Teens, Crime, and the Community
Community Works
Community Works has three components.
The Community Works curriculum is divided into six topical units, all broken down into highly interactive sessions:
- You and Your Community
- Violent Crimes
- Substance Abuse and Drug Dealing
- Property Crimes
- Hate Crimes
- Police and Community.
Each session is activity based and relevant to the lives of young people. Youth will develop skill in crime prevention, conflict management, and leadership. In Community Works, everyone is a teacher -- teens take an active role in their own education. Interactive teaching strategies build on the strengths of the young people, while they learn from each other's experiences and insights.
Community Resource People, the second Community Works component, are people in your community with whom teens don't normally interact in a classroom or community setting. Their knowledge, expertise, and personal experiences area a valuable resource that will help make the sessions come alive. In addition, teens form stronger bonds with their community and are exposed to positive role models through their interaction with community resource people.
Service-learning projects are the third Community Works program component. Once young people have gained the necessary knowledge and skills, Community Works challenges them to participate in a service-learning project. Through these projects, the teens apply what they have learned to address a community problem they have identified. They work together to assess their community's needs, set goals, plan and execute a project, and reflect on the process.
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