New Blog for Smart Horizons

With the launch of our new program division Lifetime Training Solutions, we have moved our blog to a new site http://mytrainingnow.com/our-blog/
Please join us there. 

Long Term Solutions for Homeless and At-risk Youth

November is National Homeless Youth Awareness month.  As we think about the young people who may be cold, hungry, and living on the streets, one asks the question, “What more can be done?”  Providing shelter for the night is a step in the right direction, but it is only a short term solution.  Many homeless youth have problems that challenge the social services system.  Often they are runaways that have escaped abusive family environments and leave to avoid physical and or sexual abuse. A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates 46% of homeless youth had been physically abused and 17% had been forced into unwanted sexual activity. The remaining homeless youth either fell victim to a family financial crisis or left because of neglect or a family dispute. A large number of homeless youth were once in foster care. An estimated 50% of foster youth end up homeless once they age out of the foster care system.   Many young runaways lack the education and age requirements to hold jobs.  Therefore, they are forced to beg or turn to prostitution for survival. An estimated 25% of these at-risk youth will end up incarcerated. Many suffer from drug and alcohol addictions, as well as mental health issues. Without adequate life skills and adult role models these youth have difficulty adjusting on their own and end up unemployed and potentially living in poverty. 

When it comes to transitional living programs for homeless youth, there is no one size fits all solution.  A combination of programs ranging from substance abuse rehabilitation, vocational job skills, independent living skills training, mentoring, and counseling is often needed.  Additionally, educational programs have to take into account possible learning disabilities, lower reading comprehension levels, and different learning styles of the students.  When one includes possible emotional and behavioral issues, a traditional classroom approach can present more challenges than benefits.  This assumes students even show up for training, as younger at-risk youth do not always have access to transportation.  Additionally, young adults who are single parents have the added problem of daycare, since many transitional living programs do not offer childcare services.  This is particularly true in rural areas where access to services may be limited.

Most traditional training programs for the at-risk population are directed towards a younger audience without considerations for the needs of those in the 19-25 age groups. Research on brain development indicates that the process of becoming an adult lasts well beyond the teen years and extends into the mid-twenties.  The emerging adulthood stage of development must be met with adequate support and education that is significantly different than how a younger school aged child develops.  Education and training must be planned to develop critical skills sets and knowledge. However, these young adults need information and skills to be provided in a way that allows them to drive their own direction in life.  Self-paced programs reinforced with group instruction, and one-on-one skills development can be critical to transitioning young people into adulthood. 

Six interrelated factors have been identified as crucial in transitioning young people into functional adults: family support, education and training, employment, opportunities to contribute to one’s community, adequate health care and mental health support, and supportive relationships.  Each factor requires repetitive reinforcement in the individual over a longer period of time than previously thought.  Youth who have been homeless are often behind their peers in personal development.  The transition to adulthood may not happen until age 25 or even their early thirties.  Programs that meet the unique needs of young adults to help them adjust to a life of self-sufficiency is a long term solution that benefits not just the individual but society at large.

References:

The Adolescent Brain: New Research and Its Implications for young People Transitioning from Foster Care, Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, 2011

Sara v. Jarvis and Robert M. Robertson, Transitional Living Programs for Homeless Adolescents, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1993

An Empty Planet

We have been told for years that the earth is suffering from overpopulation.  However, new research indicates that the world's population is shrinking with significant economic impacts. Read more...

http://reut.rs/svBFLN

Great Gift Idea for Kids

If you treasure your children's drawings turn them into stuffed animals
read more.....http://bit.ly/vxjKLK

Distance learning and blended education: The future course

The planet is a more objective oriented environment these days. With the concepts of institutional learning and the definition of the term ‘traditional student’ changing all the time, so is the approach towards how educational instruction and training can be delivered in such a way as to make the learning process as individualized and effective, with a deeper emphasis on direct-party attention and the accommodation of more students with specific responsibilities and needs which would render them powerless to pursue classroom based learning.
Read more  ....

http://bit.ly/syWTcW

Informal Learning Networks

A new trend in corporate America is the emphasis on informal learning, often called just-in-time learning. Informal learning is nothing new but with training budgets being slashed a renewed focus on how corporate knowledge transfer occurs is causing many to better appreciate that most people learn through informal social networks.  For example, the use of Wikipedia, search engines, and social media platforms are a common ways employees access information and pass it along to co-workers. 

The use of online learning tools coupled with social media platforms can provide on-demand interactive training capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional stand-up classroom instruction. Informal learning with web-based technology has been proven to increase workplace collaboration and the free exchange of ideas to improve work team effectiveness. However, what happens to all of this shared information once it is collected and passed around?  Most people away articles in email in-boxes, or folders on the corporate server.  This becomes the equivalent of the electronic dust bin. What is needed is a learning management system that can curate this information so that it is readily accessible to anyone on in the organization.  The same learning management system that delivers online training can be used to curate shared information. Since the system is cloud based it can accessed 24/7 anywhere in the world.  This is critical for any entity that wants to become a learning organization.

