Education and Career Development
The Education and Career Development programs are designed to enable youth to become proficient in basic educational disciplines, set goals, explore careers, prepare for employment, and embrace information technology to achieve success in a career. Money Matters, which promotes financial responsibility and independence among Club members by building their basic money management skills; Career Launch, a program used to assess their skills and interests, explore careers, make sound educational decisions and prepare to join our nation’s ever-changing work force; and Goals for Graduation, a program that introduces academic goal setting by linking their future aspirations with concrete actions today.
(Ages 6 - 15) Goals for Graduation, a Project Learn resource, introduces academic goal setting to Club members ages 6-15 by linking their future aspirations with concrete actions today. In goal-setting sessions with the Club youth development professionals, members set achievable “Know-I-Can” Goals, more challenging “Think-I-Can” Goals, and yearly “Believe-I-Can” goals. Members create an action plan with daily and weekly goals leading to short- and long-term gains. A comprehensive guidance strategy helps members connect their smallest results to their highest dreams. An encouraging recognition strategy buoys members as their successes are recognized and supported at every step of their journey.
Money Matters: Make It Count (Ages 13 – 18) promotes financial responsibility and independence among Club members by building their basic money management skills. Participants learn how to manage a checking account, budget, save, and invest. They also learn about starting small businesses and paying for college. Money Matters features the Teen Personal Finance Guide an attractive booklet containing practical tips and activities to help teens learn the important skills of balancing a checkbook, creating a budget and saving and investing for college and retirement. The Money Matters Web site, offers teens an engaging online tool for building their money management knowledge and skills through interactive activities, games and tools like a savings and financial aid calculator to plan for college.
Power Hour (All ages) Power Hour: Making Minutes Count helps Club members be more successful in school by providing homework help and tutoring and encouraging members to become self-directed learners. The program includes a guidebook for homework helpers and introduces the Club mentoring program with charts for rewarding participants' progress. The program strategy is based on Dr. Reginald Clark's research showing that students do much better in school when they spend their non-school hours engaged in fun, but academically beneficial, activities.
Skill Tech (Ages 6 – 18)
Skill Tech I is a basic computer skills program that develops Club members' proficiency with word processing, spreadsheet and other productivity software through fun, hands-on, engaging lessons and projects for four age groups. Skill Tech II teaches advanced yet practical technology skills to Club members ages 10 to 18. Using animated, interactive tutorials on courseware developed exclusively for Boys & Girls Clubs, the program introduces members to hardware and networking skills and technology-related career opportunities.
CareerLaunch - Job Readiness Program (Ages 13 – 18)
This program is for youth ages 13-18 and helps prepare participants for the challenges associated with work by providing basic work maturity skills. This fun and exciting program prepares teens for the working world. Club teens 13-18 years old embark on a journey to explore careers, make sound educational decisions and find success in the world of work. The program, sponsored by Gap Foundation, contains 22 competency based, small-group activities that are organized into four units. CareerLaunch is designed to be easy to deliver, flexible enough to accommodate different club situations, and highly engaging. A pre- and post-assessment tool is included to determine individual participants' achievement of the learning objectives and to document results of the program.