Transcript Presentation Materials - National Mentoring Partnership

Evidence-Based Group
Mentoring that Helps
Transform Schools into Safer
and More Supportive,
Engaging, and Inspiring
Environments
Sherry Barr, Psy.D.
Vice President
Margo Ross, Psy.D.
Senior Director of Development
National Mentoring Summit
January 31, 2014
2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Center for Supportive Schools
The Center for Supportive Schools (CSS) has a 35-year
history of partnering with K-12 schools throughout the US to
train and mobilize students to be lifelong leaders who make
schools better for themselves, their peers, and younger
students.
As a result, schools become safer, more supportive,
engaging, and inspiring and students become:
• strongly connected through caring relationships with
adults and one another; and
• highly capable of using the leadership, academic,
social, and emotional skills that are proven to result in
school and life success.
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CENTER FOR SUPPORTIVE SCHOOLS School-Based Prevention
SESSION OVERVIEW
• Welcome; Introductions
• Examining the Challenges Associated with
Transitioning from Middle to High School:
A Think, Pair, Share Exercise
• Relevance of School Connectedness
• Potential Benefits of a Peer-to-Peer Approach
• Overview of the Characteristics of Effective
Transition Programs
• Case Study of Effective Peer Leadership &
High School Transition Program
• Overview of Peer Group Connection (PGC)
• Final Reflections
• Adjourn
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TRANSITION & CHALLENGES:
A THINK, PAIR, SHARE EXERCISE
From your experiences and
observations, what are the most
significant challenges facing
students as they transition from
middle school to high school?
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Transition to High School
• Research has demonstrated that the stress often
accompanying the transition from middle school to high
school is associated with lowered achievement and
school attendance (Akos & Galassi, 2004)
• By the time they reach high school, as many as 40 to 60
percent of all students – urban, suburban and rural – are
“chronically disengaged” from school (Blum, 2005)
• Students are most vulnerable for dropping out during and
immediately following their first year of high school
(Cohen & Smerdon, 2009)
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Opportunity
By leveraging the power of school-based, group mentoring by
older peers and focusing intensively on the transition from middle
to high school…
We can transform this period of heightened vulnerability into
one of significant opportunity to prevent the potentially
devastating personal and societal consequences of high school
disengagement and dropout.
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Getting Grounded
School connectedness
– the belief by students that people in the school care
about their learning and about them as individuals –
is a powerful protective factor in the lives of young people
and an important prerequisite to reduced bullying, greater
academic achievement, lower dropout rates, improved
grades, fewer discipline referrals, and fewer high-risk
behaviors.
Blum & Libbey, 2004; http://www.casel.org/basics/climate.php
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MY TEENAGE SELF
Once upon a time, we were where our students
are. Our experiences may have looked different
from theirs, or our experiences may have looked
similar. Almost across the board, though,
adolescence wasn’t—and isn’t—easy.
To help establish context for considering
programming that supports school connectedness
and ensures that students make an effective
transition into high school, let’s begin with a quick
visit back to that time and place when we, too,
were teenagers
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Directions
Working in groups of three, participants introduce
themselves to one another and take turns sharing
responses to any one of the following questions:
• What is one memory you have about a time in high
school when you felt strongly connected to other
students?
• What is one memory you have about a time in high
school when you felt strongly disconnected from other
students?
• Think back to one adult in your middle school or high
school who threw you a lifeline – this adult knew you
and cared about you, and this person’s caring made a
positive difference in your life.
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Reflections
• What patterns did we see emerge in our
memories of school connectedness?
• What might make it even harder for today’s high
school students to experience a sense of school
connectedness?
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Strategy
Peer-to-peer group mentoring is a straightforward,
cost-effective, and evidence-based model for:
• Enhancing school connectedness
• Easing the transition into high school for 9th
graders
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STRATEGY
What are the potential
benefits of using a
peer-to-peer approach?
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Benefits of a Peer-to-Peer Approach
• Research demonstrated peer leadership is an effective
approach for positively impacting student behaviors if
implemented with key elements in place.
