Program Highlight: Youth Development Programs
Since beginning as a two-generation mentoring project back in 1991, Full Circle of Lake County has been well known around town as a youth-serving organization. But why have we continued to invest so much in ensuring youth have access to high quality out-of-school time programs these last 30+ years? The answer is we believe that investing in youth’s health & well-being is investing in our community’s health & well-being, now & in the future.
Three boys standing in the woods during a Mentoring Adventure Boys Group activity.
Full Circle of Lake County offers out-of-school time groups for high schoolers (Be Awesome, Youth Action Squad, and Cloud City High School groups), middle schoolers (SELOOST 7/8th Girls, SELOOST 7th/8th Boys, SELOOST 6th Girls, and SELOOST 6th Boys), and 4th/5th graders (Mentoring Adventure Girls, and Mentoring Adventure Boys). The common elements across all of Full Circle’s youth development programs are: fun & diverse prosocial activities, social-emotional learning (SEL) development through Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) curriculum sessions, community service projects, and peer education/peer leadership opportunities. Youth in our programs not only learn about the 6 Kindness Concepts–respect, caring, inclusiveness, integrity, responsibility, and courage–but they also get meaningful opportunities each week to practice these with their peers in their group, with their group leader, and/or with community members at large. Participants are developing & strengthening social-emotional skills even when it seems like they’re just ice skating together, raking leaves at the cemetery, giving a survey to classmates, etc. In 2021-2022, Full Circle reached 172 unique youth across all of our youth program groups. We offered 373 youth activities, which were 68% prosocial, 20% RAK-curriculum-based, 7% community service, and 5% peer education/peer leadership.
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leader in studying & championing SEL-based youth programming, shared research that showed after-school programs that sought to enhance personal and social skills produced significant increases in youth participants’ self-perceptions & bonding to school, positive social behaviors, and school grades & levels of academic achievement, and produced significant reductions in problem behaviors.(1) Full Circle of Lake County’s own evaluation data in 2021-2022 showed that 81% of youth development program participants increased their social-emotional skills across 3 of the 5 CASEL SEL competencies. These are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.
Quantitative data is great, but what we’re really proud of is what youth themselves said about program impact. We asked youth in focus groups, “What were the most important skills you gained from this program?” and their responses included: “to not give up and keep trying;” “be more social;” “socializing;” “be a supportive friend;” “being more respectful;” “how to be a better person - don’t litter, be more respectful of others/environment;” “kindness;” “happiness;” “communication skills;” etc.
We could not have this type of impact if it were not for our many, wonderful funding partners who support our youth development programs. We humbly thank Tony Grampsas Youth Services, Colorado Health Foundation, El Pomar Foundation, Caring for Colorado Foundation, The Summit Foundation, Vail Ski Resort/Beaver Creek Ski Resort and EpicPromise Foundation, and our may generous individual donors who make this programming possible for youth in Leadville and Lake County.
Middle school girls laughing on the ice at the ice rink during a 7/8th Grade Girls Group ice skating activity.
(1) Durlak, Joseph A., et al. “A Meta‐Analysis of after‐School Programs That Seek to Promote Personal and Social Skills in Children and Adolescents.” American Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 45, no. 3-4, 2010, pp. 294–309., https://casel.org/a-meta-analysis-of-after-school-programs-that-seek-to-promote-personal-and-social-skills-in-children-and-adolescents-2/?view=true. Accessed 5 Dec. 2022.