Search Institute

Since 1958, Search Institute, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit, has been a pioneer in positive child and adolescent human development. Its mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. Search Institute's vision is a world where all young people are valued and thrive.

Search Institute is a national leader in conceptualizing and advancing a positive approach to the healthy development of children and adolescents. The institute collaborates with others to promote long-term organizational, community, and social change that supports the healthy human development of all young people. Search Institute provides research-based information and practical resources to those who have direct relationships with young people, including parents, teachers, clergy, youth workers, mentors, and community leaders.

Though fully independent, Search Institute often works in partnership with universities and other institutions to advance knowledge about human development and with national and community-based organizations [Page 969]to strengthen their capacity to address the developmental needs of children and adolescents. It employs about 60 full-time staff, with core competencies in human development, community and social change, measurement, evaluation, training, consulting, publishing, and conferencing. Major funding comes from private and corporate foundations.

For 45 years, Search Institute has researched and studied the healthy human development of children and adolescents. In 1990, Search Institute articulated the framework of developmental assets, first naming 30 and in the mid-1990s revising the framework to identify 40 assets (Benson, 1990, 1997). The developmental assets are building blocks of healthy development that provide a foundation for reducing risks, strengthening resilience, and increasing thriving.

The 40 developmental assets are external and internal experiences, relationships and personal qualities that, when present in young people's lives, make them less likely to engage in negative, risky behaviors and more likely to experience positive outcomes. The developmental assets are the naming of what it takes to build a healthy, whole human being.

Search Institute's 40 developmental assets create a model for understanding the developmental needs of children and youth. They focus on the social, psychological, and emotional needs of young people. These assets provide a powerful blueprint for mobilizing individuals, organizations, and communities to take action for youth—action that can make a real difference (Benson, Leffert, Scales, & Blyth, 1998).

Search Institute has conducted research with collectively more than 1.5 million young people regarding the 40 developmental assets, certainly one of the largest aggregate databases in child and adolescent development. These studies indicate that having 31 or more of the assets is the benchmark for experiencing their most positive effects. The more assets young people experience, the better they do in school, the better they are able to resist risky behaviors, and the better self-images they possess, among many other positive outcomes (Benson, Scales, Leffert, & Roehlkepartain, 1999; Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000).

More than half of our nation's youth experience fewer than 20 of the 40 developmental assets. Across the United States, most young people are significantly lacking in these essential building blocks for successful development.

Search Institute's goal is to ensure that all young people have in their lives the essential experiences and relationships they need to thrive and succeed. The developmental asset framework is a framework that includes everyone. In big cities and small towns, across race/ethnicity and all socioeconomic levels, the 40 developmental assets can play a role in helping young people succeed.

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