Measuring What Young People Need to Thrive

The Developmental Asset Profile (DAP) grows out of Search Institute’s historic research on the Developmental Assets. The survey is used by schools and organizations around the world to measure the strengths, supports, and social-emotional factors that influence the development of young people. 

The DAP has been helping organizations and partnerships understand the social-emotional strengths of young people since 2005. To date, nearly a million youth between the ages of 8 and 18 have taken the DAP, making it one of the most widely used instruments in the world for measuring the strengths and supports that influence what young people need to thrive.

Schedule a consultation to learn more how the Developmental Assets Profile can help you learn what your young people need to thrive.

What You Learn from the Developmental Assets Profile

Schools, practitioners, and leaders use the DAP to gain valuable insights and data about their young people, including:

• Discover the social-emotional strengths and supports that young people have.
• Listen to the perspectives of young people.
• See their work in the context of young people’s own strengths and the supports they have (or don’t have) in their families, schools, organizations, and communities.
• Guide proactive and focused planning to increase positive outcomes.

The First Step Is to Listen

The first step in engaging with young people is understanding their day-to-day experiences and perspectives. Recent data show many young people are facing mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression; bullying; and drug and alcohol use. Even before the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 70% of teens in one survey identified anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers. Schools and organizations that work with youth can help them navigate challenges and overcome difficult situations. It’s tough being a teen, but that is where the DAP comes into play: it helps adults listen deeply to the needs and longings of their young people. The DAP helps answer questions such as:

1. Do young people feel surrounded by people who love, care for, appreciate, and accept them?
2. Do they feel valued, valuable, and safe?
3. Do they believe they are provided with clear rules, consistent consequences for breaking rules, and encouragement to always do their best?
4. Do they have opportunities outside of school to learn and develop new skills and interests with other youth and adults?
5. Do they understand the lasting importance of learning and believe in their own abilities?
6. Are they developing strong guiding values that will help them make healthy life choices, including responsibility, empathy, and self-control?
7. Do they have the skills to interact effectively with others, make difficult decisions, and cope with new situations?
8. Do they believe in their own self-worth and feel they have control over the things that happen to them?

Connecting Assets to Behavior

The DAP is built on the Developmental Assets Framework, a set of 40 positive supports, opportunities, and relationship qualities young people need across all aspects of their lives (called “external assets”) and personal skills, social emotional strengths, self-perceptions, and values they need to make good choices, take responsibility for their actions, and be independent (called “internal assets”). Our research tells us that when young people have few assets, they are more likely to engage in a wide array of high-risk behaviors. Likewise, when youth have more assets, they are:

• More likely to thrive now and in the future.
• Less likely to engage in high-risk behaviors.
• More likely to be resilient in the face of challenges.

Putting the DAP to Work

In this case study from Asheville, North Carolina, the local United Way launched a collaborative initiative to improve success for middle school students. Nine sites began with two important measurements, the Developmental Assets Profile and the Youth Program Quality Assessment (Youth PQA). The DAP survey taught the organizations that young people in their programs reported higher self-esteem and parental support than providers were expecting. And they expressed a good deal of hope for the future — all positive assets. But these young people also were lacking certain assets:

• Engaging in creative activities and reading for pleasure.
• Monitoring their frustrations and expressing feelings.
• Resolving conflict and being sensitive to others.
• Resisting peer pressure.
• Serving others, helping the community, helping to solve problems (although they scored high on wanting to help).
• Having a “useful role.” One organization reported that young people felt that they were not engaged in activities “that reflect their choices.”

With this data in hand, the programs were able to help out-of-school-time providers to tailor solutions that offered young people more engagement and more of a voice. Student-led projects include a clothes drive, a campaign to build a basketball court, and more recreation and arts offerings. When the DAP was administered a second time, more students reported having these developmental assets: managing frustration, resolving conflict, and serving others.