Preventing common adolescent at-risk behaviors with early intervention
Abstract
The Alternative Classroom Experience (ACE) program of the Joseph Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp, just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, is a unique program with a mission to help children live their lives more responsibly. Each school year, ten AmeriCorps members serve as youth mentors and dorm companions to targeted Pulaski County elementary students in grades three to five who are at risk academically and struggle with appropriate behavior in the classroom. Five times during the school year, the ACE program welcomes a new cohort of 30 upper elementary students to the Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp. These students are excused from their regular schools to participate in an intensive, five-week residential educational program that provides academic tutoring, disciplined study, outdoor adventures, team building, leadership training, and social issues education (AIDS, violence prevention, gangs, and drug and alcohol awareness). Simultaneously, the ACE program works with parents to enhance parenting skills and provide additional educational and social services. Submitted by LEARNS in fall of 2006.Issue
Preventing at-risk behavior by identifying early warning signs and offering students training and tools to act more responsibly, before undesirable behaviors become habitual and more difficult to change.Action
Alternative Classroom Experience (ACE) is a program model that features:- A strong and historic partnership and camp facility
- Commitment to serving at-risk youth when identifying factors first emerge
- A history of formative evaluation to improve the program over time
- A structure of youth empowerment opportunities, integrating AmeriCorps positions as opportunities for program graduates
- A strong staff training and development model, including the uses of several established programs for youth success
The ACE program includes a comprehensive, multi-faceted web of activities and support structures focused on academic performance, social rules and expectations, and productive social coping skills. Major program elements are:
- Academic instruction — instruction and tutoring in reading and math, using the reciprocal teaching model of A. L. Palincsar and A.L. Brown for reading comprehension
- Insisted success — a policy that requires 100 percent mastery, correcting errors over time, on all assigned work
- Residential programming — a unique 24-hour setting in which to accomplish success and break with negative habits from school and home environments
- 24-hour supervision and structured activity time — direct supervision of students in which full participation is expected and encouraged
- Parenting meetings —mandatory weekly meetings for parents of campers that focus on their children's experiences and provide them with instruction on parenting skills and information about at-risk behaviors
- Social issue awareness programs — weekly workshops on topics such as violence prevention, personal safety, AIDS, and drug and alcohol awareness
- Cabin social skills — personal hygiene, shared chores, peer and adult relationship skills
- Cooperative games and team-building — collaborative recreational activities for the whole group, regardless of physical abilities
- Outdoor living skills and environmental awareness — tent living, outdoor cooking, and earth stewardship
- Reality therapy discipline — based on the Choice Theory of Dr. William Glasser, a counseling approach that provides skills for solving problems, managing crises, and accepting personal responsibility
- Transition support to regular schools — a week of close communication between camp counselors and teachers as students re-enter school classrooms
- Long-term follow-up — two-year period after ACE graduation of periodic counselor site visits to schools, intervention support, and camp visits by graduates
- Long-term connection — opportunities for graduates to maintain camp involvement until adulthood through a series of defined options-visits, summer camp, honor camp-each demanding increasing responsibility
Implementation:
The ACE program begins with experienced leadership — most top-tier staff members have worked with ACE over ten years, starting out as counselors. These leaders recruit and train a committed staff that includes ten AmeriCorps members who serve as cabin counselors. Training includes techniques of academic instruction, Dr. William Glasser's Reality Therapy discipline, Crisis Prevention Institute, Inc. (CPI), Restraint Training, standard first aid and CPR, social issues training, outdoor skills and environmental awareness, cabin management, parent conference strategies, program procedures, and other areas requested by staff members. Staff also participate in school district training sessions that support their work with children.
ACE students are recruited primarily through referrals from elementary school personnel — particularly counselors — who identify candidates through evidence of:
- Poor peer-group and/or adult relationships
- Poor self-esteem
- Marginal grades or a sustained drop in grades over time
- Sporadic school attendance or tardiness
- No involvement in school activities
- Marginal problem-solving skills (arguing and/or fighting)
- Moderate learning difficulties
- Family history of high-risk behaviors
Camper positions are reserved on a first-come, first-served basis, with recruitment aiming to achieve a diverse balance between age, gender, and race.
The ACE program contacts families of potential campers and explains the required parent contract with the camp, which secures parent/guardian permission and their commitment to attend the weekly parent workshops while their child is in the residential program. Prior to the camp experience, parents and school personnel complete a needs-assessment form, allowing the camp staff to target priority areas for each individual camper in the areas of academic performance, behavior, self-esteem and social awareness. Students and family members participate together in an orientation session before the camp begins, and parents subsequently meet weekly with the camp counselors in order to discuss problem areas and concerns.
The ACE program serves 150 elementary students in five separate cohorts, on a grade-rotation basis (third through fifth), between September and May each year. Students attend the camp program Monday through Friday, residing in cabins on-site, and return to their homes for the weekend. The programs conclude with a graduation ceremony, where students receive certificates and medals signed by both the school district and the camp administrators. Parents are given information about other youth programs and strongly encouraged to seek other positive peer-group programs for their children.
Follow-up includes a very close monitoring of student progress during the week that the graduates re-enter their classrooms. ACE counselors track students through the seventh grade, visiting their school sites, and providing families with referrals to appropriate social services. ACE graduates are encouraged to visit the camp, return for additional sessions, attend summer camp through age 14, and participate in "honor" camp activities, if selected.
