HANCOCK COUNTY’S PROMISE…
GROWING GREAT KIDS!

• Our Mission

• The Five Promises

  • Caring Adults

  • Safe Places

  • Healthy Start

  • Marketable Skills

  • Opportunities to Serve

Brief Explanation: In 1997, all five living Presidents, with Mrs. Nancy Reagan representing Ronald Reagan, convened in Philadelphia at the President’s Summit for America’s Future.  Now, you may be curious as to what type of pressing national or international issue could bring this group of dignitaries together.  It is our nation’s young people.  The Presidents and over 2000 state and local delegates came together to challenge all Americans to contribute their time, talents, and treasures to support the nation’s youth.  America’s Promise, led by General Colin Powell, was formed as the instrument that would carry forward the work of the Summit and provide the national leadership required to achieve its enormous mandate.  America’s Promise is a movement dedicated to mobilizing this nation’s great resources, representing every sector of American life, to build and strengthen the character and competence of our youth. 

Hancock County’s Promise... Growing Great Kids is a group of dedicated local citizen leaders, bonded together by a shared commitment to build and strengthen the character and competence of our youth.  We strive to become a Community of Promise, one that assures that all our young Americans have access to the five fundamental resources:

• caring and positive adults in their lives as parents, mentors, tutors, coaches (mentor)

• safe places and structured activities in which to learn and grow (protect)

• a healthy start and healthy future (nurture)

• an effective education that equips them with marketable skills (prepare)

• an opportunity to give back to their communities (serve)

Our Mission:
To nurture and prepare young people to be safe, valued, and contributing                members of society by building on the resources, talents, and skills of everyone.

Our Goals:

Mentor
To build upon the foundation of positive adult relationships beginning with a parent/guardian and expanding into our schools, faith communities, and all of Hancock County.               

Protect 
To increase the amount of non-school hours spent in structured, supervised activities where positive role models recognize the accomplishments of all young people.

Nurture 
To improve the quality of physical and mental health in young people by providing greater access to services and education.

Prepare 
To enhance the basic education of youth and to increase both the access to and participation in non-traditional learning environments.

Serve 
To increase meaningful youth participation in volunteer service activities and involve them in various stages of community service development.

If you would like to know what you can do to be a part of Hancock County’s Promise... Growing Great Kids please call Jed Thorp, AmeriCorps Promise Fellow, at 423-1775.
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The Five Promises

Caring Adults
Promise One: Ongoing relationships with caring adults - parents, mentors, tutors, or coaches

"We need to make sure that no boy or girl in America is growing up without having in his or her life the presence of a responsible, caring adult. Where else does a child learn how to behave? Where else does a child learn the experience of the past, the totems and traditions of the past? Where else does a child look for the proper examples except from responsible, caring, loving adults in his or her life."

Founding Chairman, General Colin L. Powell

Communities need to provide all young people with sustained adult relationships through which they experience support, care, guidance, and advocacy. Caring and connectedness within and beyond the family consistently are found to be powerful factors in protecting young people from negative behaviors and in encouraging good social skills, responsible values, and positive identity.

Ideally, youth develop sustained connections with: 

• Parents or other caregivers.
• Extended family members.
• Neighbors and other adults youth see in their daily lives.
• Adults who spend time with youth through schools and programs, including coaches, teachers, mentors, child care workers, youth workers, and employers.

While all these relationships are important, most youth do not experience this web of adult support and care beyond their families.
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Safe Places
Promise Two: Safe places with structured activities during nonschool hours

"It is just common sense that if we don't provide young people with some kind of sanctuary - I call them 'safe places' - and give kids something constructive to do once the last bell rings, they are going to be easy marks for drug dealers, gang recruiters and other predators."

Founding Chairman, General Colin L. Powell

Young people need structure, and they need to be physically and emotionally safe. Providing safe places and structured activities has many benefits both to young people and society. This promise can:

• Connect youth to principled and caring adults.
• Nurture young people's skills and capacities, including social skills, vocational interests, and civic responsibility.
• Protect youth from violence and other dangerous or negative influences.
• Create a peer group that exerts positive influence on each other.
• Provide opportunities for children and youth to contribute to their community and society.
• Enrich young people's academic performance and educational commitment.

