Youth Advocating Programs teach life skills to students

Alberton School will be hosting a group called Youth Advocating Prevention, or YAP for sixth, seventh and eighth graders. The group will meet weekly at the school on Wednesdays from 4:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. starting Nov. 30.

The group will work to teach students life skills and promote good decision making skills, self-esteem, relationship building, and advocacy skills to reduce drug and alcohol use.

“It’s not just lesson plans, but fun activities that engage the kids,” said program coordinator, Stephanie Quick, who is the Prevention Specialist through Western Montana Mental Health Center.

For example, they take fun personality tests. From those tests, students learn different traits and how those traits carry over into job skills.

School counselor, Kara Berg and Jessica Maurer, who is the afterschool program manager, will be helping with Alberton’s YAP. Berg worked the program at Sentinel High School in Missoula over 10 years ago and told Quick it was a great program and the kids really enjoyed it.

The program has been available in Superior for the past few years. It’s held from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the school on every other Thursday and they have about 38 students involved. Quick helps administer that program with school counselor, Byron Quinlan.

It has also been started at St. Regis School with the help of Barb Jaspers. It’s held every other Friday after school. The attendance is still low but Quick is confident it will grow in time.

In Alberton students will be offered school “swag” such as water bottles and hats to help get kids involved. They are also hoping to recruit high school students to work as older peers to the middle school students to form positive and supportive relationships within the school.

“Once they know what the program is about and the word gets out that its fun, more will show up,” she said.

YAP is one of several advocacy programs offered with Partnership for Success Grant funds working with the Western Montana Mental Health Center. This includes the Mineral County DUI Task Force which they are working to get up and running again. Quick said the program was available a few year ago and stopped operating.

The program involves the county sheriff, Tom Bauer and undersheriff, Mike Boone as well as the former sheriff, Ernie Ornelas and Monte Turner.

“It’s not just one thing; prevention has many layers,” said Quick. “The layers include making communities safe, having law enforcement present which is a deterrent, and more youth programs.”