For my charity pitch I chose to support the Detention Alternative After School Program or D.A.A.S.P. for short. D.A.A.S.P. is part of Lourdes Youth Services, which is a larger organization that helps the youth of Binghamton. The mission of D.A.A.S.P. is to provide an alternative to juvenile detention that focuses on giving troubled kids another chance. D.A.A.S.P. provides as safe and comfortable learning environment for troubled youth that emphasizes reducing high-risk behaviors, while improving school performance and attendance. This program also educates the kids on positive decision making in an attempt to reduce repeat offending, and also put a sense of responsibility on both the kids and their families.
D.A.A.S.P. appeals to me because of a personal experience I had with the program. Last year, I got the opportunity to meet with the leader of the program, Ralphalla Richardson, and attend one of its sessions. While meeting with Ralphalla, she was able to explain the success the program has had with helping these kids. However, it was not until I went to D.A.A.S.P. that I saw just how valuable it really was. I was able to speak with the kids and learn the tough situations many of them came from. They informed me how important D.A.A.S.P. is to them, and how much they enjoy going there. The kids told me how valuable it was to them to be able to learn important skills for decision making, and also to begin to understand what they had done wrong. They emphasized how nice it was to have a place where they didn’t feel like they were just being punished but rather had a community to grow in.
I want to raise money for this organization because I think it offers a unique alternative to helping the troubled youth of Binghamton. I think their program for rehabilitation has shown to be effective, but their organization is too small and needs to be able to reach more kids. After speaking with the Ralphalla and the D.A. for children's court, I realized that juvenile offenses were a prevalent issue in the Binghamton community. D.A.A.S.P. offers a more effective alternative to juvenile punishment, where the kids are given an opportunity to learn and grow. I believe that D.A.A.S.P. has a valuable impact on the troubled youth in Binghamton, while also addressing an important community problem. Others should support this organization because it allows a way to make a tangible impact for kids in the community. D.A.A.S.P. gives these kids a chance they would not normally have, and one that hopefully keeps them away from a life of trouble, and teaches them to make positive choices in the future.
I really enjoyed reading this charity pitch and I feel like this organization does very important work. Giving kids the room to grow and learn is a critical part of adolescence and D.A.A.S.P. allows them to do just that. The paragraph where you mentioned that one of the kids involved in the program said "how nice it was to have a place where they didn’t feel like they were just being punished but rather had a community to grow in." really warmed my heart. It's so important to build these children up and help them learn from mistakes effectively, and I can't wait to hear more about D.A.A.S.P. in class.
ReplyDeleteI also liked how you were able to speak from personal experience regarding D.A.A.S.P., it gives the pitch a sort of authenticity and makes the pitch seem less like a summary of an organization.
I am happy that you chose an organization that uses rehabilitative rather than retributive methods to help teach local students. This is a great way to try to dismantle the school to prison pipeline, all while provide kids with the skills and resources to excel in both their academic and personal lives. I would love to hear more about the actual rehabilitative methods they use to help these students. I know that mindfulness practices such as meditation, yoga, and journaling have been shown to greatly improve one’s behavior and self-awareness. Often times in school, the students that are mostly harshly disciplined are they ones that are in the most need of help. Rehabilitative methods help them find an inner sense of peace and safety, which can then assist them in their day to day struggles. They may also feel like that have a greater support system of authority figures, because the people at D.A.A.S.P are respecting and listening to them, opposed to punishing them for their errors.
ReplyDeleteWashington Post reporter Donna St. George explored programs like this one in 2016, when she wrote a story about this new approach to discipline in a Baltimore elementary school (article linked below). In that school, suspensions were cut down by more than half. I believe that this is because these methods do not just help the students after the first time they get in trouble, but continuously throughout their lives, as a way to avoid future conflicts and outbursts.
Lastly, I am pleased that you chose to focus on students in Binghamton schools specifically. Over the past few years, the district has had a multitude of problems of over-disciplining their students, most notably the recent strip searches of four 12-year-old girls after they were deemed to be acting “too giddy” in the hallways. I hope that the outrage from the community, as well as from the rest of the nation, forces the Binghamton City School District to move away from their strict, physical types of discipline towards more calm, rehabilitative measures that preserve the dignity of their students. D.A.A.S.P seems like a great start.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-mindfulness-practices-are-changing-an-inner-city-school/2016/11/13/7b4a274a-a833-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?utm_term=.604d718b3e95
- Hannah Walter
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ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate you sharing this program. I have personally never heard of it, but after reading your post and listening to your charity pitch in class, I’m glad that I now know about it. What I really like about this program is that it is just one of many that are available to adolescents who have faced some type of struggle, have had poor experiences, or may be troubled. I did a little more research into Lourdes Youth Services, and their focus is on prevention and intervention programs specifically designed for the youth. They have health and wellness programs, parenting programs, and even alcohol and drug prevention programs. It was established in 1996, which in my eyes shows that as of today it is well-established.
