NCJ Number
191056
Date Published
1988
Length
109 pages
Annotation
This book examines school-based community service programs.
Abstract
The book reviewed the concepts underlying youth in community service, rationales and structural options for school-based service programs, the range of service opportunities, and the details of starting and running a secondary school service program. The book claims there were two fundamental reasons why American teenagers, while still in school, should be encouraged to assume adult responsibilities, if only for a few hours a week, and if only as volunteers. The first was that there was much work that needed doing and that they could do--as shoppers or drivers for shut-ins, as tutors, as collectors of recyclable materials, as singers of old songs at nursing homes, as trail-makers in state parks, and as day care aides. The second reason was that, like almost all the young people who had preceded them in service programs, most would feel far better for it, with new friends, enhanced skills, a broader understanding of life, a deepened sense of connection with their communities, and a higher estimate of their own potential and value. The book describes 33 programs around the Nation, from San Francisco Peer Resource Programs to Pollution Control Center in Oak Park, IL, Valued Youth Partnership Program in San Antonio, TX, and Community Services in Parkersburg, WV. It also includes a list of national resources for assistance in starting a service program. Bibliography