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Sharing
What Works
Where are asset-builders
showing up in our community? Everywhere.
Read what groups and
individuals are doing to support youth in their communities.
Assets
in the Community
Assets
in Organizations
Assets
in Schools
Assets
and Diversity
Assets
and Individuals
Assets
in Businesses
We
want to hear from you! Send
us your asset-building story.
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Assets in Organizations
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The Black Canyon
Boys and Girls Club in Montrose is expanding to Olathe Middle
School, thanks in part to a $250,000 grant from the El Pomar Foundation.
The club is an asset-rich organization, and will offer after-school
programs beginning in 2002. The staff has been trained in the asset
approach.
Contact:
Nancy Wilson, 970-252-2572, tppi@rmi.net
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Grand Futures
Prevention Coalition in Routt County is spearheading the asset
initiative throughout the county. The organization has employed a
number of public relations strategies, including designing and disseminating
bumper stickers with asset messages; producing an asset banner to
display at events; developing Christmas card photo holders and taking
free family photos at a community holiday event; producing travel
coffee mugs for asset recognition prizes; and arranging for the local
movie theatre to place an asset message on the movie screen before
performances.
Contact:
Angie Kimmes, 970-879-6188,angelakimmes@hotmail.com
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Many groups and
organizations in Summit County have incorporated asset messages
in their work. The Optimist Club, Dillon Valley Elementary School,
Summit Education Celebration, and Summit County Government have adopted
asset-based criteria for recognitions and awards. Schools incorporate
assets into school assignments and projects, and the high school diversity
club works on promoting asset messages regarding cultural competency.
The Youth Advisory Board for the asset initiative has also incorporated
assets into projects such as the Youth Appreciation Discount Card.
Contact:
Tara Eaton, 970-668-2077
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Summit County's
4-H program has many asset-building volunteers who take the time
to be a positive influence in the lives of youth. Miki Hodge, who
works for the ski industry, is a volunteer ceramics teacher, and Sheriff
Joe Morales volunteers as a mater of rocketry. Contact:
Tara Eaton, 970-668-2077
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The Even Start
program for teen parents in Alamosa is a strength-based program
that includes a teen parenting class and home visiting program. The
parenting class features a unit on assets where participants learn
strategies to help strengthen their existing assets and build new
ones. The teens participating in the class help choose the topics
that are discussed throughout the year. Asset-related books and materials
are among the offerings that they have access to in a lending library.
Contact:
Scott Bates, 303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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The Asian Pacific
Development Center in Aurora provides parenting classes to groups
of Cambodian, Hmong, and Vietnamese parents. The Strengthening Asian
Families Program exposes parents to the asset framework and facilitators
make cultural adaptations to the asset definitions to make them more
relevant. The parents discuss one asset at each class. The children
participate in games and asset-building activities in another room
with a youth coordinator. The programs are proving effective in giving
Asian parents the skills to positively influence their children.
Contact:
Ivy Hontz, 303/365-2959, x107
ivyhontz@hotmail.com
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The Berthod/Loveland
Proactive Parenting organization provides an asset workshop for
families. The group also conducts home visits using a strength-based
curriculum with handouts supplemented from the asset resource, Pass
It On! Each home visit includes a parent-child activity that encourages
developmentally appropriate interaction within the family. The activities
allow the home visitors to discuss the assets as they relate to different
situations.
Contact:
Scott Bates, 303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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The Colorado
Children's Trust Fund establishes child-abuse prevention programs
in communities across the state. The CCTF has integrated the asset
philosophy into its Request for Proposals and grantee reporting criteria.
The CCTF is discovering that program staff are able to utilize the
asset framework as "common ground" when talking with clients,
and that it helps in establishing a relationship with the families
they serve. The assets have provided them a way to "purposefully
enact what they have known as common sense, and in a format they can
share with families." The CCTF is committed to requiring plans
in its grantee proposals to infuse the asset framework in its programs,
and to providing grantees the resources necessary to bring the asset
message to families.
Contact:
Scott Bates, 303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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The Shared
Beginnings program at Centura Health-St. Anthony Hospital in Denver
provides parenting classes to teen parents of children up to two years
of age. One of the sessions is dedicated to assets, while another
session on infant development incorporates many of the asset concepts.
