3 Frequently asked Questions re:
School Improvement and School Culture Program
Gang/Violence Prevention/Intervention Teams
1. What exactly are we doing?
Ask Academy develops and trains cohorts of youth leaders. We provide youth
intensive services and frequent contact from adult mentors. Inspired and formally trained youth leaders
take that knowledge and transfer it to other youth.
2. What will they do after going through the
training? Will they train other youth?
Yes, this is a peer education project.
The council members become peer mentors. In order to accomplish this, participants learn the community action training (C.A.T.) methodology. Fundamental to this model is a critical
analysis that identifies the underlying social, economic, and environmental
forces creating the health and social inequalities that the community wants to
address (SF Dept. of Health,)
The Community Action Model includes the following 5 steps:
Train Participants: Members are recruited and trained to develop skills, increase knowledge and build capacity. The participants will use this knowledge
and skills to choose a specific issue or focus and then design and implement
an action to address it.
Do a Community Diagnosis: A community diagnosis is the process of finding the root causes of a community concern or issue and discovering
the resources to overcome it.
Choose an Action: to address the issue of concern. The Action should be: 1)Achievable, 2)have the potential for sustainability, and 3)compel a group/agency/organization to change the place they live for
the well being of all.
Develop and Implement an Action Plan: The CAT develops and
implements an action plan to achieve their Action which may include an
outreach plan, a media advocacy plan, development of a model policy,
advocating for a policy, making presentations as well as an evaluation
Enforce and Maintain the Action: After successfully completing the action, the CAT ensures that their efforts will be maintained over the
long term and enforced by the appropriate bodies.
Utilizing the community action model the youth will provide classroom peer presentations for
a minimum of 150 youth per year.
3. How will The Youth Council utilize Ripple Effects
software and resources?
We will utilize Ripple Effects Service Learning Curriculum and Civic Engagement Curriculum as part of our Leadership Training. Ripple Effects will also be utilized for Evaluating the whole Youth Council.