Youth serving agencies and programs are hotbeds for asset building success! Some examples include:

Andrea Schacter, Community Values Youth Asset Champion 2004

Asset Champion award winner Community Values Youth 2005
Andrea Schacter, San Jose Library
Ms. Schacter is coordinator and advocate for the Library’s teensReach youth council and volunteer group. TeensReach members are 13 to 18 years old and come from diverse backgrounds to serve as advisors to the San Jose Public Library and as library advocates in the community. Under her leadership, membership in teensReach has grown from 50 to 392.

Andrea makes libraries places where youth feel welcome. A survey on the library’s teen web page encourages feedback and suggestions from youth. TeensReachers met with Andrea and an interior designer to choose furniture and fixtures for the teen centers being planned in new branches. And, through her annual Teen Art Contest, youth proudly display their creations at the library and win prizes for their work. Click here for more.

Two teenaged female clients of Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY) were volunteering at a local nursing home when a fight broke out between two of the female residents.  The volunteers, former gang members trying to model a non-violent lifestyle, told the two women that fighting was no way to resolve differences.  Instead, the residents were escorted into the dayroom by the volunteers and told to do a “dance-off” instead.  There they stood; two elderly women with their walkers, dancing away their differences as directed by the two former gang members, who stood on the sidelines beaming with pride at their ability to help others solve a problem without violence.

Asset Champion award winner Adult Role Model 2005
Sgt. John Rose, San Jose Police Department
Sgt. Rose oversees Challenges and Choices (C2), a 10 week program that teaches 3rd, 5th and 7th graders how to make good decisions around gangs, drugs and violence. He also manages Safe Alternatives Violence Education (SAVE), a diversion program for juveniles who commit minor weapons offenses.

In addition, Sgt. Rose has provided assets education material to the High School Police Academy program and at San Jose Police Basic Academy. As a result, nearly 360 new officers are aware of and able to implement asset building.

The YWCA’s New Options program helps at-risk youth stay on track by offering after school programs where the kids can receive tutoring and have positive interactions with their peers.  YW staff members use the assets model for much of their curriculum, including modules on pride in one’s heritage.  One student shared that his mother was pregnant and was trying to think of a name for the new baby boy.  The student said his mother was thinking about the name Anthony until he said, “Mom, we’re Mexican and Anthony is NOT a Mexican name.  He needs to be proud of his culture so you need to give him a name that has Hispanic roots.”  Needless to say, she did just that.

Each autumn, Children’s Discovery Museum offers a program called BioSITE (Students Investigating Their Environment).  This educational course pairs high school students with groups of 4th and 5th graders, and together they learn about the health of local rivers.  This gives younger students the opportunity to benefit from individual instruction and attention while older students get to serve in a leadership role while learning valuable teaching and mentoring skills.  The elementary school participants are also exposed to positive peer influences from the older students, and many have expressed a desire to be BioSITE leaders when they get to high school.

Links:
www.flyprogram.org
www.ywca-sv.org
www.cdm.org

Share a story about how you have built assets.