Promoting positive youth development - New directions in developmental theory, methods, and research

The articles in this special issue report the efforts of the Miami Youth Development Project (YDP), a community-supported positive youth development program of outreach research that draws on a developmental intervention science (DIS) perspective (i.e., a fusion of the developmental and intervention science literatures). These reports illustrate how the application of DIS outreach research contributes to knowledge of human development at all levels (practical as well as methodological, theoretical, and metatheoretical). Consistent with a DIS outreach research approach, YDP is committed to the use of descriptive and explanatory knowledge about changes within human systems that occur across the life span in the development of evidence-based individual and institutional longitudinal change intervention strategies in promoting long-term developmental change. The evolution of the Miami YDP illustrates the value of DIS outreach research in action.