A cornerstone of the Family Justice Program’s work is helping organizations integrate a strength-based approach. Working with a strength-based perspective does not mean ignoring problems or difficulties. It means focusing on people’s resources, skills, talents, and possibilities—and drawing on them to help address the challenges that individuals face. Instead of emphasizing what is going wrong, a strength-based approach focuses on what is going right and what could go right in the future. Staff can then encourage young people or adults to build on those assets to reinforce positive behavior and help them achieve their goals.

In the juvenile justice field, emphasizing people’s strengths is central to the notion of positive youth development. The Coalition for Juvenile Justice recently published a report on this approach. In Positive Youth Justice, authors Jeffrey Butts, Gordon Bazemore, and Aundra Saa Meroe describe how a strength-based approach can play an important role in successful justice interventions.