Youth Service "Learning Opportunity"
Building Personal Character — Enhancing Personal Achievement
Developing Leaders Skills — Serving, Promoting Community
Creating Citizens For The 21st Century
Service-learning is a method of teaching, learning and reflecting that combines opportunities to learn with meaningful community service. As a teaching methodology, Service Learning still falls under the philosophy of experiential education, yet this method has been successful in both allowing youth to learn and grow. More specifically, it integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teaching civic responsibility, encourage lifelong civic engagement, and strengthen communities for the common good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_learning).
Civic and ethical benefits of Service-learning allows young people to explore and develop skills for a range of ways to serve, including acts of kindness and caring, community stewardship, and civic action.
Youth "Service Earning®" and Creative Restitution
The concept of creative restitution was developed by psychologist Dr. Albert Eglash in the 1950s. While working with adults and youths who were involved in the criminal justice system, Eglash found that the system lacked both humanity and effectiveness. As a proposed alternative to that system, he developed and promoted the concept of creative restitution. In creative restitution, “an offender, under appropriate supervision, is helped to find some way to make amends to those he has hurt by his offense, and to ‘walk a second mile’ by helping other offenders.”[1]
Service Earning® establishes a social and personal benefit for youth to learn valuable lessons of their offense and an opportunity to earn a stipend to meet court ordered restitution. Service Learning; a methodology of teaching, learning and reflecting that combines academic classroom curriculum with meaningful service. Service Earning®; as a methodology offers youth a holistic learning experience that can increase their engagement in learning, provide them access to adult mentors, building their self-confidence, and enhance the probability that they may successfully meet their obligation to earning, and verbalize their understanding of the offence. The added benefit is the young person is exposed to the world of work and civic (community) service.
Youth offenders often times find themselves in situations where court ordered restitution are not paid because they are not of working age. Unless the parents or guardian meets the obligation paying the restitution, creating the probability that because they did not contribute to the obligation, they will repeat the offence. Even so, if able to work, the lesson learned by their offense to their victim and society is loss by giving them the opportunity to contribute for their wrong doings
( Washington, DC, Restitution Program ). Service Earning® combines the civic lesson to be learned; focusing on the impact of their wrong by verbalizing the moral and civic responsibility of their offenses creating a need for restitution. The goal is to reduce the possibility that the youth will re-enter the juvenile justice system based on the offense, and the opportunity to earndown restitution® ordered by the courts, through community service.
The Center for Reconciliation and Social Change, Inc. (www.SocialChangeNow.Org) coordinates opportunities in a local community for youth offenders to carry out supervised projects which relate to their offence and earn opportunities to meet their obligation to earndown restitution®. The only other component for the offender is to meet the obligation to verbalize their offense and impact on their victims and society. Service Earning® contributes to or completes the earning process, gaining a rightful place in their community by contributing through serves, completing their civic responsibility by learning.
The process of contributing may include speaking to other young people and parents about their offence in a groop setting, opportunites to shair their experience in a social setting, or working within a community organization, contributing hours at given location for an agreed upon stipend.
Community Volunteers Needed
Because volunteering help's others, at the same time builds our character and faith.
The Center for Reconciliation, and Integrity Builders is seeking volunteers to work along side of our youth Service Learning Programs, as well as our administrative programs.
We serve and volunteer by faith expecting nothing more than God may get the glory out of His creation loving and serving one another, will you help us, help others?
Areas of Need for Volunteers
Administration
Camp Renovation/Fix up
Summer Camp Adults Mentors
Summer Camp Youth Mentors
Special Events for Youth
Fundraising
Mentoring Youth any level
Phone Bank
Newsletter, Creative Writing,
Volunteer Coordination
If your are interested in volunteering for any of these area's fill out a short application. We will send you a full application by mail.
Picking up trash by a riverbank is service.
Studying water samples under a microscope is learning.
When students collect and analyze water samples and the local pollution control agency uses the findings to clean up a river... that is service-learning.
Request Information On
Volunteering
Additional Information on
Service Learning
Earning Down Restitution
