It is a great pleasure to offer this volume from Michael J. Nakkula, Karen C. Foster, Marc Mannes, and Shenita Bolstrom as the latest in the Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Community and Society. Its importance to the series and this ?eld of inquiry and practice is readily evident in its title, Building Healthy Communities for Positive Youth Development. Since the early 1990s, Search Institute has invited and encouraged communities of all shapes and sizes to use its framework of Developmental Assets and principles of asset building to create strong, vibrant, and welcoming communities for children and youth. We have operated largely at the grassroots level, encouraging innovation and adaptation around a shared vision, rather than proposing a program or model for replication. We seek to learn as much from the communities as they learn from us. This book offers in-depth case studies of what happened in eight diverse c- munities that took up our invitation. In them, we see a wide array of strategies and approaches that, on the surface, seem to have little coherence. But, as Nakkula and colleagues found, underlying each of these distinct efforts was a deep commitment to transforming the social norms of community life to more effectively attend to young people¿s healthy development throughout the ?rst two decades of life. There have been many ambitious efforts aimed at comprehensive community change on behalf of young people.

Explores how youth development and community development intersect and influence one another

Transformation, Affirmation, and Blended Models.- Strategic Care, Sector by Sector: Traverse Bay Area's GivEm40 24.7.- The Forgotten Neighborhoods: Moorhead, Minnesota's Healthy Community Initiative.- Pursuing "The Tipping Point": Portland, Oregon's Take the Time Initiative.- Community Sustainability: Orlando's Healthy Community Initiative.- We Are Not a Program! St. Louis Park, Minnesota's Children First Initiative.- Partnering with Prevention: The Lawton/Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Community Coalition.- "Leaderful" Communities: The McPherson, Kansas, Tri-County Asset-Building Initiative.- The Next New Frontier: Nevada's Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties.- Project Postscript: Resisting the Template.