Asset training is also provided to staff and youth volunteer mentors.
Contact:
Scott Bates, 303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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The Full Circle
Intergenerational Project, serving northeast Denver, recently
changed its mission from deficit-based to strength-based, reflecting
a shift in language that has been brought about from an effort to
infuse assets in the organization. Programming is also beginning to
include youth as resources. A literacy club for youth 8-12, started
by Denver Public Schools Psychologist Dr. Carolyn Phillips, includes
volunteer youth mentors. In addition, the Full Circle Youth Council
help coordinate a forum to discuss how law enforcement officials view
youth. Participants included members of the Denver Police Department,
the Probation Department, and the Public Defender's office. The turnout
exceeded expectations and another forum may be scheduled. Overall,
Full Circle is working to integrate the asset framework into its prevention
programs, newsletters, and presentations.
Contact:
Anita West-Ware, 303/333-7595;
fcip199122@aol.com
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Planned Parenthood
of the Rocky Mountains in Denver has begun adolescent development
training for staff in its health centers that includes the asset message.
The organization is also including asset language in program development
and fundraising efforts. Its Education Department has showcased the
youth participants and their stories at fundraising events and the
PPRM Legislator's Luncheon. Youth participants were also given a voice
in hiring a new Education Department staff member. The department
is seeking to appoint a youth participant to be a representative to
the Board of Trustees and the Young Advocates Council.
Contact:
Krista Anderson, 303/813-7654;
krista.anderson@pprm.org
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Planned Parenthood
of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) integrated two youth development
programs in the Cole community in northeast Denver where the highest
rate of teen pregnancy in the city was recorded. The two programs
were piloted in the Manual High School health center: Personal Responsibility
Education Program (PREP), and Dollar-A-Day Program (DAD). Utilizing
student peer leaders to provide program design input and recruitment,
the programs have become well integrated into the high school health
center. The school administration and teachers are clamoring for more
PREP and DAD programs and the school nurse would like to see PPRM
programming for every 10th grader student at Manual. A grant was submitted
in the fall for a PREP program for monolingual Spanish-speaking youth.
Contact:
Krista Anderson, 303/813-7654;
krista.anderson@pprm.org
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Cross Community
Coalition in north Denver works with students and their parents
through three programs: Estoy Listo for Spanish-speaking parents of
young children, the After School Tutoring Program at Swansea Elementary,
and the Los Niños De Aztlan youth leadership group. The asset
message is incorporated into each program. Additionally, staff committed
to at least three contacts during the year with the families of each
of the students they work with. They had reached their goal by the
end of the first semester. Staff attribute their success to the respect
and compassion they display when making contact with parents, and
the support they offer them.
Contact:
Paul Garcia, 303/292-3202,
cccfrc@yahoo.com
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The El Paso
County Department of Human Services provides mini-grants to programs
in the county, requiring grantees to incorporate assets into their
proposals and their programming. Some sites use youth as program mentors
for other youth. For example, Colorado College students mentored students
at WaysOut Academy. The department provided copies of Pass It On!
to grantees and Community Advisory Council representatives who use
the concepts with youth. The department also continues to be an active
member of the Colorado Springs Assets for Youth Initiative.
Contact:
Scott Bates303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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The Dads Project
in Fort Collins offers a course to fathers that includes asset-specific
classes, discusses ways the fathers can build developmental assets
in their children, and utilizes a pre and post asset evaluation.
Contact:
Scott Bates, 303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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In the past
two years, Girl Scout Councils of Colorado (GSCC) has infused
assets into its five councils: Mile-Hi, Wagon Wheel, Mountain Prairie,
Columbine, and Chipeta. Reports a council representative, "The
assets have enhanced our culture." The infusion began at the
adult level with sharing the message through newsletters, education
pieces, and other publications. In all, the GSCC's publications reach
60,000 adults around Colorado. Assets have become a part of the councils'
structured adult volunteer trainings. At the youth level, assets were
infused into outreach curricula and into the traditional girl programs
and training pieces. As a result, girl involvement in decision/policy
committees has increased. All programs and trainings must ask the
question, "How do we build assets?" and they must attempt
to measure their success in developing assets in youth. The GSCC created
an "asset badge" that girls can obtain, and also incorporated
assets into its cookie-sales program. The councils are also important
asset ambassadors in their communities. Teams of girls are delivering
the asset message to other groups, and the councils are helping to
educate funders on the strength-based framework. The GSCC plans to
sustain its asset initiative as much of its continued infusion efforts
can be accomplished without additional funding.
