Flourishing is linked with health and well-being in childhood and adulthood. This study applied a promotive factors model to examine how neighborhood assets might benefit child and adolescent flourishing by promoting family resilience. Using data from the combined 2018 and 2019 National Survey of Children’s Health, structural equation models tested direct and indirect relationships between neighborhood physical environment, neighborhood social cohesion, family resilience, and flourishing among 18,396 children and 24,817 adolescents. After controlling for multiple covariates that may influence flourishing, the models supported that higher levels of neighborhood social cohesion were directly associated with higher levels of flourishing adolescents, and indirectly by positive associations with family resilience for both children and adolescents. No indirect effects between neighborhood physical environments and flourishing were supported by the data for either children or adolescents. However, neighborhood physical environments were positively associated with adolescent flourishing. Understanding social environmental factors that strengthen and enhance child and adolescent flourishing are critical toward designing prevention, intervention, and policy efforts that can build on the existing strengths of families and their communities.

Collective efficacy has been one of the most valuable and influential concepts in neighborhood research of the past 20 years. However, interventions designed to increase collective efficacy report mixed findings, suggesting that there may be a gap between collective efficacy theory and practice. We assert that the conceptualization of collective efficacy limits its ability to guide and evaluate community-based practice. This article contributes to the literature by critiquing collective efficacy with the intention of increasing its utility to inform community-based practice, conceptualizing mutual efficacy as a construct that is unique from social cohesion and informal social control, and developing a model of collective efficacy that includes mutual efficacy.

Empowerment refers to the ways in which individuals and groups gain greater control over their lives. To date, the majority of studies focus on empowerment at the individual level. Further, research typically focuses on how to make people feel empowered and not how communities exercise their power. The present study utilizes collective efficacy, a community-level theory, to explore community characteristics that may empower individuals to engage in household activism, and communities to participate in neighborhood activism. The findings suggest that mutual efficacy and social cohesion are key drivers of participation in both household and neighborhood activism. Self-efficacy is associated with household activism only. Findings suggest that it is important to use individual-level skill-building opportunities as a method for fostering a collective identity and train community members to recruit others. In addition, community-building initiatives are more likely to result in activism if they focus on building mutual efficacy in the community.

Volunteering has been defined as any activity to which (1) an individual devotes their free time; and (2) a second person or group receives a benefit (Wilson, 2000). This definition includes a larg...