Viera, FL – Researchers are learning that when it comes to delinquency, boys are exposed to more risk and less protective factors than girls. Through a generous grant from the Heineman Foundation, Brevard Schools Foundation (BSF) hopes to influence troubled adolescent boys with prevention through the arts. The grant will serve boys who are court ordered into juvenile justice facilities: Brevard Group Treatment Home and AMI Kids Space Coast. The boys who enter these programs typically lack important connections to school, have been beaten down, and view themselves as worthless. Without positive intervention, they may never break the cycle of failing in school and in life. The arts are uniquely positioned to bolster positive youth development and this program offers these boys an avenue to think, create and communicate effectively and in turn help them become healthy, caring and responsible adults.
Brevard Schools Foundation has contracted with Brevard Cultural Alliance to provide rotating artist residencies in the two project sites. According to the Search Institute, youth need external and internal developmental assets in order to succeed. “Arts for At-Risk Boys” seeks to build the internal assets of positive identity: personal power, self-esteem, sense of purpose, and positive view of personal future. Using artist residencies – an intensive series of classroom sessions with professional and highly-qualified artists – these boys will experience personal development and empowerment needed to enhance life skills and academics.
Exposing the boys to the arts will give them a needed opportunity to succeed as they transition back to their regular school or out into adulthood. For more information http://www.artsbrevard.org/arts-education/programs-at-risk-youth