Committee on Adolescent Health and development

In 1996, the Board on Children, Youth, and Families established the Forum on Adolescence to sustain and extend the work begun by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development a decade earlier. With core support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Forum has become a national focal point for authoritative, nonpartisan analysis of research and policy issues that relate to adolescents and their families.

The Forum’s success has provided impetus for its evolution into a standing committee within the NRC and IOM — the Committee on Adolescent Health and Development. As a standing committee, this group had greater authority and flexibility. Unlike the Forum, the committee was able to establish ad-hoc committees, convene workshops, and author reports.

The Committee was made up of approximately 20 individuals who represented a wide spectrum of expertise — adolescent medicine, public health, mental health, adolescent development (cognitive/social), family systems/parenting, neurology/endocrinology, education, youth service organizations, public policy (federal/state), local elected and appointed officials, labor market/economics, community development, religious organizations, social work, criminology, philanthropy, business/private sector, and statistics/methodology.

In March 2005, the Committee was dissolved and its portfolio of activities was integrated into the BCYF agenda.