Blended Learning Approach Opens Possibilities for Juvenile Offenders

The United States has one of the largest per capita incarceration rates in the world, averaging 743 prisoners per 100,000 people.  While statistically crime has dropped over the last twenty years, the prison population has swelled.  This is primarily due to mandatory sentencing laws that have passed in most states and an increase in illegal aliens entering the country.  Currently 27% of the federal prison population is made up of individuals who are not citizens of the United States.  Estimates indicate that when these inmates are released, 67.5% will be re-arrested within three years.  Juvenile offenders make up an even more tragic statistic.  The U.S. incarcerates more youth than any other country in the world. Approximately 500,000 youth offenders are detained each year in the U.S. At least half of these offenders (200,000 – 250,000) are sent to adult prisons. Approximately 94,000 are sent to juvenile detention facilities. The rest are sent to community-based rehabilitation centers, such as group homes or half-way houses. Many of these juvenile offenders have a lack of education, few job skills, and substance abuse problems.  Each of these risk factors contributes to a potential life of crime. 

Research indicates that the sooner an offender can be turned around, the greater the chances they will not return to a life of crime. Therefore, targeting youth offenders so as to stop this cycle and rehabilitate the individual is critical.  Identifying risk factors early on is effective at preventing juvenile delinquency and future criminal behavior.  One important correlation between recidivism rates of these youth is their lack of education.  The number of youth who did not receive vocational training and committed additional crimes rated 78.3% versus a 51.2% recidivism rate for youth who did receive vocational education.  Therefore, society benefits both economically and culturally by educating youth both before and after they enter the juvenile justice system. 

However, educating these individuals is not easy.  A traditional class room approach is not always successful. Blending traditional class room instruction and online learning is based on the notion that learning is not a onetime event but a lifelong process. Students need to receive information more than once and in more than one medium in order to turn that information into knowledge.  Additionally, the online medium allows the student to review lessons multiple times and at their own pace.  This improves retention and student achievement. Class room instruction can focus on critical skills building and achieve a more efficient allocation of scarce resources.

Approximately one fourth of the juvenile offenders arrested by police were either in foster care or had an active preventive services file with a local agency.  Over half of these individuals were reported to have suffered abuse or neglect at home.  These at-risk factors contribute to juvenile delinquency that ultimately leads to incarceration.  Thirty to forty percent of youth growing up in poor urban areas will be arrested by their eighteenth birthday. Each of those youth that commit repeat offenses will dramatically increase their potential for arrest. Each time a juvenile offender is incarcerated, they fall further behind in their education and skills development.  This process continually feeds upon itself: Offenders that are released without the critical skills that could provide them with a job turn to crime to support themselves. 

The causes of juvenile delinquency vary, but most offenders come from families that are disrupted by spousal conflict, break-up of marriages, single parent households, or negligent parents. Foster youth could fall into many if not all of these categories. 

Currently all states are required to provide education to the offender population while they are detained. These educational programs vary from state to state and offer a minimum level of course offerings. A study done by Casey and Keilitz determined that 12.6% of juvenile offenders had developmental disorders and 35.6% had learning disabilities. This poses a significant challenge in educating youth offenders with effective training programs.  Nearly half of juvenile offenders do not return to school once released from a detention facility. Those that do return to school two-thirds to three quarters will drop out within twelve months of being released. Either due to behavioral issues or the fact that these individuals have fallen behind their peers in educational skills juvenile offenders have trouble with traditional class room settings.  An online approach coupled with hands on skills development may be an ideal solution.

Evidence has been collected from research studies that online learning can be completed by students in half the time as traditional classroom instruction.    Thus training costs can be reduced by not having to run multiple classroom sessions.  The blended learning approach does not eliminate classroom instruction but instead refocuses the classroom for critical skills building. This also allows teachers to spend more time helping students who are having difficulty in problem areas.

Studies indicate that students improved learning outcomes by 10% or more when a blended learning approach was used. For juvenile offenders who have learning disabilities having a self-paced program that works in unison with mentoring and classroom instruction is a much more successful strategy. 

Providing programs to youth in neighborhoods that have a high rate of juvenile delinquency is one solution. Programs, such as family support services, parenting education, transitional skills training, and case management can go a long way to changing the direction in which many of these youth are heading. However, a consideration of educational needs is critical to this process, as youth without job skills or life skills will potentially face unemployment, homelessness, and poverty.

A study done by the Central Education Association (CEA) indicated that prisoners who participated in educational programs had lower re-arrest rates, lower rates of re-conviction, and lower rates of re-incarceration. The study demonstrated that educational programs focused on job readiness, post-secondary education, parenting, health education, and general life skills was essential in determining the success of individuals once released from prison. A blended learning approach can be the most successful strategy for achieving this goal.