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The Value of the Arts and Youth Service in Creating Healthy Communities

By Bridget Smith, AASB Staff

The difference between healthy communities and unhealthy ones is not just a matter of what is absent: alcohol and drug abuse, crime, child abuse, and violence against women. It is also what is present: opportunities for people of all ages to work together on something that is beneficial to the whole. Working together on something that benefits everyone not only produces something tangible – it also creates a container for relationships to develop and flourish. And it is in relationships that healthy communities specialize! When relationships are disrupted, communities fail in their main purpose: to create healthy, successful, mature human beings.

Juneau

Two approaches to creating the kind of healthy communities for young people to flourish in are: • arts projects that are inclusive, and • youth service projects that directly benefit the community Alaska ICE has provided funding and technical assistance for arts projects through the Artist TOPS Arts Projects since 2004, and for Youth Led Service Projects since 2009 in rural and urban Alaska.

The Artist TOPS program has made possible about 200 projects, while Youth Led Service Projects number over 200. An integral part of every one of these projects is the intentional building of relationships between adults and young people.

Alaska Native Youth Success Center

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Tyonek

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Poetry Out Loud

StoryTRACKS from Best Beginnings

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Kids These Days • summer 2013 •

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Talk Story/ Write Story Workshop

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Launching Alaska Native Youth Success Resource Center Creating healthy environments for Alaska Native youth starts with community. Engaging parents, adults, and youth-serving organizations to provide support and a vision for their success, including opportunities for youth to lead and share their voice is vital to moving forward and sustaining the effort.

The Alaska Native Youth Success (ANYS) Center, a collaboration between RuAL CAP, First Alaskans Institute, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Alaska Native Justice Center, Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Alaska Division of Juvenile Justice, does just that. The Center will provide resources, training and technical assistance to tribal communities in rural Alaska. The Center’s purpose is to increase positive youth development and reduce delinquency and other risk behaviors, by supporting tribal and youth-serving organization’s capacity to provide strength-based approaches.

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While the primary focus is on community engagement and capacity building, another goal relates to increasing Alaska Native youth voice and leadership. The ANYS Center will seek partnerships to support organizations as they implement policies and practices that sustain Alaska Native youth leadership. This

Talking Circle at the ANYS network meeting, to launch the new training, technical assistance and resource center

first year has focused on: 1) assessment and planning through interviews, gatherings and feedback from communities, and 2) developing an online resource center and identifying trainers to meet needs. The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provides funding to develop this training, technical assistance and resource center.

The Center will be up and running for the 2013-2014 school year.

For more information contact: Becky Judd (bjudd@ruralcap.com) 907.301.9725 or Amy Gorn (agorn@ruralcap.com) 907.623.0769

Absolutely Everything Researchers Know About Bullying The American Educational Research Association released this week a thorough new analysis on the state of bullying research in the United States.

The report includes several action items for improvement, aimed at both scholars and schools.

Each part addresses a specific aspect of bullying, with 11 parts in total. Here is a brief summary, item by item.

Go to the edweek.org Rules for Engagement blog

Produced by: The Association of Alaska School Boards’ Alaska Initiative for Community Engagement 1111 West 9th Street, Juneau, AK 99801 (907) 463-1660 Fax: (907) 586-2995 E-mail: aasb@aasb.org Web: www.alaskaice.org

Youth skit for language, movement workshop in Nanwalek The content of this newsletter was developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. However, this content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal government.

Kids These Days • summer 2013 •

Poetry Out Loud Congratulations to Tong Thao of Colony High School in Palmer, the Alaska State Poetry Out Loud Champion. Tong went on to represent the state at the National Poetry Out Loud competition in Washington D.C. in April.

Congratulations also goes to the other nine state competitors representing communities throughout Alaska, whose recitations at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center on March 19th were inspiring to those present, as well as audience throughout the state who were able to livestream the event from 360 North.

These competitors were: • • • • • • • • •

Brittni Tully (First Runner-up) of Revilla Alternative High School in Ketchikan; Natalia Spengler from Juneau Douglas High School, Juneau; Samantha Saige Thomas from Chugiak High School, Chugiak; Sarina Montgomery from Lathrop High School, Fairbanks; Hazel Underwood from Kenny Lake School, Kenny Lake; Mark Sawyer Gillilan from IDEA - Region K, Kenai; Thaddeus Steve from Tukurngailnguq School, Stebbins; Annemarie Pike from Sitka High School, Sitka; Andrea Irrigoo from Nome, representing Kodiak High School, Kodiak.

