Immediate Opportunity for Older Foster Youth in Care! Life That Counts with founder John Wiliams

Providing Continuity of Community for Older Adolescent Teens in Care

•offering an online virtual community delivering evidence based curriculum called REAL Essentials to Kids in Care, grades 9-12. The purpose of the program is to provide an opportunity for mentoring and community for Older Adolescent Youth in Care throughout their many transitions.

•Services will last for 5 years.

•Participating High School Seniors that join will remain eligible for services for the full five years.

•realizing the challenges and variety of situations Older Adolescent Teen participants in care face, we plan to provide a computer or tablet device for students to use for this program.

•We are establishing guidelines for keeping youth safe in this online platform such as:

•Having two project staff on each video conference meeting

Purchasing and using programs to monitor and lock digital content on these devices

•Project staff assigned to work with adolescent participants in the virtual environments will have undergone background checks and will be registered Mandatory Reporters with C.A.N. (Child Abuse and Neglect) clearance

•Adolescent participants will meet weekly in a virtual video conference in a group of 12-15 other youth and a minimum of two project staff.

Participants can choose between male groups, female groups, and coed groups.

•There will be an onboarding process for new students that join a group. This includes monthly connect groups for care providers.

There are 12 hours of Evidenced Based healthy relationship skill building content which each student will be required to participate in.

We will encourage student participation through a multi-tiered incentive system, as follows:

After completion of of all Sessions 1-3:

•$25 gift certificates

After completion of of all Sessions 4-6:

•$50 gift certificates

•After completion of all Sessions 7-9: $75 gift certificates

•After completion of all Sessions 10-12: keep the computer device (we anticipate providing MacBook Air laptops to the students)

•Beyond the initial 12 hours of required Evidence Based Learning, students will be encouraged to continue their participation in weekly Life Groups with their peers.

•Our aim is to provide an environment where students can receive encouragement with the additional 72 sessions or REAL Essentials and supplemental materials led by the Project Staff Education and Engagement Team.

•to be included as potential service recipient of this project, LOUs (Letters of Intent) are due ASAP (for a template, please email [email protected])

•non binding MOU/LOI - 6 months after funding is awarded to get up and running

•the power of community in online platforms (my story with the dads alliance)

•to contact me directly, [email protected]

•opportunity for older adolescent teen participants, grades 9-12, with local providers, community stakeholders, and others who want to see kids beat the odds and make better decisions for more healthy outcomes