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Youth Leaders in Action Academy
From:
Katherine Williams, Program Manager
Wake County 4-H Youth Development
Need/Purpose:
Local law enforcement estimates more than 2,000 gang members in Wake County, typically males between 13 and mid-twenties. Many at risk of gang involvement do not have access to programs that could prevent gang involvement and are unserved or underserved by local health agencies.
- Develop a variety of specific education, training and employment programs for targeted youth in targeted communities and neighborhoods.
- Assist them, their families, and other community leaders in adopting pro-social values, experiential learning and producing valuable service.
How (activities):
- Offer four track program that build developmental assets and marketable skills:
- Youth Advisory Council (YAC),
- Community-based Mapping Assets Project (CMAP),
- Summer Teen Health Outreach ten-week camp experience,
- PODER (Positive Outcomes Delivered through Entrepreneurial Resiliency).
Outcomes:
- YAC participants will increase communication and leadership skills, and strengthen their sense of personal accomplishment;
- By engaging youth in mapping assets of their community with adult volunteers, CMAP will develop marketable skills and useful maps of community resources;
- Eighteen Summer Teen Health Outreach participants will develop a sense of personal power and increase their self-esteem, become valuable information resources in their communities, and exercise positive decision-making regarding their sexual health;
- Youth in the PODER track will develop the job readiness and entrepreneurial skills that provide an alternative to gang involvement;
- Developmental Asset Profiles will be used with all groups to document, quantify and portray adolescent reports of assets working in their lives.
Cost/Term: $505,103 over three years. January 2008 - December 2010
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