Avalon Carver Community Center

Roderick 5th Grade 11 years old Before starting the Rites of Passage program, Roderick struggled with disruptive and inappropriate behavior. This resulted in frequent disciplinary problems at home and in school. His behavior earned him a bad reputation among his peers and adults. He frustrated his parents and teachers because he failed to realize how much potential he truly had. Moreover, he was negatively impacting his classmates. Roderick also struggled with containing his emotions when he was upset, regardless of whom his reactions were directed towards. Roderick is a powerful example of the positive impact the Rites of Passage program has on young people. The program aided him in getting out of his comfort zone and performing at a higher level. When the 2016-17 school year began and the ROP program started, Roderick immediately displayed his leadership skills and established himself as one of the more vocal leaders of the group. Despite his leadership abilities, Roderick struggled with redirecting his anger and transforming those emotions into skills that would add value to the group instead of being a negative distraction. He assumed the role of class clown because he felt validated by his peers and friends. During an Emotional Rite activity Roderick decided to take on a leadership role with greater responsibility. The ROP lessons helped him understand how important it is for him to be accountable for his actions. He then started being more honest when asked about his role in the program. He began to understand that his behavior was often disruptive and distracted others. Roderick’s goal of being more accountable caused a shift within the program dynamics. The majority of the ROP group slowly started to follow Roderick’s lead by assuming responsibility for their roles in conflicts, misunderstandings or disagreements that occurred not only during programming, but also during the school day. It was very encouraging to see Roderick take pride in showing that he could be held accountable for his actions. Presently, he asks staff if he could lead the Warriors Pledge for every ROP session. Earlier in the program year, Roderick did not show much interest in memorizing nor leading this activity. His confidence has grown tremendously and he recently expressed a great deal of gratitude to the ROP staff for the progress he has noticed within himself. Roderick is not the only one who has noticed his progress, his peers and teachers have also given him positive feedback. Roderick shared, “This program helped me so much. My family is moving to Vegas this summer and I’ll be going to a different school. At first I was not happy about that, but what I learned with Mr. Bikbaye and Mr. Albert is I’m not worried anymore because I will remember what I learned, especially about respecting myself and other people too. I’m going to make them proud…watch! ” Nathaniel 5th grade 10 years old Nathaniel is a 5th grader and is 10 years old; he is a participant in the Rites of Passage program at Hillcrest Dr. Elementary School. As participants journey through the Emotional rite of passage, we encourage the young people to embrace their emotions and provide them with a safe place to discuss their life challenges. They begin to explore a range of emotional vocabulary, emotional baggage, emotional strength and emotional discipline. After a workshop that dealt with emotional well-being and showing resiliency, Nathaniel applied what he learned to a situation that occurred the night before. He began to recount the events that had taken place the night before. As he shared his story the young men in the group provided him support and informed him that he was not alone in the situation. Nathaniel began to tell a story of how he was home alone with his younger sister the day prior, because his mom works during the night. They were watching television and he heard what he thought was gunshots right outside. He fell to the ground and screamed out to his little sister who also fell to the ground (accustomed to the protocol of gunshots). With no answer he said he crawled through the house and up to his younger sister. He grabbed her and took her to the back room. Then, hearing more shots, which he thought were even closer, he crawled around and made sure the doors were locked. After ensuring the house was locked and his sister was safe he called his mother’s cell phone. Nathaniel was clearly still distraught, then he expressed that the workshop from the day prior is the only reason he was able to cope with the event that had taken place. He felt he could be strong, take care of his sister and remain calm, despite being afraid. Nathaniel shared with all of us that if he had not participated in the ROP program and been present for that particular activity he does not know if he and his sister would be alive today.