2002 Celebration
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2002 Celebration |
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Programs Bank of America Youth Job Program Program Descriptions Bank of America Youth Job Program Contact: The Bank of America Youth Job Program promotes high school graduation, creates access to higher education, and provides students with mentoring and marketable job skills. The program works with local high schools in communities around the country to identify students for the program. Participants receive job training and have a paid position in a banking center or department in their community. Bank officers volunteer their time and serve as mentors, meeting weekly with their student. The Youth Job Program places importance on individual attention to each student, promoting extensive guidance and support from mentors, program staff, and supervisors. It focuses on building students’ academic and vocational abilities so that during the critical transition period of adolescence, students have concrete options and a sense of the possibilities in their future. Bank of America’s commitment to academic achievement, excellent school attendance, and postsecondary education are highlighted through the program. Program participants are underserved youth from low-income families. They enter the program in their junior or senior year and remain until they graduate from high school, working 15 hours a week during the school year and 32 hours a week during winter, spring, and summer breaks. An onsite supervisor trains students on what it means to have responsibility to the workplace and helps them develop valuable work skills. In addition, students and mentors spend at least an hour a week together discussing issues about their work, home, and school, as well as strategies for achieving goals. Program staff, mentors, supervisors, and other bank associates get together with program participants to talk about the importance of community service and actively participate in projects to improve the communities in which they live. Monthly group meetings with Youth Job Program managers help students learn how to write resumes, plan for college, prepare for job interviews, set goals, study, and manage their time. In addition, program managers spend one-on-one time with students to find out what their specific needs are and what can be done to help them. They keep close contact with school counselors to make sure students remain in good academic standing and that they are attending class and participating in school. Since the program’s establishment in 1992, nearly 400 youth have benefited from the program. Eighty percent have pursued higher education opportunities, and 40 percent of those who graduated from high school have become Bank of America employees. Spanish-Language Parenting Education Program Contacts The mission of the Los Niños Bien Educados Spanish-language parenting program is to build on family and cultural strengths to support healthy and complete family functioning. Its parent company, the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic (YVFWC), provides culturally and linguistically appropriate parenting education to the Latino community of Yakima County, Washington. Yakima County is approximately 40 percent Latino, with many of those being new immigrants. For the largely Spanish-speaking population, the program’s parenting curriculum helps build self-esteem and facilitates behavior modification in children, and has helped create positive family communication. The curriculum was designed to meet the needs of Spanish-speaking parents, building on traditional cultural values and strengths and assisting immigrant families with issues related to raising children in the United States. Los Niños Bien Educados incorporates concepts of traditional family roles and acculturation, including changes in these traditional roles as a result of acculturation pressures and choices. When parents attend at least eight of the twelve class sessions, they receive a certificate of completion. Program evaluations conducted in the form of family surveys demonstrated that the more frequently parents attended class, the higher their level of healthy family functioning two years later. For this reason, encouraging a high attendance level is a critical part of the program’s success. Parents who complete the course with a high level of attendance report significant improvement in these areas: satisfaction with their children’s behavior, influence over their children’s behavior, effective discipline, understanding their children’s needs, and family communication. In addition, the program has a strong child care component. Many of the children who accompany their parents to class have not experienced a developmentally stimulating, structured preschool environment. In 1997, most preschoolers in the program demonstrated developmental risk at entry, but their exit scores showed across-the-board decreases in gross motor, fine motor, language, and visual discrimination skills. |