I also very much like their Mission Statement: “Youth Services advances its vision of a healthy community through programs that strengthen, educate, support, and provide treatment to community members of all ages.” I think that what they are doing is very good for the youth in Broome County, and specifically regarding DAASP allows the youth to get what you call another chance. I did enjoy the inclusion of your own personal experience, because it makes the program that much more credible and allows someone who has first-hand been involved with it attest to its intended goals and success.
Children are the most susceptible to bad behavior and are easily influenced. I believe that every person is a good person, and their experiences shape who they are and how they act. A child who has gone to court of course committed some type of crime, but perhaps it was not their fault. They could have done something wrong because of something they went through: maybe a family member passed away, they were abused, they saw another crime being committed. I don’t think it is fair to punish children, especially at the age that DAASP targets. And so I appreciate what the DAASP is doing: the program creates a comfortable environment in which troubled kids can learn, educate themselves on behavior and keys to success, and as a result these kids can hopefully lead a much more successful and rewarding life.
As much as I am a fan of this program, I do wonder if it could benefit from being expanded. As you mentioned in your charity pitch, it is not able to accommodate that many kids. Would it be less effective for the program to be expanded to accommodate, for example, 20-30 kids? DAASP is making a large-scale impact on the youth in the program, and I want to see it do more good in the sense that it can help more of the youth. I also wanted to know if there are any statistics regarding the program’s effectiveness. I know that it is a solid program with real results, but I do want to see exactly how many kids have received benefits from this program and what the rate of success is post-program. Regardless of those two inquiries, I believe that this program is a great alternative to helping troubled youth out.
Hi Matt,
ReplyDeleteDAASP sounds like an amazing opportunity for these students. I think it is so important to focus on providing intervention for students who are having difficulties while they are still young. A program like this one can do so much to stop the cycle of incarceration and change the course of these young lives for the better. So often from our place of privilege and misunderstanding, we write off these students as unintelligent, impulsive, or in some cases even lost causes. It is important to break that stigma as the mistakes that you make when you are young are often due to a difficult home life, or sometimes something as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Children who are high risk should be given extra support in order to promote better outcomes. By showing these young people that their community cares for them and supports them, this will decrease the likelihood of repeated offenses.
I am an education minor and in my Issues In Education class last semester, we focused quite a bit on the school to prison pipeline. In urban schools, principals and disciplinary officials are threatening legal action and calling police on students rather than handling issues internally. For some students, this means that a small fight in school could lead to having a record and being sent to prison. Although I obviously do not endorse fighting, I believe that these issues should be handled by school officials in most cases. Furthermore, the school to prison affects students of color and students with disabilities much more than their white and abled peers. These students are receiving more severe punishments for the exact same actions. The majority of us will agree that for these students, measures like suspension, taking legal action, and incarceration are the worst things you could do in the hopes of achieving a better outcome. When my class further discussed this issue, we had trouble coming up with ways to end this phenomenon and promote better outcomes for these students. We came to the conclusion that restorative justice, giving extra support to at risk students, and rehabilitative programs were the key to ending this cycle. Programs like DAASP are certainly a great place to start and I hope that this program can be expanded to serve more students.
I really like this program you chose to speak about. I found this to be an extremely important cause for a rather overlooked issue. While I have never worked with the DAASP program in particular, I have worked for the Broome County Family Courts. Last year I had the opportunity to intern with the Broome County Attorney's Office. During this internship I dealt primarily with juvenile delinquent and persons in need of supervision petitions. I had the opportunity to sit in on numerous court cases regarding the troubled youth of Broome County. It was not until I had this experience that I realized the issues within my own community. Being a native of the Binghamton area, it was quite shocking to see the number of juvenile instances going on in my own backyard. That being said, if there's one thing I learned in my time there it's that a lot of these kids do not feel like they have other options. Most juvenile offenders tend to come from broken homes or have incarcerated parents. This cycle is nearly impossible to break from when you spend half of your childhood in either a non-secure or secured detention center. It's important for children to know that they have other options and that they can make a turn around. From the way it sounds, DAASP appears to provide them that sense of hope. I believe in the power of positive reinforcement and really admire the mission of DAASP to help troubled youth make positive life choices. It is great to see that there is program offered like this in Binghamton and I hope to see it expand within our community.
ReplyDeleteFrancesca Spinelli