Asset-Building Resources for Parents and Those who Work with Them

A wide variety of tools and resources are available through Search Institute that provide ideas and tools for responding to the findings based on the framework of developmental assets .

These resources are all available at www.search-institute.org/catalog or by calling, toll free, 877-240-7251.

Asset-Building Resources for Parents

• Parenting with a Purpose—This colorful booklet presents how asset building can enrich family life and parenting. It includes practical ideas for how parents can build assets and find support in community.
• Raising Healthy Children Day by Day—This collection of 366 daily inspirational readings includes quotations, brief essays, and action ideas to encourage and motivate parents and others who care for children to build assets in children from birth to age 5.
• Tag, You’re It!—This easy-to-read book offers 50 commonsense ways to connect and build assets with young people. Companion posters are also available.
• Taking Asset Building Personally: Personal Action Workbook —This reflection guide allows parents and other adults to reflect on their own asset-building experiences, roles, and opportunities. A facilitator’s guide is available for leading study/discussion groups of parents.
• What Kids Need to Succeed: Proven, Practical Ways to Raise Good Kids—This best-selling book includes hundreds of practical ideas for asset building, including many specifically for parents. Focuses primarily on parents of teenagers. Available in English and Spanish.
• What Young Children Need to Succeed—This book compiles hundreds of asset-building ideas and stories for children between birth and age 10. It includes numerous age-appropriate ideas for parents, child care workers, educators, and others.

• 40 Ways Anyone Can Build Assets—This inexpensive handout offers simple suggestions for how anyone, including parents, can build each of the eight categories of developmental assets. Sold in packets.
• 150 Ways to Show Kids You Care—This unusual poster/flyer gives easy, practical, and creative ideas that parents and other adults can use to build assets. Available in English and Spanish. Sold in packets.
• All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must Do to Raise Responsible and Caring Children and Adolescents—Written by Search Institute President Peter L. Benson, this book presents the framework of developmental assets and outlines a vision for asset-rich communities, including strategies for building asset-rich families.
• The Asset Approach: 40 Elements of Healthy Development —This eight-page booklet introduces the 40 developmental assets and discusses how everyone can be an asset builder. Useful in introducing the assets to parents and staff. Available in English and Spanish. Sold in packets.
• Building Strong Families: Highlights from a Preliminary Survey from YMCA of the USA and Search Institute on What Parents Need to Succeed—Bulk copies of the 16-summary report on the Building Strong Families study are available from Search Institute, providing key information and stories for each of the five key findings..
• Grading Grown-Ups 2002—This summary of a major Search Institute study of American adults and teenagers focuses on building relationships between children and nonparent adults. It highlights the importance of parents inviting other adults to build relationship with their children. Sold in packets.
• Ideas for Parents Newsletter Master Set—This collection of 50 reproducible newsletter masters provides schools and other organizations with an easy-to-use resource to offer parents asset-building ideas. It includes two introductory newsletters, a newsletter on each category of assets, and one newsletter for each of the 40 assets.
• Martin’s Good Things—This children’s storybook introduces the message behind the 40 assets. Designed for parents and children to read together. Sold in packets.
• Pass It On! Ready-to-Use Handouts for Asset Builders —This book contains almost 100 reproducible handouts with tips for asset building, including many for parents and extended family.
• The Possible Dream: What Families in Distressed Communities Need to Help Youth Thrive—This study of families in two economically distressed communities examines the opportunities for and challenges of asset building by Families. It emphasizes the importance of both informal and formal supports for families.
• The Power of Parents: Parent Engagement in Schools and the Developmental Assets—This resource describes how the developmental asset framework offers school communities a powerful resource for strengthening relationships between parents, school staff, and students, based on experiences in schools in Colorado.
• What Young Children Need to Succeed Leader’s Guide—This guide includes workshop outlines for parent education and reproducible handouts on asset building with children from birth to age 10.
• You Can Make a Difference for Kids—This interactive booklet introduces people to the assets in nontechnical language. Includes the framework of assets for each age group of children. Sold in packets.