• Peer leaders can help shift social and group norms
toward positive student behavior
• Peer leaders can have more credibility than adults
• Learning and attitudes are reinforced on an on-going
informal basis
• Beneficiaries include both the peer leaders and
recipients
• Increases the number of youth that can be reached
• Cost effective
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Effective Transition Programs
Programs that support students throughout the
transition from middle to high school and extending
throughout the freshman and sophomore years
have the greatest impact on keeping students
engaged and in school.
• Have adequate support of school leadership
• Develop individual social skills
• Are theory driven
• Involve interactive teaching approaches (e.g.
small group activities and role plays)
• Use properly selected and trained peer leaders
to facilitate delivery of the program
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Effective Transition Programs (continued)
• Integrate other segments of the community (e.g. family
members)
• Are delivered over multiple structured sessions over
multiple years
• Provide adequate training and support to program
facilitators
• Are culturally and developmentally appropriate for the
students they serve
• Integrate into the regular school day
• Reach all students transitioning
• Have adequate resources
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CASE STUDY
A TRANSITION PROGRAM IN
ACTION: VIDEO PRESENTATION
What did you see or hear that resonated
with you most deeply?
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Peer Group Connection (PGC)
Capitalize on critical transition points with all
students K-12 experience
– the transition from the elementary to middle
grades and from middle to high school –
by supporting schools in making relatively
minor changes to the way they do business
in order to leverage massive changes in
students’ experiences and results.
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PGC: Evaluation Results
• Findings demonstrate that PGC improves
students’ academic, social, and emotional skills,
and results in: improved grades; better
attendance; fewer discipline referrals; less
fighting; and less substance use among
participants.
• A four-year longitudinal, randomized control study
conducted by Rutgers University found, among
other major results, that PGC improves the
graduation rates of high school student
participants by ten percentage points and cuts by
half the number of male students who would
otherwise drop out.
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Results: Graduation Rates
% of Ninth Grade Students who Graduated from High School
90%
90%
81%
80%
77%
80%
67%
70%
70%
63%
60%
60%
50%
50%
Program Group
Control Group
All Students
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Program Group
Control Group
Male Students
PGC Model: Overview of Six Key Steps
1. Collaboration with School Leadership: PCLT staff collaborates with
school leadership to assemble and train a school-based Stakeholder
Team.
2. Faculty Advisors: PCLT staff collaborates with the school-based
Stakeholder Team to identify, select, train, and support Faculty Advisors.
3. Peer Leaders: Faculty Advisors select and train Peer Leaders through
an out-of-school retreat and a daily, credit-bearing leadership class.
4. Weekly Outreach Sessions: Peer Leaders mentor and support
younger peers in curriculum-driven weekly sessions, carefully planned
special events, meaningful service learning projects and informally
throughout the school day and year.
5. Family Nights: Parents/caregivers participate in special family events.
6. 10th Grade Booster Sessions: Younger peers receive additional
support for a second year.
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Peer Group Connection Structure
Stakeholder
Team
(8-10 administrators,
faculty, parents, students)
Stakeholder Team
Coordinator
Two faculty advisors team-teach the daily peer leadership course
16-18 peer leaders co-facilitate weekly activities for freshmen in small groups
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freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
freshmen
10-14
to discuss common issues facing high school students
PGC Curriculum
The PGC curriculum uses engaging, hands-on
activities to address issues that have been shown
to help reduce risk behaviors and produce positive
student outcomes, including high school
completion. Curriculum topics include:
•
Sense of School Belonging
•
Goal Setting
•
Competence in Interpersonal
Relationships
•
Coping Skills
•
Decision Making
•
Peer Acceptance &
Resisting Peer Pressure
•
Anger Management
•
Stress Management
•
Service Learning
•
•
•
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Conflict Resolution, Anger
Management, & Violence
Prevention
Bullying & Bystander Behavior
Achievement Orientation &
Motivation
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FINAL REFLECTIONS
What is something you’ve
heard or thought about
today that will stay with you?
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Margo Ross, Psy.D.
Senior Director of Development
Center for Supportive Schools
609.252.9300 x 113
[email protected]
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