Uplift: Empowering Today's Youth For Tomorrow's Future

The purpose of this grant is to provide a comprehensive character and life skills development program. The proposed overall program will be designed to help at-risk youth develop physiologically, socially, cognitively, academically, and professionally. As a preventative outreach program, the overall goal is for each participant to leave with a future plan for their life in place, be and stay on track to graduate high school what workforce and/or career path they will achieve post high school graduation. The objectives of this program are for each youth to learn, retain and practice the skills learned through this program and apply them to their lives inside and outside of the classroom, at home and in public. Critical life skills that will be a focus of this grant include communication, leadership, decision making and interpersonal skills. Short term objectives include number of youth reporting increased awareness of critical life skills; number of youth with goals to become self-sufficient; and number of newly formed community collaborations. Long term objectives include number of youth participants demonstrating an application of critical life skills; number of youth reaching self-sufficiency; and number of collaborating organizations that offer opportunities for youth leadership/engagement. Data are collected using a multi-methods approach. The program model utilized is the “Kentucky Youth-Adult Community Engagement Model” (YACE). The model employs a multidisciplinary approach that views youth in the context of family and community and develops programming based on local needs and grounded in research. The target audience is students in ages 12-18 in Christian, Estill and Fayette counties who are at risk of falling into the achievement gap. A core group of approximately 30 “high context” youth per site will be recruited as core groups. These youth are heterogeneous and are considered at-risk but with potential to become leaders i their commununities. The core groups of youth are the primary audience for evaluation purposes.