Thanks Ian for scheduling that.  I am hoping I will be able to leave my practicum so I can make this meeting.  On another note, thanks everyone for the group collaboration to get our paper and powerpoint in order! I hope that it is okay that I submitted it after I finished my section.  I am looking forward to our presentation tomorrow and our meeting next week to gather more momentum!  See y'all tomorrow!

So, Hadleigh has been really tough to pin down.  She's never free the times I ask about and the times she said she's free seem to keep changing.  I asked her about 1:30 next Wednesday the 10th and she agreed, so I hope we all (or at least most of us) can make it.  Thanks guys!

Hadleigh wrote: 1380 Navajo street. Room 158. You will need to stop in the front office and check in and get visitor tags

Breakdown of the Questions to be answered for our paper

In our group we met to divide the questions that need to be answered for the group paper. The questions are:
1 - What is the issue/problem the community has decided to focus on?
2 - What is causing the issue/problem?
3 - What are the effects/consequences of the problem?
4 - What is the population most affected by the problem?
5 - Who are the other stakeholders/actors?

Who will answer the questions?
1 - Charlie
2 - Jenny
3 - Mia
4 & 5 - Ian

Each of us will have to cite two peer review articles during our two pages. Once that has been done, submit the pages by Saturday, November 29, 2014 to mianchard@gmail.com and I will combine the papers. I will then email the completed paper out for approval and as a basis for our presentation. Each of us will also create two slides to add to our powerpoint.

Post written by Mia Chard and Jenny Cheng

Blog post number 5 for great justice!

So, I contacted Hadleigh Craig, the after school coordinator at Mountain View Elementary.  I told her (I assume Hadleigh is a "girl's" name?) that we are all available to meet in the later afternoon on Fridays and asked what her schedule is like.  She responded, "You will have to define "later afternoon" because honestly I am avalible Monday-Friday from 1:30-2:50 PM. Those are my prep hours. The rest of the time I am supporting and running my program. " So, what is everyone's schedule like?  Should we try and meet with her the week after Thanksgiving break?  I can probably, maybe, hopefully get some time off on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday as long as we figure it out soon.  She is awaiting a reply, so hopefully we can figure out a day we can all do it ASAP. :)

RE: Number of developmental assets

I think we can all agree that 39 developmental assets would not be enough, but 41 is just starting to get a little ridiculous.  40 is definitely the sweet spot.  Also, I emailed Keri and am awaiting her reply.  Thanks group!
















Exterminate!

Great meeting today, team! Ian, thank you for following up on my previous communication with Keri regarding getting connected to the After School Coordinator at Mountain View Elementary and to set up a meeting with our group and her. I think she will be excited to hear our idea regarding the 40 developmental assets and how that fits in with after school programing and youth/parent involvement! Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and see you all next week!

Charlie Has Something to Add About the Last Meeting

We met together after class to discuss the 40 assets as Mia described. All were present, and we all decided that the 40 assets, while meant for teenagers, will work well for elementary age students if done correctly. It was a great meeting, and we look forward to the next.

40 Developmental Assets

     Our blog for this week is focusing on the research behind the 40 developmental assets that we were asked to look into by Keri during the meeting we reference in the October 24th blogpost. The 40 Assets  are meant to cover the ages 12-18 and we will be working with elementary age students so we are hoping to be able to adjust the assets to meet the needs of younger students.
     The 40 Assets are broken down into sections focused on specific values based off of external and internal factors.

The external values:

- Support
- Empowerment
- Boundaries and expectations
- Constructive use of time

The internal values:

- Commitment to learning
- Positive values
- Social Competencies
- Positive Identity

In looking at the specifics of some of these values it seems very doable to adapt them for younger elementary age children. We hope to be able to meet together as a group and divide the various values to research and learn to adapt them for younger children.

Charlie's Post on the Meeting Which Took Place at Approximately 1345 MST on the 24th of October, 2014

We met after class and discussed what Jessica wrote about in the last post. All members were present.

Next Steps

Our group met today after class to discuss our next steps for the project.  Jenny mentioned that Keri would like us to utilize the 40 developmental assets for elementary aged kids so I looked this up to familiarize myself with it. We discussed the logistics of meeting with Keri as a group which is difficult due to our different schedules, I plan to meet with my practicum supervisor to see if it would be possible for me to take a day off if necessary.







Hail Hydra...

Meeting at the CLC with Keri

I attended a meeting with Keri and the other group of Macro students who are collaborating with the CLC to adjust after school programing. The meeting was short and to the point, but provided information we can get going on in our project.  As discussed in our group here are the key points from the meeting:

• We will be focusing on the elementary school side of after school programing, focusing on the age group that currently has the least representation in the after school program.
• We are to research the 40 Developmental Assets for elementary aged kids, and more specifically, the age group we will be focused on.  
• Our group will plan project to involve kids involvement at the school to build leadership skills within the community.
• Looking to find ways to promote buy in for programing by students and parents alike.

Our group should be in touch with Keri to connect with the after school program coordinator to schedule a meeting and get going!

Charlie's Reaction

We met together in the hallway on the 3rd of October to discuss the problem statement. We created one that we all believed to be beautiful beyond compare which can be read below. Mia wrote it. I feel that it was very productive. All of us were there. This project will be beneficial to many.

I sent the following email to Keri In response to her email to us about community needs and our group project:




Hi Keri, 

We are very excited about this opportunity to help with reshaping the after school program at Glendale Middle School.  We would love to set up a time to meet with you as a group and get a better sense of how we can get involved. Would you be available Friday October 24th or Friday November 7th at or after 4:30pm? Let us know if either of these days will work or if we need to reevaluate a meeting time that will work for everyone.  Thanks for your time!

Jenny Cheng

Project Problem Statement

We met in our group to discuss the correspondence we had with Keri Taddie and decide on the direction we should go with our project. We decided we want to go with what she described as their current needs: helping with youth and their after school program. We believe that Keri will be a great source of information for us. Because we feel it valuable to go directly to the source of how to meet the needs of a community, we will be hoping to use the youth of that community as our informants. Our problem statement will be:

The youth attending Glendale Middle School are not engaged with the current after school program. 

The last time we met we were all present.  We talked about working with Keri Taddie at the Community Learning Center.  We discussed what our proposed project would be and agreed that we still would like to go with Mia's idea of teaching kids coping skills.  We decided that we would leave our proposal fairly general, though, based on Aster's suggestion that we work with the population to decide what is most needed.  Jenny offered to get in contact with Keri, which she did.  Keri informed us that she has 3 other groups planning to work with them already but that we are the only ones specifically focusing on the youth, which she saw as a strong need.  We have the groundwork set up for what we are going to do.  I think the next thing we need to start working out when we meet on Friday is when/where we start meeting with the Community Learning Center in person and how we can organize times that we can all meet outside of class considering we each have super busy schedules.

This is Ian Schiffman. I've never used blogger or made a blog before so forgive me if I totally screw anything up. According to the syllabus our first blog post is due before class this Friday, so this is mine.  We all met in class as a group last week and talked about Mia's idea of working with children to teach coping skills in hopes of preparing them to cope with things like anxiety symptoms before they get severe.  Jenny spoke with Aster about a community we can work with and it sounds like they will be amenable. We have just started so there really isn't much to report, yet.