Research consistently affirms the value of those opportunities. Yet far too many children and adolescents do not have ongoing access to this critical support.
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Healthy Start
Promise Three: Healthy start and future

"I've been to schools in America where the teachers have told me that the kids come back to school on Monday weighing less than when they left Friday afternoon - where kids show up without even the most basic physical exam - where they don't have their vaccinations. We can do better than that."

Founding Chairman, General Colin L. Powell

To many, "a healthy start" focuses on what children need before they start school-prenatal care, immunizations, and school readiness. Indeed, these early years are crucial. But we must also think about this promise more broadly-as "a healthy start" for adulthood. The following are necessary to ensure that children grow up healthy:

• Accessible and affordable health insurance which covers immunizations, regular checkups, eye, ear and dental exams, and treatment of illness.
• Health education focusing on risk behaviors such as violence and alcohol, drug and tobacco use.
• Adequate nutrition and exercise.

Too few young people have access to this support in their communities. We need to provide all of them a healthy start. 
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Marketable Skills
Promise Four: Marketable skills through effective education

"We need more internships, apprentice opportunities, training opportunities, in order to expose our youngsters to the workplace early in their lives and they can understand why they had better make sure that they are doing well in school and studying in school. Ground Hog Job Shadow Day is an example of getting over a million youngsters this past February into the workplace so they can see what it's all about."

Founding Chairman, General Colin L. Powell

Employers increasingly need workers who can think, learn new skills rapidly, work in teams, and solve problems creatively. Yet too few youth-whether college bound or not- have these qualities or, in many cases, even basic work skills.

Making a successful transition from school to work is a critical milestone in the development journey. Yet significant shifts in both the workplace and the skills needed make it harder for young people to make successful transitions into the world of work.

There are many important qualities, skills, and competencies that young people need to be successful and productive workers. Among these are:

• A foundation in basic skills, such as reading, writing, mathematics, science, technology, and communication.
• Thinking skills, such as creativity, decision making, problem solving, and reasoning.
• Personal attitudes and qualities, such as integrity, responsibility, and self-motivation.

Particular supports are needed to enhance skills and readiness for work. These include school reform efforts (to ensure that students are engaged in relevant, challenging, and interesting learning) and education about economics and business, internships, work study, vocational and career counseling, and on-the-job experience that expose them to career opportunities and job skills. Such efforts prepare young people to be valuable workers throughout their lives.
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Opportunities to Serve
Promise Five: Opportunities to give back through community service

"I believe to the depth of my heart that a teenager who has spent a few hours a week helping a younger child learn to read, or spent a few hours at a hospice helping an older person reach the end of their life in dignity, is a changed person."

Founding Chairman, General Colin L. Powell

It's time to see young people as part of the solution, not as the problem. Yet even though youth are more likely to volunteer than adults, fewer than half of all youth consistently serve others. A result is that they miss this powerful opportunity for growth.

Giving children and adolescents opportunities to serve others is an important strategy in shaping America's future. Though school-based community service has received the most attention, there are many different avenues through which youth can contribute to their community. These include:

Though service by youth is often "packaged" as a single program run by an organization or social institution, promoting service as a lifelong commitment is enhanced when youth participate at many ages, through multiple avenues, and when opportunity is given to reflect on the act of service-hence, the term service-learning.

An emerging body of research suggests that service-learning experiences enhance self-esteem, a sense of personal competence and efficacy, engagement with school, and social responsibility for others. With appropriate training and support, there are hundreds of different types of service young people can perform in their communities. Just as important is to remember that youth are much less likely to volunteer if they are not asked.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK BELOW

HTTP://WWW.AMERICASPROMISE.ORG                      HTTP://WWW.STATE.OHIO.US/OHIOGCSC/

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Volunteer Center United Way of Hancock County 124 West Front Street • Findlay, Ohio 45840 Phone: 419-423-1775 e-mail: jgroen@uwhancock.org