www.cfhd.org, Youth Leadership-young leaders of tomorrow, kids, children, programs, skills.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The primary focus of Tawah™ LeadershipYouth Program is to assist adolescents in forming and maintaining more adequate interpersonal relationships with others-peers, family and the community alike, to successfully begin to achieve a sense of personal autonomy and accomplishment as is practically displayed in school, work and family settings, and to assist the participants in viewing themselves as productive members of their communities. The Learning Center for Human Development assists and focuses on teaching leadership skills as its core foundation in helping troubled youth discover and bring out their own leadership qualities.

OBJECTIVES
1. To enable each individual to truly recognize their worth as a person who values themselves.

2. To develop appropriate vocational skills, that will enable them to trust themselves and be successful in the world. To nurture them to become mentally and physically healthy leaders.

3. To assist each individual to have and maintain appropriate and satisfying interpersonal relationships with peers and adults.

4. To help each adolescent develop their problem solving skills to more adequately cope with daily frustrations and make healthy decisions in their lives.

5. To help develop independent living skills where appropriate that will enable the adolescent to more adequately function autonomously.

6. To assist in improving communication and interpersonal relationships within the family unit and the community.

PROGRAM COMPONENTS
1. Mentoring Program
This aspect of the program will give the youths mentoring and guidance to support them throughout the time they are enrolled in the Youth Leadership Program. Mentoring programs are effective tools in combating youth substance abuse, crime, violence and truancy as well as enhancing academic performance and positive peer relationships. Effort is made to match corporate and community volunteers with at-risk youth based upon unique qualifications of the volunteer and the specific needs of the youth. Graduates of the program are incorporated to become mentors of the youth and to provide encouragement and support throughout the program.

2. Psychodrama/Theater of the Mind
This interpersonal work provides people with an opportunity to find the repressed and denied personalities and masks that break down the value systems of self and others. Psychodrama is a therapeutic discipline that uses action methods, role training, and group dynamics to facilitate constructive change in the lives of participants, and tests the boundaries of intimacy through an invitation of sharing. By closely approximating life situations in a safe and structured environment, the participant is able to re-create and enact themes in a way that allows both insight and an opportunity to practice new life skills. Each person who participates in a session is working out his or her own emotional situations through identification with the individual whose story is being told. Every person in the group process thus achieves growth and self-insight.

3. Team Building Skills
This program requires each individual to become a team player by overcoming their own fears. The program is divided into ground level, or low course, and the high ropes course. The ground level course focuses on activities that are fun, entertaining and physically challenging and that require group interaction for success. The high ropes course focuses on the participants overcoming fear and learning self-reliance and trust. The principles are based on trusting each other to cover and contribute all their resources to see the project/mission to completion. This will require the youths to face and understand their fears, and to overcome them to become self-reliant and then to give that service completely and wholeheartedly to the mission. This helps re-establish trust in the lives of young people who have suffered betrayal from within the most vulnerable place, their family.

4. Vocational Program
This program will offer each youth an opportunity to develop concrete skills in a variety of settings. These range from building projects and learning the trades, culinary, catering, and restaurant management training, agriculture and horticultural skills, artistic resources and creativity, clerical and sales training, computer and technical skills, and many other possibilities.

5. Art Therapy Program
Art Therapy is based on the belief that the creative process involved in the making of art is healing and life enhancing. Through creating and reflecting on the art products and processes people can increase awareness of self and others. Both the product and the associative references may be used in an effort to help individuals find more compatible relationships between their inner and outer worlds. Art is used as a vehicle for communication for the purpose of developing insight, resolving emotional conflicts and symbolically understanding what is happening within an individual. It is art expression that lends itself to exploration, and as a result, to the adjustment of individuals to life. A specific program that was successfully used with adolescents in a chemical dependency clinical setting was finding the "Golden Key" within to develop the creative potential of each child. The theory of neurology of the preverbal artistic brain has been successfully demonstrated in these clinical settings.

6. Music Program
Music provides an opportunity to learn non-verbal communication skills. Working in interactive group sessions allows dynamic communication between participants as they discover inner expression. Clinical studies indicate that musical activities provide a powerful healing effect on the human body. Song and dance allows each participant to find their voice, using the breath to learn to project and express themselves. Music composition and song selection gives participants the opportunity to write or choose the lyrics and music that expresses who and where they are at this time. This process also assists people to be able to communicate better, learn creativity, develop decision making skills, and express a fuller range of emotions. Learning to perform in a safe environment can also provide the foundation for public speaking, public relations, and customer service for those who are inclined. With music we are given the opportunity and time to project our inner Being in a protected environment where there is acceptance.

7. Family Program
Family participation is highly encouraged throughout the program, though not necessary. Support and education are offered to parents through participation in a variety of settings, including, for example, the Men's and Women's Circles which offer them the same opportunities to renew and rebuild themselves into what they can value and trust again.

8. Earth Sciences Activities
These activities help the teens become more comfortable in the natural environment. We will work with seasonal celebrations of life and family. We will also work with the Life Compass where we learn the process of opposition and its balance. Rock Lodges, are used to sweat and purify the body from toxins and to do inward reflection of ourselves as a Being to what we are as a physical part of the planet. The Earth Sciences reveal the real world and help us know the value of life and our role in it.

9. International Cultural Awareness
Cultural awareness and exposure to people of all countries of the world are part of the Learning Center for Human Development. Through participation in different cultural experiences individuals can view themselves as part of the world and understand the responsibility shared by all in maintaining peace and respect for all people and all nations.

Budget Considerations
The cost for this program is $50 per student per day. Three trainers and one staff person for every five participants.

If you know young people who would benefit from this program, do not hesitate to call for enrollment information.

The Learning Center for Human Development Inc.
49862 Batesville Road
Summerfield, OH 43788,
Ph: (740) 838-4033
Email: tawah@cfhd.org

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