I had to do some digging. It turns out my mom knew what she was doing all those years ago!

Three separate systematic reviews of what educators call dialogic reading – essentially engaging in a conversation with young children as you read to them – found positive effects for language skills, improved literacy and school readiness.

The study that piqued by interest the most was a review of 10 studies published by the Puckett Institute’s Research and Training Center on Early Childhood Development, an organization dedicated to identifying and implementing evidence-based practices that improve the development of at-risk infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

The study identified several specific benefits for children who regularly participated in dialogic reading, including: positive gains in expressive language development, increases in the length of spoken phrases, and greater expressive vocabulary scores.

All of this raises the question, what the heck makes dialogic reading so special? Essentially, the adult helps the child become the teller of the story by asking questions and prompting the child to participate. The Reading Rockets project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, provides some practical tips on how to engage in dialogic reading with kids.

If there are any small children in your life, sit down with them for a regular story time. The evidence shows it’s great for kids.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, evidence-based practice, research translation

Drinking in college? Yep, it hurts your GPA

December 13, 2010 By sh648 Leave a Comment

When those in authority try to get college students to drink less, they typically go for scare tactics. They remind students about the dangers of alcohol poisoning, arrest, or accidents. Because binge drinking can be so hazardous, over 100 college presidents have signed on to a movement called the Amethyst Initiative that seeks to reduce bouts of heavy drinking. (And believe it or not, the main policy recommendation of this group is to lower the drinking age!)

So students have heard about the most extreme (and low-frequency) negative effects of alcohol consumption on campus. But what about more frequent outcomes? There’s one concern common to all college students: academic performance. There aren’t many people like the Delta frat brothers in the movie Animal House, who are proud when Dean Wormer tells them: “Here are your grade point averages. Mr. Kroger: two C’s, two D’s and an F. That’s a 1.2. Congratulations, Kroger. You’re at the top of the Delta pledge class.”

But it’s tricky to test the effects of alcohol consumption on academic performance. One big problem is that there may be another variable explaining both poor student performance and drinking (for example, mental health issues) so the connection could be what scientists call “spurious” (seemingly correlated, but there’s something in the background that promotes both behaviors).

I love to report on a truly clever research design, and that’s what we have from economists Scott Carrell of UC-Davis and his colleagues Mark Hoekstra and James West. Their article published by the National Bureau of Economic Research takes advantage of a unique data set, allowing them to test the effects of starting to drink more heavily.

Their data come from the 2000-2006 classes of the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). Unlike most college campuses, the ban on underage drinking is strictly enforced and can lead to expulsion. Surveys show that drinking before age 21 is much lower at the USAFA than at most college campuses. Another advantage: The USAFA has a highly standardized curriculum where students don’t choose their subjects or professors in core courses and everyone takes the same exams.

So hand it to the researchers for finding an ideal research setting to answer their question (there ought to be a prize for this)!

Now if you’ve followed me this far, using these data, what would be the ideal test of the effects of alcohol? You’ve got it: Each cadet’s 21^st birthday. Prior research clearly shows a sudden increase in drinking immediately following turning 21. So they were able to look at students who turned 21 shortly before final exams versus those who turned 21 afterwards.

The results: Drinking definitely affects academic performance. In an interview, Scott Carrell notes that the reduction is approximately half a letter grade. And the effect is strongest for high-performing students. The trend doesn’t just last for the week of the birthday party, but continues for around eight months afterward.

So college binge drinking doesn’t just lead to low-frequency, high-impact outcomes like fatalities. It can also lower GPA and, the authors’ suggest, future life chances as a result.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, economics, Health and Wellness

Science in the courtroom: A Cornell professor uncovers the facts behind child testimony

December 2, 2010 By sh648 1 Comment

I received a postcard in the mail last week notifying me I was called for jury duty. The prospect seemed an inconvenience. (Where would I find care for my two-year-old son while serving?). But it was also exciting!

I’ve always been interested in the law, and the idea of serving on a jury conjured up a feeling of civic responsibility that felt good. It was a job I wanted to take seriously, and I immediately began wondering if there was any research I should consider before embarking on this important task.

