The Clover Model (Noam & Triggs, 2018) underlies much of ISRY’s work. The Clover Model is Developmental Process Theory of Social-Emotional Development developed by Dr. Gil Noam and the PEAR institute. The Clover Model aims to explain the social-emotional skills necessary for young people to thrive and how to align the impact of physical, cognitive, and social development with their natural development to help build social-emotional competencies.

The Clover Model of Youth Development

 
 

The Four Domains

The Clover Model highlights four essential elements that people of all ages need in order to thrive, learn, and develop: Active Engagement, Assertiveness, Belonging, and Reflection.

 
 

  • The Active Engagement leaf is about physically connecting to the world.

  • The Assertiveness leaf represents agency, self-efficacy, the ability to negotiate one’s self in relation to others, and make decisions.

  • The Belonging leaf represents building strong relationships with peers and adults, group acceptance and group identity.

  • The Reflection leaf describes the need to create and make meaning.

 

Active Engagement

The Active Engagement leaf is about physically connecting to the world. Everyone (regardless of their physical ability) exists in their body–physical existence is the foundation of mental and emotional existence. The body is a significant factor in psychosomatic, eating, and stress disorders.

Area of focus: Body, impulse, executive function, and movement

Needs: Hands-on activities; experiential learning; opportunities to move the body; structure; frequent short breaks; immediate rewards. To create more balance, practice reflection skills to improve impulse and emotion control.

Assertiveness

The Assertiveness leaf represents agency, self-efficacy, the ability to negotiate one’s self in relation to others, and make decisions. All humans feel the need to affect the world around them. Assertiveness reminds us that young people need opportunities to develop their voices, make decisions for themselves, and master internal order and executive function.

Area of focus: Voice, choice, and decision making/executive function

Needs: Choices and options, the opportunity to have a certain amount of control over things, being able to express an opinion, and have it heard, respect and validation, opportunities to lead. To create more balance, develop belonging to learn empathy, strengthen relationships with peers and adults, and learn perspective-taking.

Belonging

The Belonging leaf represents building strong relationships with peers and adults, group acceptance and group identity. The need for belonging is central to our early development in our attachment to our caregivers and continues throughout our lives in a variety of ways. Humans are social creatures, and group belonging is essential for well-being and survival.

Area of focus: Friendship, empathy, trust, and support

Needs: Connection to others and a feeling of belonging to a group. To create more balance, develop assertiveness to build a strong sense of self, personal voice, and independence.

Reflection

The Reflection leaf describes the need to create and make meaning. It involves making sense of one’s own experiences, emotions and thoughts to create a sense of personal identity. Humans are conscious creatures; in fact, many philosophers have argued that the ability to reflect and take perspective is what makes humans unique.

Area of focus: Thought, analysis, insight, observation and understanding

Needs: To find meaning in their lives and the world around them. To create more balance, develop the active engagement domain to help youth step outside their thoughts by engaging the body.