Context
Across the nation, most programs for the prevention of at-risk behaviors in youth target grades 7 to 12, when destructive habits and peer relationships are often entrenched and school suspensions or first arrests have already occurred. Based on research that predicts these adolescent behaviors will emerge as early as grade three, the ACE program engages elementary students, encourages their social participation, and provides them with tools and skills to help them construct their own success.Program Inception:
The idea for the ACE program originated with Little Rock's Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp director of 30 years, Sanford Tollette. During the 1970's he noticed an upsurge in statistics about at risk behaviors in youth and a simultaneous boom in preventive programs that targeted adolescents with different solutions to their problems. The ACE program was developed during the late 1980s and 1990s in response to these troubling statistics on poverty, substance abuse, and youth delinquency. With a background as an elementary teacher and the instinct that the problem behaviors in adolescents could be successfully addressed at an earlier age, Sanford acted on his vision and developed the ACE program. His main goal was to provide younger students with tools that would support their success and prevent negative behaviors well before these children had crossed the line into delinquency.
Statistics:
A study from Pulaski County indicates that, in 1997, 25 percent of Pulaski youth lived below the poverty line and 50 percent were eligible for free or reduced lunch. An ACE study conducted with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1994 revealed that 35 percent of ACE referrals had tried alcohol or other drugs prior to attending the camp, 19 percent had witnessed alcohol or drug use at school, and 64 percent reported substance abuse problems in their families. The Arkansas Crime Information Center reported that, in 1997, five percent of Pulaski youth under the age of eighteen had been arrested, a 14 percent increase over the previous year.
Community Resource:
The Joseph Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp was created in the thirties with support from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Though early buildings were constructed by Depression-era WPA workers, the camp has updated and added new facilities. The 88-acre camp is home to lodge and cabin space for 100 campers, a conference center, an Olympic-sized pool, hiking trails, and sports facilities. In addition to summer camping, this community resource is home to the Alternative Classroom Experience (ACE) program.
Partnerships and Collaboration:
The originating partnership for Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp began in 1929 between the Downtown Kiwanis Club of Little Rock and the Little Rock Boy's Club. Each year, Kiwanis members solicited business associates and friends as sponsors to fund a free summer camp for economically disadvantaged youth. After almost 60 years, this civic partnership was expanded under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation that allowed Pulaski County school districts to partner with the camp to offer alternative education during the school year. The ACE program began in 1988 on this solid foundation of a long-term and broad-based civic project already supportive of camping experiences for low-income youth.
In 1993, the City of Little Rock initiated a sales tax, earmarking a percentage for youth programming, and the ACE program consistently receives funding through this initiative. Additional operational funds for ACE are provided by the Corporation for National and Community Service to support AmeriCorps members, the Arkansas Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, and a broad assortment of private and non-profit civic organizations.
The ACE program also maintains important collaborative relationships with other youth service non-profits and agencies. Some of these partners include: national programs like Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, and the YMCA; state and local government programs such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Early Childhood Commission, Juvenile Court and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA); and local private or non-profit organizations such as churches, hospitals, youth treatment programs, neighborhood centers, and schools.
Outcome
Over time, the ACE program has structured student experiences that support achievement of the following outcomes, upon completion of the ACE program:- Increased level of academic performance
- Reduced incidence of problem behaviors
- Increased self-esteem and social awareness
During its two decades of operation, the ACE program has:
- Piloted a unique prevention program for elementary students that shows results in areas of academic achievement, behavior, and attitude
- Created a model camp-school partnership and program
- Served as a referral catalyst, connecting social services to at-risk families when their children are younger and can benefit more
- Begun work as a program mentor, helping other agencies replicate parts of their model through their exemplary program status with the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors
An Emmy-nominated documentary about the ACE program became an important capacity-builder for the program, encouraging three school districts to provide substantial funding to continue the program in 1989, a relationship that continues with two of these districts today.
The ACE program is unique in providing services that help students achieve at an early age, in a cooperative environment that provides coping skills for the challenges they face in their everyday lives. Once they taste success, using new skills in a violence-free environment, many show they are willing to work hard for more.
One camper wrote, "Pfeifer Camp is a great place to be. You don't have to worry about being shot, getting robbed, or hearing traffic all night. You can leave all your worries at the gate."
Evidence
Three independent studies, two in 1994 (University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma) and another in 2004 (independent Arkansas consultants), establish these results:- Significant improvement in 10 of 14 factors of classroom behavior, such as need for direction in work, behavior toward teacher, and other classroom skills
- Significant improvements in 10 of 12 subsets on the Stanford Achievement Test focused on math and reading
- After a five-week program, an average gain of half a grade level in reading and math
- Average score gains on tests of social issue awareness of 23 percent for AIDS awareness, 19 percent for drug and alcohol awareness, and 32 percent for violence prevention
- In comparison to a control group, fewer incidences of school absences and an improved or more stable grade point average (GPA)
- Improvements of parents in four areas of problem solving
ACE has been selected Organization of the Year for the Association of Experiential Education (1998), AmeriCorps State Program of the Year (2002), and is an exemplary Substance Abuse Prevention Program of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD-2005).
And, as a result of sustained efforts over time, the ACE program is identified as a national leader in the youth development field.
Posted On
October 12, 2006For More Information
Resources
Creating Camp-School Partnerships (336 KB)A guide to creating camp-school partnerships, from the American Camping Association, profiles the Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp and other promising models as it provides a process for initiating camp-school partnerships.