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Young People
| The Horizon Foundation is weaving strong fibers that connect generations and create a healthier environment for Howard County's young people. |
Young People - It's All About Helping Kids Make Connections
Ask recent Reservoir High School graduate Nicole Martino about Connections, the groundbreaking initiative funded by The Horizon Foundation, and she'll tell you it changed her life.
"I made friends with kids I never would have looked at twice," she says. "And it changed my ideas about what I wanted to do in life. I realized I could make a difference in my community."
Connections uses 40 developmental "assets" identified by Search Institute as qualities that enhance a child's mental, physical, emotional and spiritual growth. Among the assets are family support; other adult relationships; a caring, supportive school environment; useful roles in the community; and knowledge of and comfort with people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
At Reservoir, the staff is creating assets by setting aside time each week for advisory periods and arranging an annual retreat or overnight trip where students can learn about different cultures and make friends with kids who aren't part of their usual social group.
Weaving A Stronger Social Fabric
As the nation's social fabric begins to wear thin, The Horizon Foundation is weaving strong fibers that connect generations and create a healthier environment for Howard County's young people.
In the past year, we made Connections even stronger by launching the Connections Center, which aims to become a countywide resource for assisting in educating and building the capacity of Howard County's residents, organizations and institutions. We also established CAT (Connections Action Team), a group of community and youth leaders charged with taking developmental assets into their organizations and schools. Twenty-two young people are CAT members. One, along with an adult, co-chairs the group.
In the coming year, we expect to launch an intergenerational speakers bureau and expand the assets framework to additional county schools.
Teachers And Friends
As a CAT member, Nicole discovered that it can be difficult to "embed assets in the schools - the teachers have lots of things to do in high school," she says. "There are a lot of things for teachers to concentrate on. But when they see how things like advisory empower and encourage kids to get involved, they're glad to spend the time."
The advisory periods match students with teachers they don't see in an academic setting. The teachers help with homework and take the opportunity to chat about everything from grades to what the kids did over the weekend. They also try to attend their advisory students' sporting events and other after-school activities.
"Advisory is so important," Nicole says. "The teachers use it to build relationships and friendships with kids."
In addition to Reservoir, Connections has pilot programs at Burleigh Manor Middle and Deep Run Elementary schools.
During the last school year at Deep Run, each student who could benefit from a relationship with an adult in the building had a teacher or other staff member as a "Ranger Buddy." The adults acted as mentors, left little notes or gifts for their kids, checked to see how they were doing in school, had lunch with them and "generally acted as good adult role models," says principal Fran Donaldson.
As she lists all the asset-building projects Deep Run did last year, Donaldson thinks about the ways her students benefited from the special activities. "We had a great year," she says.