Building Human Capitol is the essence of the Kentucky 4-H program. Utilizing a wide variety of learning activities, designed to develop the leadership, team work, problem solving, and communication skills.
We would like to highlight one program that we copied several years ago from Edmonson Co. It is the 4-H S.T.O.P. program (Students Targeting Outside Pressures). All 7th graders in the county participated. Using actual cases (names changed of course) of disciplinary or even criminal wrong doing from young people in our community.
Each 4-Her draws an offense at random. We have 45-50 parent volunteers, and 20 legal system represenatives, (Judges, CDW's, Sherif's, State Troopers, School Principals, and School Board Members) who act out the exact situation that the child would find if the situation was real.
The parent volunteer walks the child through the process. Rather the offense was smoking in school, possession of drugs because your "friend" left his back pack (with marijuana in it) in your locker, or armed robery. The child gets to see the actual process that they would face were the situation for real.
After this episode of experiential learning the youth are debriefed by a trainned counselor.
It is an eye opening experience. One that we hope will reduce the power of peer pressure.
In at least the short run it has a demonstrable impact. Our Middle School Principal has noticed that following this program, disciplinary referals drop by 1/3rd.