Click here for the Alaska State Poetry Out Loud website which includes a message from the state competitors, a link to photographs of the competition and the link to watch the competition online.

Recognizing the intellectual and social-emotional benefits of instrumental music, Juneau, Alaska Music Matters (JAMM) started at Glacier Valley Elementary in 2010. With initial support from AASB’s Initiative for Community Engagement, music teacher Lorrie Heagy started JAMM with an aim to make music accessible to more students, starting with all Glacier Valley kindergartners, then adding first graders the following year.

For the 2012-2013 school year JAMM expanded to all kindergarten classes at Riverbend and Auke Bay Elementary Schools and added an after-school program for 2nd graders at Glacier Valley. In total, 280 students received at least 90 minutes of instrumental instruction per week throughout the school year.

The school and the program continue to receive national and international attention as an inspiration for other in-school models. PBS New York filmed JAMM as part of an Annenberg professional development series; Derjk Wu, founder of El Sistema Taiwan, and Kris Wang, a film documentarian, made the trip to Juneau specifically to observe, film and interview key people involved with JAMM; and Mike Kirsch, a television journalist from CCTV, spent more than a week in Juneau filming JAMM for an Americas Now television news magazine story.

For the 2013 – 2014 school year, both Auke Bay and Riverbend Elementary Schools will expand their programming to 1st grade, while Glacier Valley will expand to 3rd grade with the addition of a bass section.

“Without AASB and your belief in our program, JAMM would not have had the powerful impact it has on our Juneau community and youth.”

– Lorrie Heagy, Glacier Valley Music Teacher

AASB supported it from the beginning because it was all about school readiness for these students and families, social emotional learning skills, and student and family engagement...all associated with higher academic performance.

Watch the Americas Now news story here.

Kids These Days • summer 2013 •

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Expanding JAMM Program Receives National, International Attention

Spirit of Youth Awards Alaska Teens spiritofyouth.org

On April 6, 2013 over 300 individuals came out to support young Alaskans who received the Spirit of Youth award.

The Spirit of Youth Awards Banquet, held each year in Anchorage, recognize the hard work and efforts of future leaders. The mission of Spirit of Youth is to promote, create and recognize youth involvement in their communities.

Nominations are reviewed monthly and become story leads that are sent to media outlets across the state throughout the year. The nomination process culminates in a celebratory dinner honoring the 20 individuals and groups who ultimately receive top honors in their respective award categories.

Find a complete list of award recipients and their efforts here.

Spirit of Youth recently launched a new youth produced PSA with the message that today’s teens are less likely to use drugs, abuse alcohol or get pregnant than their parents were and they want to be heard.

Watch the PSA here

Alaska Teen Media Institute takes home four more Press Club Awards KTD• 4

alaskateenmedia.org

The Alaska Teen Media Institute helped produce this year’s Alaska Press Club Conference. The Alaska Press Club is an independent professional organization that provides continuing education, recognition and information to working journalists across the state.

Over 50 high school students attended the event and ATMI picked up four awards! Congratulations to ATMI!

On April 26, 2013 Alaska News nightly featured a story by Alaska Teen Media Institute student producer Arina Filippenko on their “AK” segment. The story highlighted a local teen band.

This piece is part of a partnership with Alaska Humanities Forum to have teens tell their unique story of what it’s like to grow up in Alaska.

Listen to the piece here

Physical Activity and Wellness links, for Youth and Adults The Value of School Recess and Outdoor Play (from education.com) Get Out and Play Everyday and Take the Healthy Futures Challenge (from Alaska Dept. of Health and Social Services) Physical activity can help promote brain health (from Herald-Dispatch.com) Looking for something to do this summer with your child who experiences a disability? Here are agencies or groups that you may wish to contact for camps, activities, dates and fees. (from the Alaska Family Directory)

How Does Physical Activity Help?

• Builds strong bones and muscles.

• Decreases the likelihood of developing obesity and risk factors for diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

• May reduce anxiety and depression and promote positive mental health.

