Globally, most adolescents thrive and achieve good health and wellbeing with high life expectancies ahead of them. However, those who face vulnerability and marginalisation during this period experience numerous health and social inequities that significantly influence their development during adolescence and their future life chances. Marginalisation and vulnerability occur in many different contexts, including contact with child protection services due to childhood neglect and abuse, homelessness, involvement with the police, and significant life events such as early pregnancy and parenting, as well as the experience of living with gender and sexual diversity. Research with these different cohorts of adolescents who experience marginalisation and vulnerability is challenging. This stems from research ethics governance, the need to adapt flexibly to the complexity of their needs and contexts, and various structural challenges imposed by the service systems around access to some groups. Yet, research to address marginalisation, vulnerability, and related inequities and test preventive interventions is critical to inform policy directions. This chapter explores our collective experience conducting research with adolescents experiencing marginalisation and vulnerability.

Offering evidence-based parenting interventions to caregivers virtually has the potential to increase the reach and public health impact of interventions. As virtual adaptations to evidence-based interventions increase, attention must be paid to implementation fidelity, as high fidelity is associated with better program outcomes. This study examined implementation fidelity of a virtual adaptation of the family-based Guiding Good Choices program delivered to 292 families in primary care in three large healthcare systems during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendance, dosage, adherence, quality of delivery, and participant engagement were examined quantitatively and qualitatively using interventionist and observer surveys, attendance records, and focus groups with interventionists. Interventionists and observers reported high levels of dosage, adherence, quality of delivery, and participant engagement, but attendance was lower than anticipated. Results suggest that delivering parenting programs virtually in primary care with high fidelity is feasible, but retaining participants may remain challenging in this modality, particularly during a global pandemic.

Young people experiencing homelessness are exposed to extreme disadvantage and social exclusion. Their experiences result in reduced educational participation, leading to early school leaving and lower engagement with the labour market due to under-education. We employed decolonising research practices to foreground the concerns, perspectives, knowledge, and recommendations of young people experiencing homelessness regarding their experiences of school disengagement and exclusion. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with over 60 young people experiencing homelessness in Victoria, Australia. Many young people documented the interweaving of educational, personal, familial, and social demands and the negative influence of these on their ability to engage in school. Young people frequently articulated feelings of shame and inadequacy, consequences of the school climate and constitution within which they were stigmatised or excluded. Compounded by feeling unsupported in the school environment and internal sensitivities towards seeking help from school counsellors, young people reported disengaging from education and adopting self-exclusionary behaviours, which frequently culminated in early school leaving. The adoption of intersectional and collaborative approaches is required to decrease the culture of exclusion and stigma contended with by young people experiencing homelessness in the school environment.

I arrived at an outer suburban library to interview two young people who were currently experiencing homelessness. They chose this space as somewhere they said they feel safe and comfortable, where they can use the computers and read books. The librarian smiled when I told her this: “Yes, we get a lot of homeless young people in here reading, learning, asking for help with computers, chatting to older locals.”

The young couple arrived and chose to sit toward the back in the children’s section, cosily surrounded by happy picture books, colourful cushions, comfy chairs, and computers. In that hour of deep distressing conversation about growing up with family violence, drugs and alcohol, and then failing school and surviving street-life, children come and go with mothers and grandparents. With shame and sadness, the young couple looked over to what childhood could have been, should have been: laughter and learning, reading and reflection. The children often look at us with open curiosity and cheerful trusting faces. Their adults smile across at us in between reading, writing, and being taught the latest computer wizardry by their digitally savvy little ones.

I recall my migrant childhood, loving parents unable to afford encyclopedias and books, so Dad took me to the State Library. In Italo-English he managed to explain that his daughter needed a library card. He then knelt down and hugged me, “Here, Maria, are all the books. You are smart and will learn much more than your Mum and me ever did in our few years of primary school. I’m leaving you here and will pick you up in two hours. And we will do this as many times as you want.” He left and I began my adventures in my library-home-school.

Unlike the young people we’ve interviewed, I don’t know what it’s like to be homeless. I can’t imagine the loneliness, fear, and trauma. But I know the library as a home and a school, a travel agent into many worlds beyond my working-class neighbourhood, and beyond the gendered, racist, and classist restrictions of my school.

Positive Youth Development (PYD) refers broadly to childhood and adolescent development experiences that provide optimal life preparation for the attainment of adult potential and wellbeing. Our previous chapters in the 2014 and 2008 editions of the Handbook reviewed the history, conceptual frameworks, and efficacy evidence from PYD program evaluations in the USA. The current chapter updates the considerable progress made in implementing PYD programs over the ensuing years. We provide an overview how PYD programs are now being implemented internationally to achieve human development objectives across many countries and large populations.

Book: Handbook of Moral and Character Education

Chapter: Positive Youth Development Programs; History in the United States, Global Expansion, Growing Efficacy, and Links to Moral and Character Education