Paper Topic

I want to focus my paper on the first step in positive youth development- bridging the different domains (home, school, and community). I will look at the different partner relationships that can be formed within these interactions. I will mostly use the literature to back up my argument of partnerships for long-term success in pyd programming. If some of you girls decide to do interviews with ALA staff, I would also like to get on board and ask some questions pertaining to the organization's and personal views of collaborative work with schools, families, and the community at large.
The structure of my paper will be first background of partnerships, domains, and community organization's role; second specific examples, i.e. Beacon Centers in San Francisco; third any information collected from ALA staff; and fourth my recommendations to ALA of forming these interactions.
I do not believe the paper will be too long, less than 20 pages. I will try to provide an abbreviated version for the super busy ALA staff. The paper will be academic but not too concerned with the terminology, as the paper will be geared towards ALA staff to inform them of the latest outcomes of different PYD methods and not the theory of PYD.
If this does not seem like a good topic for writing, please let me know!

After Dobie Visit...

New Developments after Dobie visit
1. The after school program will cut after Explore UT at Dobie (something about politics?, according to Lee).
2. When asked what ALA needs from us, the PRP group, Lee responded bluntly with the statement that there is really no need for us.

New approach
As we have focused much of our attention in the last weeks on the Explore UT endeavor, we need to return to our roots, aka the theory of positive youth development. Even though I have enjoyed the "hands-on" activities on planning for Explore UT and the curriculum to prepare for the big day, I have many times questioned the applicability of this time-consuming, planning process to our role as policy students- especially since we had to sell the idea first to skeptical ALA staff. Well since there is "no need for us" at ALA right now I think we should go back to the literature and put it in the context of Austin. I will try to put a flowchart within the week to put all of our past readings into a picture. The problem for me is that I am not a theory person, but I found the 4-H study article titled "Positive Youth Development, Participation in Community Youth Development Programs, and Community Contributions of Fifth-Grade Adolescents : Findings From the First Wave Of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development" to be an excellent resource. Excuse my incoherent thoughts; they will be all mapped out after I put this flowchart together.

Bidwell's connections to PYD

Thoughts after reading the article about Bidwell

1. Mr. Strickland is an incredible man, whose dedication to young people is truly something to replicate (his dedication that is).
2. Bidwell's "successful" programs showcase the importance of money and who you know. These operating budgets and donations are in the hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars, many from big schools or corporations.
3. One statement that made me a bit uneasy was one of Strickland's favorite sayings, "We take people whom society regards as liabilities and make them into assets" (1). It almost seems like the youth are just part of a business transaction.
4. The success of this program was evaluated on the basis of the number of kids that went through the program, graduated, and got jobs. The article does not address the impact the program has on these neighborhoods- community impact. I do not believe an after school program can be deemed successful just based on the number of kids that went through the program and now are "assets," if as many kids or more are neglected because of the continuing culture of these "unresponsive to youth's needs" communities. The Bidwell program seems like it has had a positive impact on the youth participants' lives; however, fancy programming and wealthy connections does not translate to the model for positive youth development, especially on a community scale.

Dobie visit and looking towards next semester research

Stephanie and I had a fruitful visit to Dobie yesterday. The kids were super excited for their Christmas show- they are presenting "'Twas a night before Christmas," slightly modified to include both English and Spanish words. Instead of reindeers, their version will have burros (donkeys). This highlights the high number of Spanish- speakers at Dobie, and in this program. As Ms. Brittany from ALA was explaining the students' different roles in the show, a few kids needed Spanish translations. It would be interesting to look into this some more- the Spanish-speaking kids in the ALA program (are they getting anything useful from it, except for the social aspect of hanging out with their Spanish-speaking friends?)

We also chatted with Lee and asked him what he would like us as a class to research for ALA. From this conversation, Stephanie and I came up with a rough outline of points we should research soon. Instead of reading more literature about PYD, I believe we are ready to specifically to talk about Austin, Dobie and Webb neighborhood, and ALA.

1. How the schools have changed? Interesting fact: Dobie used to be more of a suburban school now urban. Discuss changing demographics of Austin, and the 2 school neighborhoods
Also find out why Webb receives more funds, especially from the Boys and Girls Club,for clubs and after school activities. While at Dobie, Keeping It Real probably is the only after school activity (that's what Lee believes)

2. Major Current Issues in these neighborhoods
a) Gangs (one youth was telling Lee last week of how he had to sleep on the floor because of drive by shootings.
b) Drop Out Rates- Find out the feeder high schools and their drop out rates
c) Pregnancy rates
d) Available clubs or after school activities

3. Recommendations
a) Specific for the schools
- Strategies
- Ways to get more money/ funds especially for Dobie
- Keep kids out of gangs

Response to comments on draft

After reading the Professor Rhodes's comments on our draft, it is evident that we need to totally revamp our paper. Apparently we have been approaching the draft from the wrong angle this entire semester. Our focus has been predominately on the literature- the theories and the evolution of these theories. We started out our research on dividing up the different theories between the group- resiliency, communication, social capital, etc- and then each individual focused on their topic. In reality we missed researching community organizations- the theories and practice of such organization in PYD, and low income communities and how they are changing, especially in Austin. More public policy reading and less psychology. Also our draft needs to discuss more of ALA and the KIR project. Truthfully most of what I know about both ALA and KIR is from what I read from the comments sheet. ALA still seems like a foreign entity to me; we have only met with them twice. Is there a way I can read more about both, like specific programming information or curriculum of KIR (if there is one)?

Oh ladies we have so much work ahead of us... Stay positive!

Dobie Website

I continued my research on Dobie Middle School, and looked at the page on their website labeled AISD Middle School Education Plan- since it is AISD I am assuming that this plan pertains to all schools. It listed the strategies (similar to our PYD practices), beliefs (similar to our PYD principles), and objectives ( similar to our PYD outcomes). Schools' mission is positive youth development, so it should be little surprise that their plan is similar to that of a positive youth development program (exceptions: schools also have the role in providing academic knowledge and test-taking abilities for furthering education). I also looked at their strategy links on the bottom of the same website page, and found some info that may be useful for our furthering knowledge of school- community-youth relationships.
CIS: Communities in Schools: a nonprofit that links school based social services to community resources. We should check them out because according to their stats- Out of 5,000 youth participants, 86% improved academics, attendance, and/or behavior.
Big Brother/ Big Sister in partnership with CIS works at Dobie.

Character Education/ Service Learning curriculum:
Advancement Via Individual Determination (a college prep program created to increase the number of students who enroll in a four-year college)
-At Dobie for 10 years, serves over 160 6th, 7th, and 8th graders
- student-based leaderships programs: mentoring programs, adopt-a-school (Hart Elementary)
On the website they provided useful student suggestions to the program:
"The following is a student-generated list of advantages offered by the program: learn to be better organized, learn to take notes, request help in any subject during tutoring, get help applying for college, get help securing financial aid for college, go on monthly field trips, participate in service projects, become a campus leader/mentor/role model, listen to great guest speakers, have only two days of actual class each week! "
Some things to keep in mind when drafting a PYD program.

Interesting stat on youth delinquency

http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/offenders/qa03301.asp


Data from law enforcement agencies from 21 states and D.C. found that on school days, the highest numbers of juvenile violent crimes occurred at 3 pm, when school usually lets out. In relation to curfew, the data shows "the rate of juvenile violence in the after school period is almost 6 times the rate in the juvenile curfew period." So, after-school programs may prove pivotal in decreasing the number of violent crimes committed by youth.

(We should add juvenile delinquency in our paper, and how PYD may change youth behavior-youth outcomes section?)