Laserfiche WebLink
Orange County Youth Commission <br />Santa Ana, California <br />We also incorporate a peer mentoring program where those who have completed the <br />program can return to mentor younger, newer Club members. This has a two-way <br />positive effect; the experience of a graduating member to help and the experience of the <br />new member to succeed because of the lessons he has learned from his peer. <br />Character Building. <br />Uniquely, we incorporate character development curriculum in all our tutoring and <br />mentoring programs. Here the program focuses on seven character traits: 1) Respect; 2) <br />Responsibility; 3) Integrity; 4) Compassion; 5) Perseverance; 6) Initiative and 7) <br />Forgiveness. All of these character traits are necessary traits to prove successful in <br />academic and career pursuits and accomplishments. We utilize the sport of boxing to <br />instill these character qualities to the boxing club members. In turn, these character <br />qualities ensure that our youth will become ethical and responsible employees after they <br />graduate from high school, trade school and/or college. <br />2. Length of Program. <br />It takes time to develop new habits and change a life style. At- risk youth that we work <br />with have already experienced failure and abandonment issues. Helping the youth to <br />know and helping them understand that they have value and that they can succeed takes <br />at least a year. More than half of the youth that have gone through the WIA Program in <br />years past are still coming to the Santa Ana Boxing Club. It is good that WIA's program <br />has a year of follow up because many of the youth have success stories and we would <br />never hear about the stories if we didn't follow up a year after they exit the WIA <br />Program. <br />3. Frequency of attending the Program. <br />The clients need to call Case Manager at least once a week to check in and to give <br />progress reports, if they are not on the Boxing Team or already in the Club on a daily <br />basis. If they are into a routine of working out then we expect to see them at least 4 days <br />a week. If we serve any kind of food or meal they are usually there. <br />4. Staff Interaction with Participants. <br />Club staff has regular and close interaction with participants. Club staff provide tutoring <br />and instruction on boxing, and can observe a great deal due to the manageable number of <br />youth present at any one time in the program. <br />We do have Non WIA staff that work with the youth as well as the staff. This last year <br />we were really under funded and had to use volunteers to help out. The only problem is <br />that the volunteers can be unreliable at times. <br />In December we were able to take two youth with us to luncheon, in Palos Verdes, that <br />was being held to raise money for the Orange County Youth Commission and two other <br />charities. They were introduced to prominent business owners and philanthropist. <br />9 EXHIBIT A