Developmental Audit
The two-day Development Audit training was cited as a “comprehensive tool for identifying a youth’s problems, significant life events, supports and strengths, private logic and coping strategies, and goals for growth in the areas of belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity”, in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry by Drs. Joe L. Martindale and Guy K. Palmes.
Positive alternatives for dealing with challenging children and youth
The Audit goes beyond deficit-based assessment to address these two crucial questions:
- How did this young person come to this point in his or her life?
- Where should we go from here to foster positive learning and growth?
The young person becomes a primary data source and full participant in this reflective and restorative program. The Audit is particularly relevant for young persons whose chronic or serious problems put them at risk for placement in restrictive settings. It engages young persons in conflict into the process of solving problems and finding solutions.
The Development Audit offers a fresh alternative to traditional deficit-based assessment, encouraging instead a format for functional assessment and positive behavior intervention plans. Courts and treatment programs also use the Audit to develop restorative interventions.
The Audit is grounded in resilience science, neuroscience, and ecological research on positive youth development. It triangulates real-world information from multiple data sources to provide the best understanding of a particular child in a particular setting at a particular state of development. The completed Audit provides evidence-based hypotheses about the meaning of behavior and a roadmap to restorative goals and positive growth.
Participants in this workshop will learn the following strategies:
- Connect with guarded youth and enlist them as partners in planning.
- Conduct an ecological scan of family, school, peer group, and community bonds.
- Identify how the youth copes with challenge in resilient and self-defeating ways.
- Address problems by developing positive external supports and inner strengths.
- Meet Circle of Courage needs of Belonging, Mastery, Independence, and Generosity.
The Audit is particularly relevant to professionals in education, special education, alternative settings, child welfare, foster care, residential treatment, juvenile justice, corrections, law enforcement, psychology, social work, counseling, therapy, wrap around, youth development, and family advocacy.
In order to attend the Developmental Audit training, participants must have already received their certification from either the RAP training or the Deep Brain Learning training.
More Information
For information on attending this or any other Pressley Ridge training, please complete the ‘Get Training Information’ form to the right.
Response Ability Pathways