Winning Futures – Inspiring and preparing youth to succeed through mentoring.

Archive for the ‘Program Resources’ Category

Winning Futures and Detroit Public Schools kicked-off a new pilot program at Cass Technical High School on March 1. At the first session, mentors and mentees met each other at a “break the ice session.” Mentors took five minutes to introduce themselves to each group of students to demonstrate the inaugural session’s underlying theme: The importance of synergy – i.e. forming relationships – in a professional setting.

As many research studies and business experts can attest, synergy is a vital component in successful business dealings and professional advancement. In an article entitled The Benefits and Challenges of Team Collaboration, business management and human services expert Bruce Tyson stated that those who emphasize fostering synergy in day-to-day activities “create results that are greater than what can be achieved working independently. Among other things… synergies can be manifested in reduced costs, increased capabilities, and more flexibility to adapt to changing requirements.”

This introductory exercise introduced Cass Tech students to the Winning Futures’ curriculum outlined in our unique, professionally developed handbook for high-school students, Achieving Success: A Guide to Designing Your Future. In the weeks to come, students will explore further topics such as self exploration, career options and long-term goal-setting.

All these lessons, along with accompanying exercises and development tools, are available for you to utilize through our special collection of workbooks for middle and high-school students. These are available for purchase through our website by clicking here. Check them out today to see how Winning Futures can help you help your students achieve their goals and live up to their full potential!

Credit cards may seem like an easy solution to not having money for what you want.  Teaching students the reality of credit cards can help them be financially successful in years to come.  Below is a lesson used in the Winning Futures classroom to bring reality to getting into debt!

Scenario: Imagine that you love video games. No, imagine that you live for video games.  Imagine next, that a new version of the X-Box just went on sale this week at Wal-Mart for $199 and a couple of games for $49.99 to go with it, bringing the total to $300.00.

You have friends coming over this weekend and you would love to have the system at home for everyone to play.

The only… little bitty problem: You don’t have the cash/money.

The simple and Oh!  So… easy solution: Your new credit card, and a salesperson telling you, “you don’t have to wait until you earn the money; why not enjoy your X-Box tonight, while you’re paying it off in “easy payments“.

Scenario- Discussion Questions:

1. If the average person had a credit card and really wanted this X-Box, what do you think he would do?

2. What would you do?   What are the consequences of waiting until you earned the money to purchase it with cash? (You might not have as much fun for a few weeks.)

3. What could the consequences be, if you purchased it with the credit card? (If you can’t pay it off by the end of the month, you start paying interest. You pay much more for it in the long run. You begin to charge other things. You don’t have the money to invest).

Buying on credit and making monthly payments puts multiplication working against you. Saving the money to buy it outright and investing the money you would have spent in interest puts multiplication working for you.

Beating the System: Credit Cards and “Easy” Payments: 

Let’s look more closely at that X-Box and the accompanying games, which sold for a total of $300.00.  Let’s imagine that you have the average credit card interest rate from (2005) of 13%.

(You will find that the rate is in small, almost unreadable type, at the bottom of your application).

Average Minimum payment is 3%.  Ask yourself, “3%” of what?  Answer is “3% of the amount of your purchase. Therefore, your minimum payment is $9.00 per month.  If you just make the minimum payment, you will still be paying for it over four years and at least one newer version of the X-Box will have been made.  During the 48 months that you are making payments, you will pay $324.00 in interest. That’s money over and above the $300.  It’s the multiplication of that 13% working against you. Over time, you paid $624 for that X-Box and the two games.

A great way to support students in career exploration is to show an interest!  A resourse used at Winning Futures to help students compare and learn more about their career interests is The Occupational Outlook Handbook website – http://www.bls.gov/oco/.

By providing information on careers, students will be better prepared to set their education goals!

Ways to use the Occupational Outlook Handbook site—

~To find out about a specific occupation or topic, use the Search
box that is on every page…you enter your search term in the box.
~To find out about the many occupations, browse through listings using the Occupation
link that is on the left side of each page.
~For a listing of all occupations in alphabetical order, go to the A-Z Index and select a letter.

At Winning Futures, we have secured $5,000 in private funds to be able to offer our life skills and goal-setting workbooks, handbooks, and training program to organizations focusing on youth development (mentoring programs, schools, and churches). Agencies interested in implementing our evidence-based curriculum into their program just need to fill out a very SHORT application on our website www.WinningFuturesBooks.org.

Selected programs will receive the workbooks, handbooks, and training at no cost! Samples of the books and topics are also on our website.

We initially developed the workbooks to be used internally to our organization with mentors, and now schools and non-profits in 30 states have integrated them into their agencies! The program has been deemed “evidence-based” by Saginaw Valley State University through pre- and post assessments with students, mentors, and teachers (these tools will also be provided to programs).

Applications are due June 1st. www.WinningFuturesBooks.org

Last week, I spoke at the National “Youth At-Risk conference through Georgia Southern University.  Educators and youth serving professionals, this is a conference to have on your list for 2012.  They had very innovative workshops with realistic activities and programs you can immediately implement.  My workshop focused on creating and implementing mentoring programs for agencies who work with at-risk youth. http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/nationalyouthatrisk.html