Kids These Days • summer 2013 •

(from cdc.gov)

Growing Up Tobacco Free in Alaska

By Amy Modig, RurAL CAP

Eleven RurAL CAP Head Start programs of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region gathered in Bethel on May 30. They met with the Nicotine Prevention Program staff of the YukonKuskowkim Health Corporation (YKHC) and members of the Delta Tobacco Control Alliance.

They learned about the risks and prevalence of tobacco.

The Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc. (RurAL CAP) Head Start Centers are in the final stages of a three-year project called Growing Up Tobacco-Free in Alaska. RurAL CAP partnered with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) to implement the program. Twenty-four RurAL CAP Head Start Centers around Alaska, 13 of which are located in the Y-K Region have been actively engaged in the program. Each community found unique ways to raise awareness of the risks of tobacco use while encouraging tobacco cessation. They have begun prevention activities for their three to five year olds that can be adapted for all grades.

One Head Start staff member commented, “It is exciting to be part of a movement. It can only be good for our kids.”

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Mush! Sled Dogs of the Iditarod By: Joe Funk Ages: 6-9 Iditarod racers often run in families of humans and the dogs that run. The grueling, exciting race is introduced in clearly labeled photographs and crisp text just right for dipping in and out of for a glimpse at the brave animals and people who run it.

• Teacher’s Choices 2013 Reading List • Children’s Choices 2013 Reading List

Meet Lydia: A Native Girl From Southeast Alaska.

By, Miranda Belarde-Lewis Ages: 8 and up Follow the daily life of a young Tlingit girl, Lydia Mills, and explore the history, ceremonies, and traditions of her unique tribe and culture, including Tlingit traditions, ceremonial clothing, festivals, and stories.

• Association for Library Service to Children Summer Reading List

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival By: Velma Wallis Ages: Teens and up Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.

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StoryTracks Coming this Summer from Best Beginnings of Alaska

Imagine a path lined with sign posts, and on each sign is a page from a children’s picture book. As your family moves along – walking, biking, strolling – you and your children can read the story. Reading, nature, and healthy activity – combined!

Best Beginnings is inaugurating StoryTRACKS, and with the support of a challenge grant from the Anchorage Park Foundation ten picture books will be placed on signs. They’ll be laminated and weather-resistant, and mounted on stakes. StoryTRACKS can be more or less permanent, but this plan is for moveable versions.

The possibilities for StoryTRACKS include: • Circulating to parks, trails, sledding hills around the municipality • Creating a schedule of StoryTRACKS “appearances” so families can follow stories around, discovering new park areas • Scheduling them for various family events: Parks & Rec events, Ski for Kids Day, Farmer’s Markets, picnics in neighborhood parks, even birthday parties!

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How can you help?

It will take quite a few volunteers to lay out the picture book pages on the signs, readying them for lamination. If you’d like to participate, please contact Barbara Brown, and we’ll let you know when volunteer events are scheduled.

StoryTRACKS are another way to reinforce the message of Babies on Track and how to encourage our children’s verbal development: Talk, Respond, Ask questions, Connect, Keep at it, and Sing and tell stories.

For more activities your family can do outdoors, visit Exploring Nature on the Best Beginnings website.

Gustavus Library Summer Music and Reading with Preschoolers

By Kate Boesser

Note: Kate Boesser was the 2012 Summer Reading Musician and Preschool Reader at the Gustavus Library. Part of her program goal was to help build assets in youth who visited the library.

Every Wednesday during Summer 2012 I led music for 40 - 60 summer readers and adults including parents and caretakers (including teens and grandparents).

Folk song familiarity, patterning, rhyming, repetition, and group participation all help with reading skills.

After playing and singing with all children, parents, and librarians, I moved to the west wing of the library with preschoolers and their parents and guardians for the next hour of singing more songs, doing rhyming and movement games, reading books, and playing rhythm instruments.

Then from noon to 12:30 p.m. each Wednesday, school music teacher Ellie Sharman and I taught simple one- and two-chord song reading and playing on the ukuleles with preschoolers and children grades K-5.

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“Thanks to an arts grant from AASB, Gustavus purchased 12 new ukuleles and gig bags used and loaned out from the library during the summer. These instruments were also used during the 2012-2013 school year in the school music program for youth grades K-12.”

