peer group connection: mentoring for safe, supportive, engaging, and inspiring environments

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Peer Group Connection: Mentoring for Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments Princeton Center for Leadership Training Dr. Margo Ross, Senior Director April 11, 2013

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Presented at the 2013 NPEA conference by: Princeton Center for Leadership Training http://www.educational-access.org/npea_conference_speakers2013.php

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Page 1: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Peer Group Connection: Mentoring for Safe,

Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Princeton Center for Leadership Training

Dr. Margo Ross, Senior Director

April 11, 2013

Page 2: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Who are we?Princeton Center for Leadership

Training (PCLT)

Partner with schools to help create safer and more supportive, engaging, inspiring environments

Has served hundreds of schools since 1988 and our work touches tens of thousands of students, educators, and parents annually

Highly committed to implementing effective programs in partnership with communities that have large numbers of economically disadvantaged youth

Page 3: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Who are you?

District/School Administrators

Teachers Student Support

Services Professionals Elementary Educators Middle Grades

Educators High School Educators

Government Leaders Community-Based/

Nonprofit Leaders Business Leaders Funders Parents Students Who did we miss?

Page 4: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Learning Objectives

As a result of participating in this workshop, learners will be able to:

• articulate why feeling connected to school leads to fewer dropouts, higher grades, and reduced bullying

• appreciate the need to focus on the middle to high school transition in efforts to improve students’ sense of school connectedness

• understand the evidence supporting a peer group mentoring model that enhances school connectedness for students and eases the transition into high school for 9th graders

Page 5: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Challenge• There is a profound weakness in the

support provided to students during the transition into high school.

• By the time they are in high school, as many as 40 to 60 percent of all students—urban, suburban and rural—are “chronically disengaged” from school.  

• Such disengagement has dire consequences – research consistently demonstrates that students are most vulnerable for dropping out of school during and immediately following their first year of high school.

Blum, 2005; Cohen & Smerdon, 2009

Page 6: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Transition & Challenges 

From your experiences and observations,

what are the most significant challenges facing students as they

transition from middle school to high school?

Page 7: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Programs that support students throughout the transition from

middle to high school and extending throughout the freshman

and sophomore years have the greatest impact on keeping

students engaged and in school.

Effective Transition Programs

Page 8: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Have adequate support of school leadership

Develop individual social skills

Are theory driven

Involve interactive teaching approaches (e.g. small group activities and role plays)

Use properly selected and trained peer leaders to facilitate delivery of the program

Integrate other segments of the community (e.g. family members)

Are delivered over multiple structured sessions over multiple years

Provide adequate training and support to program facilitators

Are culturally and developmentally appropriate for the students they serve

Integrate into the regular school day

Reach all students transitioning

Have adequate resources

Effective Transition Programs (continued)

Page 9: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Opportunity

We can transform this period of heightened vulnerability into one of significant opportunity to prevent the potentially devastating personal and societal consequences of high school

disengagement.

By leveraging the power of school-based, group mentoring by older peers and focusing intensively on the transition from

middle to high school…

Page 10: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Getting Grounded

School connectedness - the belief by students that people in

the school care about their learning and about them as individuals –

is an powerful protective factor in the lives of young people and an important prerequisite to reduced bullying, greater academic achievement, lower dropout rates, improved grades, fewer discipline referrals, and fewer high-risk behaviors.

Blum & Libbey, 2004; http://www.casel.org/basics/climate.php

Page 11: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

My Teenage SelfOnce upon a time, we were where our students are. Our experiences may have looked different from theirs, or our experiences may have looked similar. Almost across the board, though, adolescence wasn’t—and isn’t—easy.

To help establish context for considering programming that supports school connectedness and ensures that students make an effective transition into high school, let’s begin with a quick visit back to that time and place when we, too, were teenagers…

Page 12: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

DirectionsWorking in groups of three, participants introduce themselves to one another and take turns sharing responses to any one of the following questions:

• What is one memory you have about a time in high school when you felt strongly connected to other students?

• What is one memory you have about a time in high school when you felt strongly disconnected from other students?

• Think back to one adult in your middle school or high school who threw you a lifeline – this adult knew you and cared about you, and this person’s caring made a positive difference in your life.

Page 13: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Reflections

• What patterns did we see emerge in our memories of school connectedness and disconnectedness?

• What might make it even harder for today’s high school students to experience a sense of school connectedness?

Page 14: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Strategy

Peer-to-peer group mentoring is a straightforward, cost-effective, and

evidence-based model for:

• Enhancing school connectedness

• Easing the transition into high school for 9th graders

Page 15: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Peer Group Connection (PGC) Structure

1515

Page 16: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Let’s watch a brief video segment that highlights the PGC program in Union City, New Jersey, where students are currently immersed in mentoring roles.

• What did you see or hear that resonated with you most deeply?

• What school-based challenges do you think would be addressed by a group mentoring program that sets older students in motion with younger students?

PGC in Action

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Page 17: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Results: Graduation Rates

All Students Male Students

81%

63%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Program Group Control Group

77%

67%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Program Group Control Group

% of Ninth Grade Students who Graduated from High

School

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Page 18: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

• Higher grades

• Better attendance

• Fewer discipline referrals

• Fewer instances of fighting and suspension

• Improved communication with peers and others

Other Results

Page 19: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

1. Collaboration with School Leadership: PCLT staff collaborates with school leadership to assemble and train a school-based Stakeholder Team.

2. Faculty Advisors: PCLT staff collaborates with the school-based Stakeholder Team to identify, select, train, and support Faculty Advisors.

3. Peer Leaders: Faculty Advisors select and train Peer Leaders through an out-of-school retreat and a daily, credit-bearing leadership class.

4. Weekly Outreach Sessions: Peer Leaders mentor and support younger peers in curriculum-driven weekly sessions, carefully planned special events, meaningful service learning projects and informally throughout the school day and year.

5. Family Nights: Parents/caregivers participate in special family events.

6. 10th Grade Booster Sessions: Younger peers receive additional support for a second year.

PGC Model: Overview of Six Key Steps

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Page 20: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Sense of School Belonging

Competence in Interpersonal Relationships

Conflict Resolution, Anger Management, & Violence Prevention

Bullying & Bystander Behavior

Achievement Orientation & Motivation

PGC CurriculumThe PGC curriculum uses engaging, hands-on activities to address issues that have been shown to help reduce risk behaviors and produce positive student outcomes, including high school completion. Curriculum topics include:

Goal Setting

Coping Skills

Decision Making

Peer Acceptance & Resisting Peer Pressure

Anger Management

Stress Management

Service Learning

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Page 21: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Questions, Thoughts and Discussion

Page 22: Peer Group Connection: Mentoring For Safe, Supportive, Engaging, and Inspiring Environments

Final Reflections• What is something you’ve heard or

thought about today that will stay with you?

• What’s one next step you would like to take back to your own school?

• For additional information about PCLT, please contact Margo at [email protected]