To develop family, community and career capable young adults requires a focus on social and emotional development.  This includes instruction and mentoring on how to relate, think and make decisions.  Mentoring in our estimation is more important than instruction, but our programming attempts to balance both.  For example, teaching judgement is not easy, but we can provide strong role models who coach our children and offer them opportunities to practice appropriate decision making.   

 

• Life skills training – The purpose of life skills is to teach skills necessary to adapt and cope.  We provide training in activities of daily living (ADLs, e.g., hygiene, grooming, etc) through topics related to emotional and psychological wellbeing including respect for others, suicide awareness and bullying.   

• Monthly themes tied to spiritual development and focused on developing social skills and coping in our children – Our monthly themes are selected to provide our children with programs, activities and discussions that emphasize principles of good citizenship, spiritual growth and enables their effectiveness in fellowship with others.  Whenever possible, we align our themes with nationally endorsed or church-endorsed themes.  Our calendar has each theme identified.  

• Monthly observances (e.g., Black history month, anti-bullying, etc) with presentations from SMEs, agencies and others to help develop perspective – An appreciation of the diversity of God’s world and a respect for all His people.  Our observances include the Heritage Celebrations (e.g., Hispanic, Native American, Women’s, Black History); Suicide Awareness, Anti-bullying and Unity Days; and key religious observances.   

• Manhood/Womanhood training – Recognizing that there are some skills and perspectives best taught and mentored by men with boys and women with girls, we provide weekly opportunities for small group discussions in gender-specific groups. 

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