Obesity influences many adolescents, and a potential setting that can help with this health concern is schools. Schools can help raise awareness of adolescent obesity and promote healthier eating habits among adolescents. Therefore, researchers must determine if school food programs influence high school adolescents' behavior regarding the…

This study sought to explore the importance of mentorship programs for Black adolescent females. Due to the unique challenges that Black women face regarding the intersectionality of race, gender, and socioeconomic status, they are in need of mentorship programs to overcome these challenges. The Critical Race Feminist Theory was the theoretical…

This evaluation study addressed the need to increase the participation of teenagers in the Youth Service Agency ABC (YSA ABC). ABC offers positive, powerful, and empowering experiences for area teens. These programs help them with character development, financial literacy, emotional intelligence, healthy well-being, and many other skills and tools…

The future of the nation, and the future of world civilization, will soon rest in the hands of today's youth (Kleon & Rinhart, 1998). Youth organizations such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and 4-H provide lifelong leadership and life skills that youth of all ages will continue to use throughout their life. Leadership and positive youth…

The October 2021 declaration of a national emergency for child and adolescent mental health resulted in the call for innovative methods for addressing barriers to seeking care, including the suggestion of mental health apps using transdiagnostic approaches. In line with this, the current study sought to validate the app "Amaru: The Self-Care…

The SUGAR Program Manual was designed based on an extensive literature review on bullying, adolescent development, resilience and protective factors, and anti-bullying programs. Literature on anti-bullying programs showed a deficit for older adolescents, particularly high school students. A whole-school approach is proposed by incorporating…

This case study describes a professional learning opportunity for educators of adolescents, namely the Literacy for Adolescent Teachers (LAT), at a regional midsize university in Kentucky. The LAT is a year-long experience that enrollees undertake to grow professionally by gaining specific literacy skills. This study focuses specifically on…

This dissertation explored the effectiveness of a well-researched social skills intervention for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder for ethnically and linguistically diverse families. The UCLA PEERS program (Laugeson et al., 2009; 2012) has largely been studied using predominately White and affluent populations; thus, the study explored…

Reading is a complex, uniquely human invention for communication through print. It is a critical ability for making progress in education. Students with reading difficulties, the most common learning disability, struggle with reading fluency and accuracy. Skilled reading is enabled by the coordination of a network of brain regions interconnected…

The current state of U.S. sexual consent education among adolescents is inadequate. Despite known benefits of receiving accurate, comprehensive information and skills regarding effective consent communication during one's teenage years, adolescents are not receiving this education from their main sources of sexual information. Thus, scholars have…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a behavioral based intervention program on minority student behavior. The Breakfast Club was an intervention created with the goal of improving the negative behavior of minority adolescent students. The participants in this study were minority, high school students who displayed frequent…

According to the research, community mentoring programs can influence an adolescent's social skills, academics, and social mobility. Part of the reason for this is that community-based mentoring programs can provide training and understanding of how adolescents can address situations they may encounter. In addition, community mentoring programs…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to seek descriptions from people included in, and excluded from, participating on transition teams for adolescents with intellectual disabilities entering adulthood in New Jersey. The theoretical framework included two theories to support this research. Faludi's Procedural Planning Theory…

In this dissertation an integrated intervention in high schools is proposed for students with anxiety that combines CBT and yoga methods. The development of this program was derived from a critical review of the literature on CBT and yoga programs in high school that aim to reduce anxiety in students. Thirteen studies that used CBT programs and…

This four-article dissertation is about fostering learning relationships online during the COVID-19 pandemic with undergraduate teaching fellows and adolescent learners enrolled in a summer enrichment program (SummerSpark). I, along with six undergraduate students (teaching fellows), created a "relational learning community" (RLC) to…