Youth at Risk: Another Point of View

Abstract

In this rejoinder to Tidwell and Corona Garrett (1994), the authors discuss three important aspects of the term at risk that help to clarify its meaning.

Factors protecting against risk behavior concerning psychoactive substance used by adolescents

“…This method led to obtaining the result assumed among others by McWhirter et al (2,12,13), similar to the result described by Polish scientists (Ostaszewski, et al, 2008), which assumed that the key factor was the parental monitoring of free time spent by young people away from home. It turned out that this factor was connected with the strongest protection for each risk behavior in the model.…”

“…The concept of J.J. McWhirter et al (2,3,12) was selected to develop a model of variables analyzed in this study because this model covers a wide spectrum of earlier results of research conducted in this scope. Moreover, because individual factors are assigned to three categories, this model is very clear.…”

Group-based prevention programs for at-risk adolescents and adults

“…A number of studies explored prevention of a target malady (e.g., engaging in substance abuse, contracting sexually transmitted disease) in a population that is at risk in part because its members suffer from another malady (e.g., depression, schizophrenia). The continuum of at-riskness proposed by McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter, & McWhirter (1995) provides some latitude in identifying candidates for preventive intervention.…”

Rite of Passage Programs as Effective Tools for Fostering Resilience Among Low‐Income African American Male Adolescents

“…Emerging from a need to separate disruptive students from performing students, primarily at the middle and high school levels, alternative education programs provide specialized interventions for an at-risk population of students (Foley &Pang, 2006). mcWhirter, mcWhirter, mcWhirter, andmcWhirter (1995) defined at risk as an implied set of presumed cause-effect dynamics that place an individual child or adolescent in danger of experiencing negative future events, such as low socioeconomic status, membership in an ethnic minority group, and evidence of psychosocial stressors (e.g., parental divorce, family income loss, and the death of a loved one).…”