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Arts and Youth Service

- cont. from Pg. 1

Some of the Artist TOPS Arts Projects funded, from Tyonek to Kake, have included painting community murals in schools and other public places, learning how to play ukuleles together, putting on spoken word poetry workshops and recitals, taking music lessons for marimbas in a band, creating public art, making kuspuks, writing and performing plays, learning the basics of filmmaking through making one, planting a community garden, sewing Tlingit button blankets, writing a book about the history of the village, putting together a stained glass window, creating a string orchestra of five-year-old violinists, sculpting clay bones for a national project, and composing and performing songs in Tlingit.

Seward

Although some of the Youth Led Service Projects also included art such as creating a huge mosaic mural on an elementary school outer wall, the majority did not.

From Seward to Brevig Mission, recent projects include making and using a classroom composting bin, planting community gardens, instituting regular Movie Nights for the village with “theater” popcorn, starting a Bike Shop that services all of the bikes in the village, painting a “ski shack,” providing personal care products for homeless kids, putting together survival kits for seniors, sending care packages to college students away from home, building a safety ramp for snow machines, erecting a “Kids Don’t Float” sign, providing weekend backpacks filled with food for students, and sewing kuspuks with Elders.

Cooper Landing

Lead On! Youth Leadership Summit Lead On! is a three-day summit for youth leaders ages 13-18 and community partners across Alaska. Participants come together to develop leadership skills for promoting peace, equality and respect that can be used in their home communities. Lead On! youth inspire, plan and organize with other youth and adults to work on projects in their communities that promote non-violence and equality in communities.

The first application deadline is June 30, 2013.

Please see the andvsa.org website for further information.

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One of the common threads in all of the arts and youth service projects was how one project seems to lead to another. People who enjoy spending time together in meaningful ways want to keep going with other projects. The consensus is that communities become better at inclusion and more creative in dreaming up other events and projects that would benefit everyone. The surprise in all of this is that the money necessary is usually between $500 and $1000. Best advice for wouldbe community organizers? Make sure that young people have leadership roles and are given support from adults to carry through with projects. Adults need to step back in order to allow youth to have meaningful roles to play. Everyone benefits then.

Old Harbor

New statistic raises important questions from Best Beginnings

All Alaska children begin school ready to succeed – that’s Best Beginnings’ vision. But how do we know if they are “ready to succeed”?

Here’s a startling new statistic. Fewer than 20 percent of children entering kindergarten in Alaska are prepared in all the ways experts say is important for success in school. That’s according to figures recently provided by the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (DEED) on the results of the Alaska Developmental Profile (ADP) conducted last fall.

The ADP is an annual assessment of the skills and behaviors of Alaska children entering school (things like strength and coordination, curiosity, ability to regulate impulses, attention to task, and awareness of print concepts).

More information about how the ADP works, what it measures, is available here on our website.

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No Alaskan can be satisfied that fewer than 20 percent of our 5-year-olds are fully prepared for the challenges and rewards of their first year of school. It’s been demonstrated over and over again that investing time, energy, and financial resources in the first five years of a child’s life pays big dividends over time, to the individual and to society as a whole.

According to Nobel Prize winning University of Chicago Economics Professor James Heckman, “In an era of tight government budgets…the real question is how to use the available funds wisely. The best evidence supports the policy prescription: invest in the very young.”

Learning to Talk Story/Write Story For many high school seniors college or technical school is around the corner.

For others, it may seem out of reach. The competitive nature of entry into an institution of higher learning combined with securing financial aid or scholarships to attend can create a seemingly insurmountable hill to climb. Some students might not deem it worth their effort, too daunting a task, or think themselves not worthy.

Thirteen years ago Tad Bartimus agreed to share her writing talents with students in a rural, isolated community in Hana, Hawaii to assist with their college application process. She is happy, as are a number of students and their families, that she did. The local school has a high poverty rate including roughly 80 percent of students who are entitled to a free/reduced lunch. What evolved for Tad and her husband Dean Wariner, a fellow writer, through their countless hours tutoring and coaching students became the writing workshop Talk Story/ Write Story.

