Self-Identified Strengths Among Youth Offenders Charged with Assault Against a Non-Intimate Family Member

Background and Purpose: Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a specific strengths-based approach aimed at understanding the resources, competencies, and positive contexts among youth involved in the criminal justice system. An overwhelming amount of the literature focuses on the deficits and needs of young offenders and does not consider the strengths and competencies. In order to effectively apply PYD and other strength-based approaches in the criminal justice setting it is imperative continue to generate evidence relative to the strengths and/or competencies young offenders posses. The present study seeks to build on the current literature related to strengths of youth offenders using qualitative analysis of a strength-based asset interview completed by older youth referred to a diversion program. These youth were charged with a misdemeanor family violence assault because they had assaulted a non-intimate family member (e.g. mother, father, sibling, uncle, grandparent). Findings include identification of competencies as well as offer applications towards a strengths-based model of intervening with youth populations who may be abusive towards family members.

Methods: Participants included youth enrolled in a diversion program in a large metropolitan area of north Texas (n=22).    As part of the therapeutic process, participants were individually interview using an adapted form of the Youth Competency Assessment (YCA) (Mackin, Weller, & Tarte, 2004), a strengths-based qualitative assessment tool designed for youth involved with the criminal justice system.  The competency assessments were qualitatively analyzed using grounded theory techniques (Creswell, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) of open coding and axial coding in an effort to identify emergent themes.  Using the open coding approach, two researchers independently coded the self-reported goals and identified emergent themes.  During axial coding, the researchers triangulated and collectively identified and defined distinct themes. 

Findings: The data revealed four competencies: 1) hardiness; 2) grit; 3) social competence; and 4) empathy. The emergent competencies were used to develop a Youth Offender Behavior Change Model (YOBCM) that seeks to focus on the process of building an offender’s skills and capabilities within a criminal justice setting.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings from this study offers preliminary insight specific to the competencies of youth charged with assault against non-intimate family members. Although there may be any number of risk factors that are associated with youth offenders, the results of this court-supported study suggest that youth offenders possess key strengths/competencies that might help them address their behaviors. These skills will not be useful if they are not recognized and harnessed to benefit youth. In addition we offer the implications; 1) practitioners using or implementing a strengths-based approach must be sensitive to the culture of their organization, 2) utilizing strengths provides an opportunity for broadening questions used over and beyond a focus on deficits and 3) attending to the PYD needs of youth cannot occur without focus on their environment and context.