Measuring Character Strengths and Promoting Positive Youth Development in Zambia: Initial Findings from the GROW Hopes for Life Study

Le résumé fourni par la source

Background: The Global Resilience Oral Workshops (GROW) Free and Strong programs take a strengths-based, positive youth development (PYD) approach to promoting thriving. Through both prevention (GROW Strong) and intervention (GROW Free) exercises, these programs aim to build character and emotional resilience while also lowering unhealthy alcohol use. Objective: To meaningfully assess the impact of the GROW programs on health and PYD, ecologically and psychometrically valid measures of character strengths were needed, with a focus on the strengths of hope, forgiveness, spirituality, prudence, and self-control (self-regulation) promoted by GROW. Method: = 1.88; 49.7% female); both enrolled using a waitlist-control design. Results: Measures demonstrated strong invariance across specific subgroups present in the data sets, with differences emerging across ages, urban/rural locations, and baseline study conditions. Conclusions: To meaningfully document PYD programs and character development in the majority world, measurement models must be theory-predicated, robust, and empirically validated for the specific context. The results provide evidence for such a measure that will be useful in future intervention studies promoting character strengths to address unhealthy alcohol use in Zambia. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-024-09814-8.

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