Youth Development Resources

by Human Relations Media (Human Relations Media, 2000)

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Summary:

This comprehensive boxed-set curriculum for middle school/junior high students focuses on identifying drug resistance skills and building life skills.  It includes 10 videos, 2 teacher resource books, and a variety of worksheets and fact sheets.  The video programs are each under 20 minutes and deal with smoking, spit tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, inhalants, anger, tolerance, popularity, conflict resolution and time management.  The videos correspond to topics found in the teacher resource books and covered in worksheets and fact sheets included in the curriculum. (The videos can also be purchased individually.) All worksheets are easily reproducible and the curriculum can be used repeatedly. Middle School Confidential is a secular program—faith-based organizations wanting to make the curriculum more faith-friendly or faith-specific would need to complement it with their own materials or exercises of interpretation.

Why does FASTEN recommend this resource?

The Tutor Newsletter

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Summary:

The Tutor Newsletter is produced by the LEARNS partnership, a collaboration between Northwest Regional Educational Library (NWREL) and the Bank Street College of Education.

Scroll down NWREL’s home page to find bi-annual newsletters beginning in 1998 and running through the present.  Many of the newsletters provide practical information geared toward helping tutors to help struggling students more effectively.  The newsletters address a wide range of topics, including:

• “Now I get it!”:  Homework Help Strategies for Volunteers
• Savvy Traveling:  Volunteers Engaging with School Culture
• Reading for Meaning:  Tutoring Elementary Students to Enhance Understanding
• The Power of Story Retelling
• Room for One More?  Strategies for Small-Group Tutoring
• Family Literacy:  Tapping into the Power of Family

Other newsletters are helpful to program directors, including topics such as:

• Real Answers for Established Education Programs
• Back to School:  Getting New Programs Started and Improving Existing Programs
• Resources:  Using National, Regional, and Local Resources to Strengthen Your Program
• Partnerships:  Building Partnerships With Teachers and Parents

Each newsletter contains not only information about the types of skills struggling students need to develop, but also specific information about how to assist them to develop those skills.  The Tutor provides illustrations regarding how the information contained in it may be effectively applied, often by providing examples of exchanges between fictional tutors and tutees.  Similarly, newsletters addressing program directors provide equally practical information presented in a way that makes its implementation easier.

Why does FASTEN recommend this resource?

Tutoring programs encounter many challenges as they work to help children who are struggling in school.  The Tutor Newsletter provides practical advice and information that will enhance a tutoring program’s ability to not only successfully assist these students to improve their academic performance, but to be a blessing in their lives, increasing their sense of self worth and hope for the future.