“They change lives and make a real difference in our world,” said Marty Neat, chairman of the Henson Award Selection Committee at  the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore. In their nine year history, Kids of Honor^®  has helped percent of the students they work with graduate from high school. Last year, they received the Henson Award of Excellence for nonprofits.

“One in three kids in America doesn’t graduate from high school,” said Paula Morris, the founder of Kids of Honor^® . Over the course of one non-graduating person’s lifetime, that person will cost their local community $260,000. Conversely, $250 sponsors a kid for one year. That $250 sponsorship will bring a child one step closer to graduating from high school.

More than 1.2 million American youth dropout of school each year…*

Kids of Honor^® uses a two-tiered approach to help kids reach their goal of high school graduation.

Through our Connection Club, Kids of Honor^® youth and their families are invited to participate in fun, educational, and community service opportunities. This creates and maintains relationships with their families, peers, and community.

Finally, through our high school club, Y.E.A.H. (Youth Excelling in Academics with Honor), older students meet weekly to focus on college exploration, job readiness, and personal growth.

PARTNERS-4th-8thGrade:  

Kids of Honor^® has been helping kids stay in school and become high school graduates since 2001. Through partnering with local community organizations, we collaborate with youth to make positive choices and set long-term goals.  We utilize a simple program that helps youth build positive assets by empowering participants to be fully engaged, excited about learning and hopeful for the future.

Working with kids as young as fourth grade, Kids of Honor^® is a simple program that recognizes important basic skills needed to stay in school.   Building positive relationships with kids, Kids of Honor seeks improvements in areas such as attendance, preparation, organization, cooperation, and respect.  In short, we teach struggling children how to behave, rather than categorizing and dismissing them as problem kids.

Each partner site is responsible for establishing and celebrating success.  Within the Kids of Honor Model^®, one child is selected every month as the group’s winner, and is entitled to some small gesture of reward to mark the occasion, such as a t-shirt and certificate.  In addition, every child that surpasses a pre-determined percentage of the available points is also celebrated as a “Plus Club Member.”  This includes more children in the monthly celebration, and encourages everyone to work hard despite one top prize.

Finally, since most programs superimpose the school year, each site sets a long-term goal to conclude in May.  This goal is a $500 prize to be awarded to the most improved Monthly Winner, and is sometimes selected based the year’s total points or by essay contest.  However, the $500 check and all accumulated interest, in accordance with the Kids of Honor ultimate vision, is invested and only available to the student once they graduate from high school.

Every month, we acknowledge students for their improvement and growth. After achieving continual success in the plus club or becoming a monthly winner students join in the Kids of Honor^® Connection Club.

CONNECTION CLUB: 

The Kids of Honor^® Connection Club provides opportunities for students of all ages to stay connected to their peers, their family, and their community.  All students in our partner site programming who have surpassed noted levels of success are invited to join in Connection Club activities.  Frequently throughout the school year, the Club hosts events based on community service, educational awareness, or social opportunities for the entire family.  Connection Club activities have included periodic grounds keeping for a mental health facility, painting over graffiti on neighborhood buildings, and community food drives, as well as visiting the boardwalk and attending minor-league baseball games.  

We advocate positive child-adult interactions centering on quality projects, especially for our younger participants, since they can learn first-hand the power of stewardship in their communities with the support of healthy teen role models.  Meanwhile, high school students have the opportunity to retain positive peer networks and the option of helping to produce the events, thus completing state community service requirements.  Once a child is included in the Connection Club, they remain so until they graduate from high school.

Y.E.A.H (Youth Excelling in Academics with Honor): 

Beginning in February 2007, high school students belonging to Kids of Honor^®  founded a club of their own.  Desiring a more sophisticated title, they renamed the club Y.E.A.H..The club meets weekly at Wicomico Middle School and is student-run, allowing the group to choose the educational speakers and service projects in which they are interested in participating.  The students also elect officers and establish rules for participation and order. 

Y.E.A.H. helps with Connection Club events, learns tips for financial independence, and meets with representatives from local colleges to learn about the college application process and much more.  In the past, the teens also earned school service learning hours by helping to plan and produce a family field day and an educational event for younger Kids of Honor^® participants.  This year they made short movies about the consequences of dropping out of high school.

With their imagination, the possibilities for the club are endless!  Additional activities discussed for the Y.E.A.H. program include interacting with and learning about local businesses, shadowing university students in actual college classrooms and peer mediation training.  All of these activities make powerful resume material, giving Kids of Honor^®  teens an edge in their future endeavours. 

IT WORKS!

 
Kids beating the odds is not magic - it is the result of committed youth, parents, communities and policymakers who help change the odds.¹ There is good news! LOTS of people and organizations are working on the issue.

Traditionally, officials have approached youth policy by tackling one "youth problem" at a time - youth violence one year, teen pregnancy another, drug abuse the next.¹ We have begun to realize that those things are symptoms. Through years     of research, many organizations understand positive youth development. Although similar in mission, each brings a slightly different approach to implementing their strategy.

The Search Institute provides 40 Developmental Assets - Internal and External Assets (with the power to prevent and promote) in 8 categories: Support, Empowerment, Boundaries & Expectations, Constructive Use of Time, Commitment to Learning, Positive Values, Social Competencies, and Positive Identity.

America's Promise Alliance says adults should provide youth with 5 important resources: Caring Adults, Safe Places, A Healthy Start, Effective Education, Opportunities to help others.

Communities in Schools surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.

PBS and PBIS give us positive research based strategies to design youth programming that includes: Valued Outcomes, Behavioral and Biomedical Science, Validated Procedures, Systems Change to Enhance Quality of Life and Reduce Problem Behaviors.

Together, we are working to make a positive impact on the lives of these youth and empower them to graduate from high school! Research shows that the programs that are most effective at promoting positive outcomes for youth are framed in terms of the constructive assets they seek to build, rather than the negative behaviors they seek to avoid.¹ Relationships change people, Not Programs!³

* Dropouts, Diplomas, and Dollars: U.S. High Schools and the Nation’s Economy Alliance for Excellent Education, August, 2008 by Jason Amos

 ¹ Positive Youth Development: State Strategies By Thaddeus Ferber, Elizabeth Gaines and Christi Goodman, National Conference of State Legislatures Positive Youth Development: State Strategies  National Conference of State Legislatures, William T. Pound, Executive Director

² Turning To One Another by Margaret Wheatley

³ Dr. Peter Benson, to participants at the Search Institute 2008 Healthy Communities l Healthy Youth Conference