Gerald K. Smith, Ed.D. and Lionel Thompson

The Youth Development Task Force was established by and as a goal of immediate past NABSW President Judith Jackson during her first two-year term of office. As in past years, the Youth Development Task Force has and will sponsor an institute on youth development at the National Conference.  The format of the institute has employed an interactive panel discussion wherein social welfare and health professionals, parents, and youth are used as expert panelists to make brief introductory statements for discussion.  Typically, there is extensive interaction from the audience as we attempt to learn more about youth from each other.  Last year’s institute was entitled  “African American Youth Still in Limbo:  The Successes and The Hurdles.”

Our current and newly elected National President Dr. Gloria Batiste–Roberts decided to continue the work of the Youth Development Task Force. She has appointed past national President Dr. Gerald K. Smith of Detroit to continue as one Task Force Co-Chairs, and Lionel Thompson, of New York as the other Co-Chair. This year the Annual Youth Development Institute will still focus on youth successes and hurdles. However, the session will serve as one of the major breakfast institutes, and presentations will be made by two very dynamic professionals in the field.

The Youth Development Task Force has also written a draft professional paper on “Positive Youth Development”, which is being reviewed for publication by the editorial committee. The revised copy, after final editing will be published in the NABSW Journal.

With the overarching goal of the task force being to define youth development from an Afrocentric perspective, major 2006 accomplishments included:

·                     Development of a workshop on youth development,

·                     Recruiting and engaging professional speakers, and

·                     Development of a paper on youth development for distribution to conferees and all national chapters 

The task force forward planning for 2007 will focus on the dissemination of information on Youth Development to all NABSW chapters.