The Role of Youth Surveys in Community Youth Development Initiatives

Youth development practitioners and involved citizens can become confused when confronted with multiple approaches to understanding youth needs and improving communities as contexts for youth development. To reduce that confusion, this article describes 3 youth development surveys: the Communities That Care (CTC) Youth Survey; Search Institute's Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors; and the Teen Assessment Project. It also compares the strategies promoted by CTC and Search Institute. This article summarizes the results of an informal study asking representatives of upstate New York communities, that have used the surveys and strategies, about their experiences.