Benefits of Community Involvement: Advocacy Training Programs for Middle and High Schoolers

Posted on November 28, 2017

 We’ve written more than once about the importance of community involvement and parent engagement in schools for student success. But what if we reverse the scenario to talk about the importance of getting students out into the community?

How Can Community Involvement Impact Student Success?

Community involvement and service can help a student explore their interests, improve their character, show colleges and universities their commitment, and define their future ambitions. As a form of engagement, community activities and trainings can also leverage the desire to make a difference in the world to help students meet learning objectives and more[1]:

• Develop a connection to their community: Community involvement can promote a sense of connection to the school and the world around it including taking pride in and feeling a responsibility for the community.[2]
• Connect what you learn in school with the outside world: Students can learn to be respectful of others as well as developing their understanding of cultural diversity.[3]
• Enhance skills: Exposure to different situations can help students to develop skills in leadership, communication, working well with a team, and finding solutions for problems.[4]
• Become more self-aware: Students can learn about themselves and discover their personal strengths and weaknesses such as leading a team or planning an event as well as writing, communications and more.
• Increase social responsibility: Community service may make students more aware of and interested in issues such as health, hunger, social justice.

Programs to Explore

Here is just a sampling of teen advocacy training programs around the United States:

Be the Change Youth Training Program trains students 14-18 to make positive changes for teen health, develop leadership and advocacy skills, connect with other teen leaders from around the US and learn about policies that affect school-based health centers.

Taking Down Tobacco is a youth advocacy training program created in partnership with the CVS Health Foundation to educate, empower and engage youth in fighting against tobacco use.

Advocates for Youth offer a variety of trainings for teens including their Teens for AIDS Prevention’s step by step guide to implementing an HIV/STI prevention peer education program in your school, faith community, AIDS service organization, and community-based organizations.

SADDSpeaks is a national program for students equip, train and empower young leaders in advocacy, leadership, and public policy process around traffic safety. This program includes an online program as well as an on-site training in Washington, DC.

The National Center for the Victims of Crime offers extensive youth advocacy resources including publications around dating violence, victim services for teens, and gangs and witness intimidation.

Service Learning

Community service has been a part of educational systems for years, but service learning combines helping the community with academic objectives with the intention to balance emphasis on real issues with real learning. With a goal to get students involved and apply the experience to their academic and personal development, service learning takes civic responsibility to the next level.[5]

Service Learning can include working with the homeless directly in a soup kitchen or shelter environment or in a more indirect way such as research in the classroom about the hungry in the student’s community and a report or presentation to share their findings. It’s a way to help students gain hands-on experience learning about social issues and causes as well as develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills.[6] It’s an opportunity to keep the learning environment and approach fresh and interesting for topics that may be challenging and thought-provoking.

Pride Surveys offers opportunities for children to share their thoughts on their academic environment through our Pride Learning Environment Survey. The benefit of choosing a survey company is that we take the guesswork out of the surveying process to ask the difficult questions. Browse the different types of scalable student surveys we offer and find out why Pride Surveys is the best choice to help you survey your school. Questions? Give us a call at 800-279-6361 or fill out our quick online contact form.

 

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[1] “What the Heck is Service Learning.” Retrieved 21 November 2017 at https://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-heck-service-learning-heather-wolpert-gawron

[2] “Benefits of Service Learning.” Retrieved 21 November 2017 at https://youth.gov/youth-topics/service-learning/what-are-benefits-service-learning

[3] “Benefits of Service Learning.” Retrieved 21 November 2017 at https://youth.gov/youth-topics/service-learning/what-are-benefits-service-learning

[4] Benefits of Service-Learning.” Retrieved 21 November 2017 at http://www.servicelearning.umn.edu/info/benefits.html

[5] “Definition of Service Learning.” Retrieved 21 November 2017 at http://www.uncfsu.edu/civic-engagement/service-learning/definition-of-service-learning

[6] “Benefits of Service-Learning.” Retrieved on 21 November 2017 at http://www.servicelearning.umn.edu/info/benefits.html