Prevention research often focuses on ‘fixing’ youth—but what if the real intervention is dismantling the systems that harm them? This talk reframes social justice youth development (SJYD) as a form of structural prevention, showing how critical consciousness, community organizing, and culturally sustaining spaces can serve as a foundation in prevention science shifting from reactive interventions to transformative, equity-centered solutions. We will discuss how traditional prevention science methodologies often pathologizes marginalized youth while SJYD models—rooted in abolitionist pedagogies and community power—address root causes: racism, poverty, and state violence. For researchers and practitioners, we will share frameworks to align prevention goals with transformative justice, ensuring youth aren’t just ‘stopped from risk’ but are supported to thrive. This is prevention reimagined.
About the Speaker
Dr. Corliss Outley has spent her career advocating for equity and inclusion for underrepresented, first-generation and low-income youth in all areas of society. Dr. Outley is a Full Professor in the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management Department and the Director of the Race, Ethnicity, Youth & Social Equity (REYSE) Collaboratory at Clemson University. In her current role, she teaches and conducts research designed to explore, create and share knowledge that contributes to understanding how social inequalities influence the development of youth populations during out-of-school time hours.
Her scholarly work includes over 75 publications, several book chapters, over 250 presentations and trainings, over $5 million in research dollars, and a PBS DragonFly TV spotlight episode on “real scientists” as an Urban Play Researcher. Many of her projects focus on using community-based research methods that prioritizes the participation of residents, especially youth, via community mapping, life histories, photovoice, and art as data collection methods. She is recognized as a community-engaged scholar for her expertise regarding social justice, diversity and inclusion/belonging in youth development programming, curriculum development, staff training, and research and evaluation. In February 2023, she was honored as the first Black woman to be inducted into the Academy of Leisure Sciences.
Outley earned her B.S. in Biology at Grambling State University in 1992, her M.S. in Forestry from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1994 and in 2000 her Ph.D. in Recreation and Natural Resources Development from Texas A&M University.
A native of Los Angeles, CA, Corliss is married and has a daughter in college. She enjoys reading mystery and Afro/Africanfuturism books, collecting elephants and Disney Dumbo (1941) artifacts, serving the community as a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and enjoying the outdoors.
This is the PRC’s 5th Annual Lecture on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Prevention Science and Practice — co-sponsored this year by the Prevention Research Center and the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management within the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.
