Category Archives: Community

Inspiration Through the Humanities at Maximum Security Facility – Residents Relay Impact

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U.Va. students with inmates at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center

U.Va. students interact with incarcerated youth at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center

Guest contributor, Rob Wolman is the teaching assistant and primary research assistant for the Books Behind Bars / Awakening Youth Project. Rob is a Montessori teacher and corporate trainer.

Related posts: Research, Seed Funded Research, Community

Awakening Youth Through the Humanities is an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods study that seeks to understand the outcomes of a U.Va. course called Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Leadership. In this course, undergraduates travel to a maximum security correctional facility to lead incarcerated youth in discussions and creative activities related to great works of Russian literature. The course brings college students and correctional center residents together in a community of learning that uses the power of literature to inform, transform, and build connections between people from widely diverse backgrounds. Continue reading →

“Conflict and debate?! Okay, I’m listening!”

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Laurie Jean, Adolescent Educator at SARA, the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, gave us her thoughtful insights on the bullying prevention conference co-hosted by Youth-Nex, this summer. She was one of 500 teachers, law enforcement personnel and others, who attended the statewide event held at Charlottesville High School.

Bullying Prevention conference slide

Related posts can be found under Bullying.

Walking past tables covered in white paper and coffee urns, I expected little from yet another conference as I entered the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center. I rarely find much useful substance amid conferences’ broad, non-targeted material. As I settled into a folding seat in the back of the theater, a wave of empathy for my students came over me as I recalled many of the sensations of attending a mandatory high school assembly. Continue reading →

Positive Mentor Relationships Predict Better Outcomes for Girls

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By Angela Henneberger, YN researcher (PhD, Applied Developmental Science, ’12)

Group of YWLP girls

Related posts are available under Research and Community.

Nancy Deutsch has been Director of Research for the Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) a combined group and one-on-one mentoring program for middle school girls, since 2004. She is interested in the contextual study of adolescents’ lives and identities.

In a recent paper on YWLP (Deutsch, Wiggins, Henneberger, & Lawrence), to be published in The Journal of Early Adolescence, she uses a mixed methods approach to examine group processes that contribute to mentees’ satisfaction with their one-and-one mentoring relationships and their mentoring groups. Interestingly, there were no differences between groups on girls’ reports of how satisfied they were with their experiences in their mentoring groups. Continue reading →

‘City of Promise’ – Provides Enthusiasm, Valuable Data

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By Maryfrances Porter, Associate Director for Program Evaluation and Community Consultation at Youth-Nex

Related posts will be available under Community.

Boy student works at a desk

We’ve been busy!

Over the last 4 weeks our hard-working Program Evaluation and Community Consultation team has partnered with neighbors from the City of Promise to conduct almost a hundred surveys with families there (Westhaven, 10th and Page, and Starr Hill neighborhoods). Continue reading →

Youth-Nex JPC Team travels to NYC Research Institute

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Sibley presents the work to the group.

Sibley presents the work to the group.

Related posts available under Research, and Community.

I had the privilege of spending the last week with a great group of undergraduate researchers and my colleagues at the Public Science Project for their annual Critical Participatory Action Research (PAR) Institute. Thanks to a grant from UVA’s Jefferson Public Citizens program, we were able to bring our community partner, Sibley Johns, director of Charlottesville’s Music Resource Center with us to brainstorm our youth PAR evaluation project that begins this summer.

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Community Works

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By Maryfrances Porter, Associate Director for Program Evaluation and Community Consultation at Youth-Nex

Related posts will be available under Community

Maryfrances Porter

The YN Program Evaluation and Community Consultation arm of Youth-Nex has been very busy lately, especially in the area of consultation. Dr. Tolan partnered with Andy Block and Angela Ciolfi to make a presentation to juvenile court judges from around the state regarding what can be done from the bench to best help truant youth.

Continue reading →