Lights On Afterschool 2012

This is a first-time unified effort to spotlight Lights On Afterschool, a national event, in Oklahoma City.  Within a few weeks, directors of Oklahoma City afterschool programs of all kinds brainstormed and volunteered to have a little fun and show parents and the community what is available for their youth.  Next year will be even a bigger showcase of talent, fun, and organizations. 

Perhaps those of you in other communities around Oklahoma will host your own event next October.  We will offer advance information for 2013. 

Thanks to OKAN and Junior League of Oklahoma City for inviting us to participate.

Turn on yellow lights for Lights On Afterschool 2012! 

By the way, Jabee Williams has written and performed a song for and about Oklahoma City.  Here is an excerpt.

http://www.2dopeboyz.com/2012/02/20/jabee-cool-video/

Mentoring and Tutoring Program in Alva

Ms. Schaun Aker

On a recent trip to Alva, I finally had the great fortune to meet the librarian and mentoring director at Alva's Lincoln Elementary.  Having moved from Illinois, Schaun Aker is new to Oklahoma, but she already loves the state, the town, the school, and the students!  Schaun and I had emailed and talked by phone about her program previously; she is passionate, lively, and fun.

Schaun was in the midst of a Scholastic Book Fair, by which the library and perhaps one other school program could fundraise while encouraging students to read.  In the morning in the hall outside of the library, she had drinks and doughnuts.  As you can see from the photo of a photo, parents and students browsed after eating.

We hope to have one or two Academic All-State Alumni sign up to mentor in the program at Lincoln; the elementary is in walking distance of the school.

Whether the collegians volunteer or not, we are proud of Ms. Aker and her program and of her supportive principal Mr. Argo.

Alva Public Schools also has tutoring and mentoring programs at Washington Elementary, directed by Terri Parson, and Longfellow Elementary, directed by Sarah Green.

Congratulations to Alva!

Bullying Report and Tips

Martin Fleming, the principal of For KidSake, sent via email this free newsletter for which you can subscribe.  For KidSake also offers TeleClass, a blog, publications and other resources free and for sale.  http://www.forkidsake.net/      
  
Helpful to mentors, parents, school personnel, and mentoring organizations are the results of the study and practical tips on what bystanders can do to thwart bullying.  Imagine a mentoring group role playing these tips!  Most kids will stand up for what is right if they are empowered. 

Mr. Fleming's newsletter contents and For KidSake photo received 9-27-12:

 

School Tools Newsletter

the perfect resource for great school climate

•  Academic performance tied to being bullied

Bullied teenagers in England attain significantly lower test scores than other children, according to a study that claims to prove a statistical correlation between abuse at school and educational achievement for the first time.  The GCSE results of children bullied at 14 or 15 are two grades lower, and their total score is 13 fewer points, the government-backed report says.  The study, “The Characteristics of Bullying Victims in Schools”, claims it is the first in-depth investigation of the impact of the problem on GCSE- age pupils. Researchers studied 10,000 children; the full findings are due in January.

Almost half of the 14-year-olds who took part said they had been bullied; this figure fell to 41 per cent at 15 and 29 per cent at 16.  The most common type of bullying at all ages was name-calling and cyberbullying, followed by being threatened with violence, social exclusion and being attacked.  Bullies were most likely to target those with special educational needs, pupils with a disability and children in care.

Previous studies have established that bullying victims have lower self- esteem and are at greater risk of suicide but have not examined the link with academic performance.  “There are all kinds of factors associated with bullying which could contribute to not doing as well in exams. Unhappiness and depression affect children’s work, too.”

But Richard Piggin, head of operations at the charity Beatbullying, said he had met many young people who described having to “dumb down” to avoid being picked on.  “They don’t want to be seen as different, and that goes for those with a particular talent in music or sport too,” Mr Piggin said.

 

•   Talking points for school staff when working with the bystanders or the perpetrator in a bullying situation

Bystanders need to …
• Avoid laughing or joining in when bullying occurs
• Tell the students who is bullying to stop
• Encourage other bystanders to be supportive
• Say something kind or supportive to the target of bullying
• Invite the student who is being bullied to walk, sit, work or socialize with them
• Encourage the target to talk to an adult about what happened and offering to accompany them
• Tell an adult at school what has happened
• Talk to an adult at home about what has happened.

Bullies need to…
• Reflect on their reasons for participating in bullying behavior
• Reflect on their values or the type of person they wish to be
• Take the perspective of the students they are bullying and thinking about how they might feel
• Think about and trying out alternative ways of addressing their feelings and impulses.

This School Tools Newsletter comes to you from the folks at For KidSake.
We can be reached at info@fksteleclass.com             Mark 9:37

• Free Items (TeleClass, time-sensitive opportunity, October 10th)

Free ebook!

This article highlights the steps a small school implemented to vastly improve their school climate. The outcomes are measured, research-backed, and straight-forward.

Free staff meeting activity!

This excellent activity, Opinion Juggle, is designed for administrators or other workshop leaders who want to get everyone talking about the important topic at hand, but to do it in a constructive and effective manner.

