Equipping Youth

What is Equipping Youth

Every day teens are faced with important decisions, but the importance of those decisions might not be recognized until much later in life.  Our Equipping Youth (EY) program is designed to educate middle and high school-aged students about the long-term effects that decisions they are making today have on their tomorrow. 

Students learn the importance of goal setting and develop implementation strategies that will aid them as they enter adulthood.  In addition, the program educates them on the risks of drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, tobacco, and violence and how to avoid the dangers related to them altogether. 

Equipping Youth Program

Equipping Youth is a risk avoidance, primary prevention, positive youth development program for middle and high school students that enhances good decision-making skills.  It cultivates protective factors in teens by building youth development assets and enhancing self-regulation, motivating and equipping teens to make healthy choices in the five key high-risk areas of drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, violence, and tobacco/nicotine and builds students’ developmental assets, enhancing successful life and academic achievement through intentional goal planning and implementation.  Lessons are designed to include all four learning modalities and incentives enhance long term retention.

  1. Smart Goals
  2. Risks & Consequences
  3. Social Media Safety
  4. Peer Pressure & Boundaries
  5. Relationships

Aside from the topics mentioned above, our program offers education on two of the most relevant issues in our society today: Human Trafficking and Suicide.

The Human Trafficking portion is designed to create an awareness of the methods that victimizers use to attract unsuspecting youth, while the Suicide portion focuses on the consistently affirming a student’s worth and educating them on how to avoid or overcome depression.

Throughout the program we provide students with resources such as crisis hotlines so that they will either have something to offer or somewhere to turn in the event of a crisis situation.

According to the E3 Family Solutions student surveys for years 2022-2023, there were significant attitudinal shifts in students in both middle and high school after participating in the Equipping Youth program. 

For example, among high schoolers, there was a 26% increase in setting and communicating personal boundaries, a 25% increase in awareness of the dangers of human trafficking, a 21% increase in students making a strong commitment to avoid risky behaviors and a 39% increase in students willing to wait until marriage to live together.

To see results of all the survey questions for middle and high schoolers please click on the links below.

EOY Surveys for 2020-2021:

So, I went to this party with my buddies, but when they started drinking and partying, I kept thinking about what you said Monday about my choices and how they could affect my future dreams. I couldn’t get that phrase, “Every choice you make NOW has a consequence later.  So, I asked my buddies to leave and go home, but they said no, they came to party. So, me and this other guy left and went home.  When I got to school this morning, I found out those other guys got into a wreck and are in the hospital today. So, I’m not kidding when I say – you may have saved my life.

Mike’s Story

Learn more about how A New Generation is equipping youth in Hernando County

Join The Mission

The Equipping Youth Program is currently taught in public schools throughout Florida’s Lake and Sumter Counties. Are you ready to be a part of the conversation? Contact us today to find out if our program is taught in your child’s school. An interactive and engaging faith-based option is available for churches and private schools upon request.

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