Potential Methods of Identifying Youths in Most Need of Character Strength Interventions

Character strengths such as resilience, empathy, and self-regulation are critical to youthdevelopment, yet many young people lack the conditions to cultivate them equally.Psychological distress, social pressures, and environmental disadvantages can impedecharacter growth, compounding mental health disparities. To support targeted, effectiveinterventions, we argue that it is essential to improve how we identify youths most in need ofcharacter strength development. This commentary examines emerging and established methodsfor identifying such youth, including psychological assessments, behavioural indicators, riskprofiling, self-reporting, data-driven tools, community input, and longitudinal tracking. Wealso highlight key limitations and ethical concerns associated with these approaches, and callfor more refined, context-sensitive frameworks that balance accuracy with care.