Contact:
Debra Krause-Reinsch, 719/-597-8603, x35
dkrause-reinsch@girlscouts-www.org
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Boot Camp for
New Dads, a program offered through Aims Community College in
Greeley, exposes fathers to the developmental assets through hands-on
activities and discussions in the class sessions. Hand-outs from Starting
Out Right are included in participant packets.
Contact:
Scott Bates, 303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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The La Plata
Family Literacy Coalition in Ignacio and Durango incorporates
assets into its weekly hour-long classes with children and adults
at its centers, and in home visits with families. The activities that
the parents and children enjoy together build educational skills and
self-esteem. Parents are encouraged to read daily to their children.
Students from Fort Lewis College help tutor children and adults. In
addition, the coalition produces a monthly calendar for parents which
includes asset-building ideas and opportunities.
Contact:
Scott Bates,
303/446-8860,
scott.bates@state.co.us
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Foothills Parks
and Recreation in Jefferson County offered four summer ASSETS
Camps during its summer children's program. Campers provided input
into the program's that took place and worked toward goals in each
of the asset categories.
Contact:
Ellen Stephan, 303-409-2127.
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Foothills Park
and Recreation District in Jefferson County hired 15 high school
students and trained them in the developmental assets, then placed
them in before- and after-school programs in 11 elementary schools
to mentor the younger students. The mentors each planned and executed
asset-building activities with their groups, including family dinner
events, art projects, and games. The mentors come together each month
for further training and to share information and feedback. The program
has been highly successful in building assets both in the younger
students and in the mentors. The teen mentor program has also transformed
the recreation district in its approach toward youth as employees
and advisors.
Contact:
Ellen Stephan, 303-409-2127.
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Full Circle
Intergenerational Project in Leadville is becoming an asset-rich
organization. It incorporates assets in its parenting classes, mentor
trainings, board trainings and staff orientations. Youth continue
to be important resources in directing the project's programming.
In its youth program that involves some 240 young people, Full Circle
sponsored six youth-initiated activities in 2001 that included either
their mentors or parents-including going out to dinner and to a high
school play, attending a performance by Cleo Parker Robinson Dance,
and riding in a bike-a-thon. At the Nov. membership meeting, a number
of youth were nominated for a youth board. In January, the Full Circle
Board will hear from the youth and set up a formal mechanism for them
to participate in the organization's decision making. Full Circle
started a girls group made up of a diverse group of 7th and 8th-graders
after the girls requested to have their own group and did all the
groundwork necessary to start it. The girls talk about their assets
and their strengths as a way to effect change. Another transformation
is happening through the parenting classes as a result of a change
in viewpoint in seeing parents, and allowing them to see themselves,
as asset builders. "Traditionally, volunteers in Lake County
have been predominantly Anglo or long-standing Hispanic. Very few
recently immigrated Latino families have volunteered in formal programs.
This is changing as adults see themselves as asset builders."
Full Circle is also partnering with Lake County School District to
use assets to bring parents into active engagement in their child's
learning.
Contact:
Alice Pugh or Bill Nelson, 719-486-2400, or
Bill Nelson, fullcircle@bemail.com
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Two years ago,
Full Circle Intergenerational Project in Leadville started a DJ
Club as a creative outlet and fun after-school activity for teenage
youth. To date, 35 young DJs have learned the ins and outs of radio
broadcasting and equipment. The club has also become an important
community resource, and is in demand for community dances, school
homecoming and proms, teen center events, and weddings. The club members
present a talk on the importance of the developmental assets before
each performance they give. Last year, the members set up a panel
discussion at the annual Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division Conference
in Denver on the meaning of lyrics and how they can affect teenager's
lives. In the evening, they then hosted a dance for conference attendees.
The DJ Club members have earned a reputation in the community as fun,
responsible teens who provide an important service.
Contact:
Alice Pugh or Bill Nelson, 719-486-2400, or
Bill Nelson, fullcircle@bemail.com
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