HEHD 8050 Youth Development in the Context of the Family

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The artifacts that I chose for Youth Development in the Context of the Family are a paper titled Increasing Family Involvement and Connection and a corresponding newsletter that I developed to advertise the family program referenced in the paper. I selected this paper, because it discusses systems theory, which is described as “individual family members are necessarily interdependent, exerting a continuous and reciprocal influence on one another” (Cox, Paley, 1997).  I believe that in order to best understand the youth that we work with, we must try to understand their whole world.  Knowledge of a  child's family system is a critical piece in understanding the world they live in. This course has helped me to more deeply understand the impact that relationships within families have on youth.

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In this paper, I developed a four session teen/parent group that would provide an opportunity for teens and parents to have fun together, while learning about each other and their community and would represent Bronfrenbrenner's Bioecological Theory, which states "youth develop in several systems (microsystem, mesosystem,exosystem and macrosystem) each system represents a different level of interaction with the youth, but all levels are important (Hauser Cram, 2014, p.26).  This is a program that I can definitely use in the future to help support families that are having difficulty communicating effectively.

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