Response of a family counseling educator

Abstract

There are many more adolescent prevention programs focused on adolescent problems such as mental illness, suicide, substance abuse or parent-adolescent conflicts than on positive youth development programs highlighting the strengths, resilience and potentials of young people. Training programs with sound theoretical foundations and reflective learning help practitioners to view adolescents in different ways and with multiple lenses most therefore be developed, because this process contributes to the practitioners' growth in self-awareness and to the development of new knowledge.