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1. Recent Success:
After years of combing the local community to fill its leadership positions,
NJS finally realized that perhaps its most potent, invested leadership
force was maturing within our own after-school community. With continuing
financial support from the Davis Foundation, we have recruited and developed
our first "Teen Counseling Crew". This
stipened group of five youth (all of whom have been NJS members for at
least 5 years) is actively involved in weekly sessions as outlined in
a newly designed NJS Youth Counselor training curriculum. They have impressively
taken on some specific Jump-Start leadership responsibilities and have
respectfully served as our representatives in a few coalition building
activities. Is the time coming for the current program director to seriously
consider retirement??
2) Big Challenge
Assuming the uphill struggle
to fund a small, community-based program can be ignored for a moment,
our biggest programmatic challenge relates to our success in sustaining
long-term relationships with our youth members. Instead of rotating new
sets of youth through a tried and
true cluster of services and activities, it becomes our responsibility
to continually and creatively evolve the assortment of resources and
opportunities we provide in order to keep the program fresh, exciting
and relevant.
3) A Successful Strategy
A guiding principle
that Jump-Start strongly subscribes to is what the NEARI agency refers
to as "staff centered." It makes sense that if a
primary focus/strategy of a program/school/agency is to provide ample
resources in wisely supporting, effectively training and generously appreciating
its staff members, there will be a clear trickle-down effect into the
quality of its direct youth related work.
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