Free TeleClass!
This month's free TeleClass is The Latest and Best Strategies for Great School Climate. Sixty minutes packed with the latest research and promising practices. All our TeleClasses are conducted over the telephone and on the internet. Simply dial in at the beginning of class, listen on your phone, and watch the powerpoints on your computer.

Wednesday, October 10th 9:00 am pacific coast time 

National Honor

The Boys and Girls Clubs Youth of the Year is Trei Dudley of Lawrence, Kansas.

Congratulations to the work of Boys and Girls Clubs nationally!

Oscar winner Denzel Washington is a twenty-year spokesman for B&GC.

Statistics:  The national group serving about 4 million youths receives $48 million in federal funding and has an operating budget of $1.5 billion. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#49095311

Ret. 9-20-12

For more about the Boys and Girls Clubs of America: http://www.bgca.org/Pages/index.aspx

For more about Trei Dudley: http://www.bgca.org/whoweare/alumni/Pages/YouthOfTheWeek.aspx

Free Background Checks

 

Although we know that the most reliable and most expensive background checks are based upon fingerprints, Oklahoma mentoring organizations use various means to investigate their volunteers. 

If designing or improving a program, always seek direction from the research-based content on
http://www.mentoring.org/program_resources/criminal_background_checks. 

Another resource for beginning a program, the Center for Disease Control offers guidelines to create policy through Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Within Youth-serving Organizations: Getting Started on Policies and Procedures at

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/preventingchildabuse.html. 

The United States Department of Justice's Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website, listed within MENTOR's website, allows a sex offender search nationally or by areas
http://www.nsopw.gov/core/conditions.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1.

Some organizations use firms such as SelectForce, Trak-1, or others.  Client searches can be customized and done online for fees; the more detailed the checks, the more the cost.  Simply Google to find other sources.

Back to free background checks...

Yukon's Helping Hand Volunteers program, one of the largest in the state, however, uses FREE background checks. 

For the simple volunteer form, the Helping Hand Volunteers' staff uses the downloadable OSBI information request at http://www.ok.gov/osbi/documents/RecordCheckForm.pdf. 

Then staff members check these links for volunteers:

• http://www.familywatchdog.us/ (a national sex offender registry)

• http://docapp065p.doc.state.ok.us/servlet/page?_pageid=395&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30  (Oklahoma Department of Corrections)

• http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/start.asp?viewType=DOCKETS (Oklahoma Supreme Court Network)

On the OSCN site, you can select "Search Dockets," and it will give you a group of counties in Oklahoma that report directly to the network.  If you select "Non-OCIS Counties" it will give you the remaining Oklahoma counties and the information from them. We use both tabs. Christal has these addresses among her "favorites."


Thanks to Christal for the information from Yukon.

Christal G. Whitmire
Secretary
Yukon Public Schools Helping Hand Volunteers
405-354-3716 x1031

P.S.
Looking at someone's Facebook page is also a positive way to monitor activities. 

Seeking Oklahoma Youth Mentoring Groups

Among other services, the David and Molly Boren Mentoring Initiative identifies and registers Oklahoma's youth mentoring organizations of various types to maintain an online directory and network the various groups.

Variety exists even within types such as school-based, community-based, or faith-based as well as one-to-one, team, group, and other subcategories. 

For example, we believe more youth PEER mentoring programs exist in Oklahoma, but we need contact information.

Help us identify any Oklahoma youth mentoring organizations not listed currently on our website http://www.ofe.org/mentoring/programs.htm.

Beverly


Photo:  http://www.fotosearch.com/clip-art/youth.html

Mentor Matching by a Higher Design

INTEGRIS Health in Oklahoma has at least one mentoring program in each community where it operates a hospital.  INTEGRIS Health's Kathy Lowder, whose multiple job descriptions include mentoring and school partnership director, has phenomenal intuition in matching mentors and mentees after studying paperwork and conducting interviews.

Her sister Kay always says Kathy's matching is "a God thing."  Often the match has nothing to do with Kathy's abilities or choices.  Recently, for example, Kathy matched a pair who had the same health issues, although she did not know until after the match.  Read below about a special match.

It was a typical day for me in late August – running around thinking about all the paperwork I have sitting on my desk.

I had returned to the INTEGRIS charter school, Stanley Hupfeld Academy, to take a few more photos of students that I had missed.  Again, running around like a crazy woman.

I entered a kindergarten classroom, and the cutest little red-haired girl came up to me to give me a big hug.  I didn’t think a lot about it . . . until later.

Later that day while in my office, I finally connected with a new mentor from INTEGRIS.  We had literally been playing phone tag all week.  After explaining our mentoring program, she was ready to sign up!  What a great thing for one of our students – and for me!  Of course, we discussed all the details of the program, and then I asked the mentor one final question – “Is there any specific type of student that you’d like to work with?” 

Her answer took me quite by surprise – “Do you have any red-haired children?”

I was quite taken aback – seeing as though the majority of our student population is African-American, we don’t have many red-headed students. 

The reason for her request was that she encountered some obstacles while in school as a red-head and wanted to help someone else.

Kathy Lowder
INTEGRIS Health
Community Wellness and Diversity
Oklahoma City

http://openclipart.org/tags/redhead

Do you have some mentoring match stories to share?