“Adolescent Health.” HHS Office of Population Affairs. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. No date. https://opa.hhs.gov/adolescent-health?resources-and-training%2Fadolescent-health-library%2Fpositive-youth-development-health-resources-and-publications%2Findex.html.
This section focuses on how adolescents develop and the issues they may face as they mature. Featured resources provide more information on special topics in adolescent health.

“Positive Youth Development.” The Administration for Children and Families. Family and Youth Services Bureau, November 13, 2017. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/fysb/positive-youth-development.
Positive Youth Development, or PYD, is based on a body of research suggesting that certain “protective factors,” or positive influences, can help young people succeed and keep them from having problems. PYD favors leadership and skill-building opportunities under the guidance of caring adults. It looks at youth as assets to be developed and gives them the means to build successful futures.

The Department of Justice. “The First Step Act of 2018: Risk and Needs Assessment System .” Office of Justice Programs. U.S. Department of Justice, January 2020. https://www.ojp.gov/First-Step-Act-of-2018-Risk-and-Needs-Assessment-System-UPDATE.
On December 21, 2018, President Donald J. Trump signed the First Step Act of 2018 into law. Title I of the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA or the Act) is focused on reforms to reduce recidivism among the federal prison population. Many of Title I’s reforms hinge on the creation of a risk and needs assessment system. Under the FSA, the Attorney General is charged with developing and releasing a risk and needs assessment system for use in the federal prison system. With this report, Attorney General William P. Barr releases the First Step Act of 2018 Risk and Needs Assessment System. This report outlines the work of the Department of Justice to develop and implement the Risk and Needs Assessment System (System). It also introduces the new System that the Federal Bureau of Prisons will deploy in its facilities. And the report announces the Department of Justice’s strategic plan to evaluate, validate, and enhance the System over time. 

Minnesota Dept of Corrections. "The Neglected “R” in the Risk-Needs-Responsivity Model: A New Approach for Assessing Responsivity to Correctional Interventions." Minnesota Dept of Corrections. January 1, 2019. https://mn.gov/doc/assets/The%20Neglected%20%E2%80%9CR%E2%80%9D%20in%20the%20Risk-Needs-Responsivity%20Model_A%20New%20Approach%20for%20Assessing%20Responsivity%20to%20Correctional%20Interventions_tcm1089-370837.pdf.
Prevailing correctional practice holds that offenders should be assigned to interventions on the basis of assessments for risk, needs, and responsivity. Assessments of responsivity, however, typically consist of little more than a checklist of items such as motivation, gender, language, or culture. We introduce a new actuarial approach for assessing responsivity, which focuses on predicting whether individuals will desist after participating in an intervention. We assess responsivity by using multiple classification methods and predictive performance metrics to analyze various approaches for prioritizing individuals for correctional interventions. The results suggest that adding an actuarial responsivity assessment to the existing risk and needs assessments would likely improve treatment assignments and further enhance the effectiveness of an effective intervention. We conclude by discussing the implications of more rigorous responsivity assessments for correctional research, policy and practice.

National Institue of Justice and CrimeSolutions. "Program Profile: Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS)." September 11, 2020. https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/47.
This is a job-training program for probation officers (POs) to help them apply the risk–need–responsivity (RNR) model with adult probationers. The program is rated Promising. Treatment POs demonstrated a statistically significant higher level of quality in demonstrating RNR–based correctional and intervention skills, compared with the control group; however, there were mixed results in discussions on any and all criminogenic needs and no statistically significant difference in recidivism rates.