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Table 1 The five Cs of positive youth development [32]

From: Building school-based cardiovascular health promotion capacity in youth: a mixed methods study

Characteristic

Definition

Competence

Positive view of one’s actions in domain specific areas including social, academic, cognitive, and vocational. Social competence pertains to interpersonal skills (e.g., conflict resolution). Cognitive competence pertains to cognitive abilities (e.g., decision-making). School grades, attendance, and test scores are part of academic competence. Vocational competence involves work habits and career choice explorations, including entrepreneurship.

Confidence

An internal sense of overall positive self-worth and self-efficacy; one’s global self-regard, as opposed to domain specific beliefs.

Connection

Positive bonds with people and institutions that are reflected in bidirectional exchanges between the individual and peers, family, school, and community in which both parties contribute to the relationship.

Character

Respect for societal and cultural rules, possession of standards for correct behaviors, a sense of right and wrong (morality), and integrity.

Caring

A sense of sympathy and empathy for others.

  1. Derived from Lerner et al. [24] and Roth et al. [72].