Unfortunately, there were no trials in my town this week, so I didn’t even have to report to the court. But the notice did bring to mind the work of Cornell Professor Stephen Ceci, an expert in developmental psychology who has conducted ground-breaking research on the testimony of children.

Ceci’s work bridges the gap between research and real-life in a very tangible way: findings from his studies have influenced the way thousands of law enforcement officers, social workers, lawyers, and judges deal with the testimony of children. This is research that makes a tangible difference in the lives of people who often find themselves in difficult situations.

(An interesting side note: Ceci refuses to be an expert witness for either prosecutors or defenders – a decision that has lent him credibility among judges throughout North America, who often cite his work in their decisions.)

A main topic of Ceci’s work is how children respond when they are questions about sexual abuse. The conventional wisdom says that children delay reporting abuse for years and will initially deny any abuse occurred when asked directly. But after repeated questioning, they gradually begin to tell little bits and pieces about how they were abused. Next, they recant altogether. Only later, when they are in what is perceived to be a psychologically safe situation, do they give a full and elaborate disclosure.

In analyses of dozens of published studies, Ceci and his colleagues separated out the methodologically-sound studies on children’s disclosure from poorly conducted ones. They found in high-quality studies, children did report abuse in full detail when explicitly asked. They also found that when a child is questioned repeatedly, he is likely to relent and say what he thinks the interviewer wants to hear to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

“It’s important for judges to know what science shows, because this set of invalid beliefs animates the whole investigatory process,” Ceci explained. “It motivates investigators and interviewers to pursue reluctant children, who may be reluctant because nothing actually happened.”

In the case U.S. v. Desmond Rouse, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (the court directly beneath the U.S. Supreme Court) established new law on vetting child testimony based almost exclusively on the work of Ceci and his colleagues.

For anyone who works with children involved in the court system, Ceci’s work provides a whole new way to think about their testimony.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, In The Media, policy, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evaluation, evidence-based practice, policy, science and public opinion

How children remember their worlds…and why

November 10, 2010 By sh648 Leave a Comment

We all have early childhood memories – of a favorite relative, a special toy or an event that made a big impression. They are fixtures we will carry throughout our lives. But how those early experiences become sealed into our minds?

Research by Human Ecology faculty member Qi Wang helps explain this phenomenon. Wang, an associate professor of human development, runs the Social Cognition Development Laboratory, where she studies how people develop autobiographical memory and their sense of self.

We know from prior research that the process of sharing memories begins early in life. As soon as children become capable of using language, they begin to discuss past events with caregivers. But initially, they make very few spontaneous references to past events. Instead, their recollections are directed by caregivers’ questions about the past. It is not until children are 3 to 5 years old that they can engage in more detailed conversations about the past. Even then, they rely on adults to direct the conversation.

Wang’s research has delved into how parents’ conversations shape children’s memories. She has found children from different cultural backgrounds recall events differently based on their parents’ conversational style.

For example, American mothers tend to elaborate more on children’s own narratives, asking questions that focus on the child and providing additional details about past events. This values children’s participation and emphasizes the importance of individual experience. Hence, American preschool and grade school children provide more elaborate and detailed memory accounts that refer to their own roles and preferences.

By comparison, Chinese and Korean mothers are less likely to elaborate when talking about past events with their children. Instead, they are more likely to ask factual questions and refer to other people. This approach emphasizes interpersonal relations, moral rules and behavioral expectations. As a result, Asian children talk more about other people than themselves when remembering something, and they are more likely to remember daily routines.

These early memories are important because they shape children’s sense of self and the way they recollect events over their entire lives. (Wang has found these cultural differences appear to extend to adulthood.)

A few take-home messages for parents are caregivers are:

Consider your goals before starting a discussion with your child. What aspects of the event do you think is important for your child to remember?
Consider the type of events you wish to discuss with your child and their implications. Selecting social events would allow you to reflect on your child in relation with others, social norms, and behavioral expectations. Choosing a personal event would allow you to focus on your child’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings relating to the event.
Ask a lot of “wh” questions (e.g., who, what, where, when, why). Provide answers when the child does not remember. Avoid repeating questions, or “looking” for a right answer. Try not to create a test-like atmosphere.

You can find Wang’s work summarized in a paper created by Human Ecology’s Department of Human Development.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, research translation