In-School Programs

Project Cornerstone facilitates the following activities with our partner schools:

SCHOOL STAFF:

• Training for teachers, administrators and and support staff on developmental assets and how they can be major asset builders in the lives of their students. By building positive relationships with students, creating a safe learning environment and developing asset building programs and practices in their classrooms teachers and all school staff can build these critical developmental assets in their students.

STUDENTS

• Expect Respect Student Workshops for diverse students resulting in student-developed action plans for engaging their peers and partnering with school staff to create safe, caring school climates., where bullying behavior is minimized. Follow up support and coaching is provided.

• Cornerstone Clubs:
  Students create action plans at a Project Cornerstone led "Expect Respect" workshop to help make their school a safe and fun place for all students to learn. Students take their plans a step further and develop Cornerstone Clubs at their schools to not only continue to promote caring school climates, but to foster the development of all the assets in their school environment.

PARENTS

• Training for parents and other caregivers in the importance of developmental assets in the lives of their children is provided at eh elementray, middle and high school levels. Project Cornerstone staff work with school administrators to design the parent training as a good "fit" for wch school community. The core of pareant training is the "Taking Asset Buiding Personally" study group.
• Parent engagement programs:
  1. Asset Building Champion (ABC) Parents: Project Cornerstone trains and coaches parents to read children's literature books and lead classroom activities related to bullying prevention and promoting positive peer interactions. On a monthly basis, one of our major goals of the ABC program is to create a common language within the entire school community around teh issue of peer abuse. Over 10,000 students were impacted every moonth by the program in 2005-2006 and it is anticipated those numbers will double in 2006-2007.
  2. Los Dichos de la Casa: Project Cornerstone trains and coaches Spanish-speaking parents to read bilingual childrens literature in elementary school classrooms to both build assets with the students and to engage the parents as active members of the school community.  "Dichos" are Mexican, values-based proverbs that are central themes in many of the books and related lessons/activities. Adult volunteers read in Spanish with the classroom teachers or students reading the English translations. Over 100 parent volunteers read to 6,000 children during the 2005-2006 school year. Los Dichos volunteers will begin the 2006-2007 school year reading to 12,000 students at 31 schools county-wide.

To book a workshop or for more information, contact Linda Silvius at lasilvius@earthlink.net.