Series 1. Types of Community Environments and Their Importance 1. Types of communities; 2. How communities can affect youth; 3. Social media: The role of online communities; 4. Virtual worlds and Augmented reality; 5. Interacting and overlapping communities
Series 2. Community Environments and youths' sense of self, behavior, and learning 1. How youth develop a sense of self and identity; 2. Behavior as an expression of identity; 3. Behavior as acts of self-preservation; 4. How community environments affect youths' self-worth, behavior, and learning; 5. Building Community Environments that promote positive behaviors and learning
Series 3. Community Environments, health, and safety 1. Location and Interpersonal relationships affect mood; 2. Mood affects resistance to disease; 3. Mood can affect mental and physical health; 4. Quality of the community environment (relationships, safety, building design and condition, quality of air, food, and water, noise level) affects youth health, 5. Building Community Environments that promote health and Safety
Series 4. Community Environments have weight 1. Community environments exert pressure on youth based on the types of experiences they have within the community. 2. The environmental pressure can be considered a weight or load that youth carry in their bodies. 3. Factors that contribute to the weight of a community environment. 4. Environmental weight affects sense of self, behavior and health.
Series 5. Environmental weight contributes to stress in youth
Series 6. The weight of Community Environments differs for youth based on age, gender, ethnicity, and ability 1. Youth experience differential weight based on age, gender, ethnicity, and ability. 2. Youth experience differential weight based on looks and personality, 3. Youth experience differential weight based on culture, religion, and nationality. 4. How policies and structures affect the weight of community environments. 5. Designing community environments to decrease excessive load on youth and promote well-being.
Series 7. Fostering stimulating, safe, uplifting communities 1. Every person who comes into a child's life has an impact; 2. Strong community webs of support can uplift youth; 3. Layout, lighting, and noise level can affect safety; 4. Helping youth find and use resources within their community can stimulate their creativity and potential; 5. Creating opportunities to celebrate the accomplishments of youth uplifts them.
Series 8: Tapping into resources beyond the community to educate and empower youth
Series 9. Local, State, and National Social Environments interact to Impact the behavior and health of youth.
Whole-Child, Whole-Environment Approach Applying SEALS to promote Cohesive Communities
The SEALS Framework or creating highly effective Social Environments
We help community members to a) understand the scientific basis of the SEALS Framework, b) use SEALS to better understand and support the youth, and c) improve relationships with families and members of the community, to enrich and enhance the community.