Since TS/WS began in 2000, college applications in Hana High School graduating classes ranging from 16 to 26 students have tripled and scholarship awards have increased over 1000%. TS/WS aims to improve students writing skills through development of their self-confidence and independence. Because schools of higher education want well-rounded, self-sufficient students, the program emphasizes both oral and written communication skills. In the 13 years

of coaching students have gained entry to good schools and won scholarships, including the Gates Millennium scholarship that covers 10 years of all-inclusive free schooling. In 2012, including the Gates awards, 11 of the 21 graduates earned $1.5 million in academic financial aid.

Tad and Dean recently visited the communities of Ketchikan and Bethel to share the TS/WS program with teachers and counselors in Alaska.

Continue reading here. (alaskaice.org)

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Gustavus Summer Music and Reading

- cont. from Pg. 6

This was attended weekly by six to ten people, with each child being helped by a playing adult. This was very amazing and fun, for children ages 2 to 10 playing each time with their parent or grandparent or another adult in a group.

Thanks to an Assets grant from the Association of Alaska School Boards, Gustavus purchased 12 new ukuleles and gig bags used at the library and loaned out from there during the summer.

These instruments were then used during the 2012-2013 school year at school in the music program for youth grades K-12. They were played daily for 20-30 minutes by the K-1 class of 12 with the teacher and aide; by the 2-5 class daily for 20-30 minutes with teacher and aides plus 22 students, and by the 6-12 elective music class 4 days a week for one hour by 10 students and their teacher.

They were played during the Christmas School presentation and during the talent show.

The ukes are now being returned to the library for Summer Reading/Music at the Public Library. This will continue through the years.

Reading and learning music weekly has helped create and strengthen youth/adult connections; making youth feel more bonded to the library and the school with adults committed to their health and education; and helping community members be involved with taking more responsibility for our youth. Every Tuesday night all summer in 2012, six to 18 people, including three to five middle and high school students (both schoolers and home-schoolers) each time, played ukuleles at the library, reading words and chords, making fine music. This continued for the 2012-2013 school year for 9 months.

Eight middle and high schoolers played ukes and guitars and sang for the town’s yearly talent show in April, 2013, on stage before the entire town. - Kate Boesser Rules for Engagement blog www.edweek.org

A look at school culture and student well-being Education Week staff writer Nirvi Shah and contributing writer Ross Brenneman explore some of the nonacademic issues that bear on students’ learning. Join them for insights, news, and analysis on a wide range of issues including school climate, student engagement, children’s well-being, and student behavior and discipline.

Follow the blog here.

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By obtaining these instruments I had the goal of adding assets to the lives of youth by partnering children with adults, each with a ukulele; both learning to play ukulele and singing / playing folk songs together with others.

Alaska Children’s Trust, Working for Healthier Kids and Communities

By Trevor Storrs, ACT Executive Director

Alaska Children’s Trust (ACT) is fighting to eliminate child abuse and neglect to improve the health outcomes for all of Alaska’s kids. Research shows that the societal impacts of child abuse and neglect are major and lifelong. It impairs a child’s physical, social and intellectual development resulting in increased risk of poor performance in school, mental health problems, substance abuse, problems with the law, and serious long-term health problems.

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Working together, we can all increase the well-being of children and families. One of the key ways we can keep children safe is by strengthening families. Research shows that when families possess the five protective factors, the risk for neglect and abuse diminish and positive outcomes for children, youth and families are promoted.

The five protective factors are parental resilience, social connections, concrete support in times of need, knowledge of parenting and child development, and social and emotional competency of children. By changing our value system to reflect these five protective factors, we begin to change our expectations and policies that help us eliminate abuse.

The Alaska Children’s Trust is also leading an effort to create a broad-based statewide network to promote, support and expand high quality afterschool activities for children and youth throughout Alaska. For more info, contact Trevor Storrs at ACT, 907-248-7676.

There are many ways we can help build these protective factors. Small and simple things include talking to the children in your neighborhood, read a book to a child, or recognize a child for doing something good. Allow children the opportunity to interact with adults - this helps build resilience. Offer to watch your friends’ or siblings’ children so they have the chance to relax. Volunteer to coach a local sports team or volunteer as a mentor. Ensure your work policies support families.

As a community, we can strengthen our families and ensure the success of our future by investing in our children and families from the start. Consistent decisions to support the needs of children are at the heart of a bright future.

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www.alaskachildrenstrust.org