If Relationships Are the “Oxygen” of PYD, What Builds the Atmosphere?
In his final essay for Search Institute, Peter C. Scales offers the field of Positive Youth Development (PYD) both a synthesis and a directive. A New Generation of Positive Youth Development reflects on five decades of research while issuing a clear challenge: if developmental relationships are truly the “oxygen of human development,” then the next charge is understanding how organizations become relationally rich by design and not by chance.
Decades of research demonstrate that developmental relationships, which are defined as close, sustained connections through which young people experience care, challenge, support, shared power, and expanded possibilities, predict thriving across developmental domains. What remains less well understood is how organizations create the conditions in which these relationships consistently emerge and endure. At KBD Collaborative, this is where we situate our work; not in restating what developmental relationships are, but in operationalizing how organizations can reliably support them. Our consulting practice focuses on the organizational dynamics, adult learning conditions, and systems-level drivers that make relational richness for all young people possible at scale.
Moreover, we respond to this challenge through an intentional evaluation approach designed not simply to measure outcomes, but to strengthen organizational capacity for relational work as it unfolds. Rather than treating evaluation as a retrospective exercise, we integrate it throughout the life of a project as a learning and improvement process, using multiple forms of data to help organizations understand how their structures, cultures, and staff experiences shape young people’s access to developmental relationships. Across our work, we assess a set of foundational organizational conditions or “key drivers,” including how hope is cultivated and sustained, how trust is built, how resources are allocated, how policies and practices reinforce values, and how learning and progress are recognized. We then use those insights to guide targeted capacity building that supports consistent, impactful experiences for young people.
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Developmental relationships do not arise simply because individual adults are well-intentioned, nor can they be sustained through isolated trainings or charismatic leadership. Instead, Scales highlights the organizational systems themselves, which contain their own structures, policies, cultures, and climates that will either enable or constrain staff’s ability to foster meaningful relationships with young people. In practice, when youth report that program quality is weak, the root cause is rarely a lack of commitment on the part of program staff. More often, it is misaligned organizational design, such as unrealistic workloads, insufficient planning time, compliance-driven accountability, or professional learning that emphasizes skills without altering conditions.
Five Key Drivers for Supportive Systems
At KBD Collaborative, we work with youth-serving organizations to assess and strengthen what we consider to be 5 key drivers of staff behavior: Hope, Trust, Resources, Responsive Policies & Practices, and Celebration. These levers are not youth-facing strategies. They are adult- and system-facing conditions that shape whether all young people will experience developmentally meaningful relationships consistently and equitably.
Hope: Scales emphasizes that a sense of purpose is central to thriving. This insight applies as much to adults as it does to youth. Drawing on Snyder’s theory, hope has three distinct components, which include having clear goals; agency (a sense of “I can do this”); and viable pathways to get to where you want to be. In youth-serving systems, hope grows when staff see how their daily efforts contribute to a larger vision and when they feel empowered to take meaningful action.
Organizational Indicators of Hope:
Staff clarity around shared goals
Perceived agency to cultivate youth outcomes
Alignment between organizational vision and day-to-day expectations
Trust: Trust is the currency of effective systems. In youth development, relationships are the foundation of practice, and trust among staff and leadership directly shapes staff performance. When adults experience transparency and psychological safety, they are more willing to reflect, learn, and adapt their practice in ways that benefit youth. Without trust, evidence-based practices may be met with skepticism or resistance.
Organizational Indicators of Trust:
Alignment between stated values and enacted decisions
Willingness to engage in low-stakes data practices
Protection from punitive consequences
Resources: Scales points to the now extensive evidence base identifying the features of PYD settings that support relationship building. Yet to raise relational expectations, youth-serving organizations must also adjust key resourcing conditions, such as staffing models, schedules, and supporting materials. When staff have what they need, evidence-based practices are more likely to take root.
Organizational Indicators of Resources:
Alignment between time demands and role expectations
Access to coaching and reflective supervision
Equitable resource distribution across sites and roles
Responsive Policies & Practices: Supportive policies ensure relational work is not left to individual effort but is instead reinforced by the system itself. Scales urges the field to examine how organizational policies shape relational opportunity and inclusion. These include practices that protect staff time, align expectations across roles, center staff well-being, and create feedback loops for continued learning. Further, policies are not neutral; they operationalize values and distribute power (john a. powell, Other & Belonging Institute).
Organizational Indicators of Responsive Policies:
Staff-to-youth ratios
Seasonal workload adjustments
Advancement policies
Celebration: Celebration fuels motivation and belonging. In youth systems, where the work is demanding and often invisible, recognizing small wins and honoring progress helps sustain commitment and joy.
Organizational Indicators of Celebration:
Recognition of effort, growth, and learning
Use of stories as legitimate evidence of impact
Opportunities for collective celebration
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Carrying the Work Forward
In A New Generation of Positive Youth Development, Dr. Scales reflects on how far the field of PYD has come while underscoring how much remains to be learned, particularly around the organizational conditions that support deeply meaningful developmental experiences.
We read his essay as an invitation to move from evidence frameworks to infrastructures, or as we often refer to it, toward more fully integrating what we want to Do with inclusive ways of Knowing that inform our ways of Being. By focusing on the organizational drivers that shape adult behavior, we support youth-serving systems in becoming places where developmental relationships are not exceptional, but expected, because the conditions make them possible.