Development and Evaluation of Positive Youth Development Programs in Hong Kong

Description

P.A.T.H.S. aims to help local junior secondary students explore their potential, establish self-identity, foster closer ties with others, and develop positive beliefs and clear values. In light of the strong support from the local education sector, the original 3.5-year project has been extended for three more school years from 2009/10 to 2011/12. So far about 213,000 students from more than 280 local mainstream and special secondary schools have joined the scheme and more than half of the schools have already included the Tier 1 Programme of P.A.T.H.S. in their junior secondary curriculum. The internationally respected ScientificWorldJournal (Q1) will publish the results of a study that shows the remarkable effectiveness of the programme in building resilience in students and helping them face challenges encountered along the road to adulthood, such as the lure of drugs. This is the first scientifically proven and internationally recognised youth development programme in Chinese communities. Over the five academic years 2006/07-2010/11, the Research Team of the project collected data from nearly 6,000 students at 43 schools to track the long-term effectiveness of the project.