Promoting Positive Identity Development in Troubled Youth: A Developmental Intervention Science Outreach Research Approach

Abstract

This article illustrates how developmental intervention science outreach research contributes to knowledge development on the promotion of positive identity development by describing results from the Miami Youth Development Project. The project is committed to the use of descriptive and explanatory knowledge about evidence-based individual and institutional intervention strategies for promoting developmental change in self and identity. Our efforts, described here, include a method for measuring theoretically and personally meaningful identity change, a procedure for integrating key aspects of qualitative and quantitative data through relational data analysis, and an evidence-based positive youth development intervention that fosters measurable and meaningful identity change.