Mentor Pam Kellet and mentee Hanna.

• Appropriate attire
• Proper handshake
• Good posture and eye contact
• Good voice tone and speed of speech
• Enthusiastic attitude
• Examples to back up strengths
• Avoiding negative comments
• Using Winning Futures in the pitch
• Using interviewer name and company name
• Thanking the interviewer

Next, students and mentors took part in a mock career fair where each mentor moved from team to team to hear students’ pitches and give them feedback. This enabled students to hone their pitches based on advice from a working professional – someone they may one day actually interview for a job with!

You too can use this process to help students get comfortable speaking about themselves and delivering their interview pitches in a natural and fluid manner. Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are also outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

Studies show that more education leads to bigger paychecks; i.e., the more you learn the more you earn. To demonstrate this, students were shown average salaries for American workers based on the amount of education they had attained:

• Less than a high school diploma – $9.47 per hour/$18,000 annually
• High school diploma – $12.50 per hour/$24,000 annually
• Associate degree – $15.24 per hour/$30,000 annually
• Bachelor’s degree – $19.28 per hour/$38,000 annually
• Master’s degree – $24.04 per hour/$48,000 annually

Throughout the lesson, mentors worked with students to explain other benefits of continuing their education and setting achievable career goals other than earning power, including:

• Having a lifetime of increased opportunities
• Being more empowered as an agent in your their own lives
• Being better able to weather adversity
• Increased personal marketability

Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

While at OU, students went on a peer-guided tour to experience college’s academic and social environment, including:

• Lecture halls and science labs
• Campus bookstore and library
• Student newspaper and radio station
• Financial aid and admission offices
• Student Union and dormitories.

Students rounded out their day by dining in the campus cafeteria.

“This experience opened a lot of students’ eyes to the fact that college is an option for them,” said Winning Futures’ Vice President and Program Facilitator Laurie Tarter. “In fact, while on our visit, I bumped into four Winning Futures alumni who were currently attending OU. They told me they’d never considered continuing education past high school before taking part in last year’s tour!”

Education and career goal-setting are just a few of the important lessons taught through Winning Futures’ Achieving Success workbooks. To learn more about this unique curriculum, click on the “Purchase Books” button at left.

A fun activity that demonstrates this is building a spaghetti tower! Here’s how it works: Break students into teams of three or four. Give each team a box of uncooked spaghetti and a bag of regular size marshmallows.  Tell them to build the tallest FREE STANDING tower they can with just the spaghetti and marshmallows.  Give them 10-15 minutes to build their tower and award a prize like a bag of candy to the team with the tallest tower!

Close out the activity by explaining the purpose of this exercise: To show that the key to developing a positive attitude and achieving success in life is building a strong foundation. Those that build a strong foundation are then able to stand tall, strong and independently, just like the spaghetti tower.

Lessons like this are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

• Creating custom flower pots for donation to American House senior living center
• Making teddy bears and pillows for distribution to the Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team and the Ronald McDonald House
• Crafting awareness ribbons for the Greater Detroit Chapter of Child Help foster care program.

“We want to teach students that volunteerism and helping out in your community is a win-win situation,” said Winning Futures’ Vice President and Program Director Laurie Tarter. “It demonstrates to schools and employers the individual’s strength of character and willingness to ‘give back,’ while making the volunteer feel good about making a positive difference in somebody else’s life.”
After the lesson and activities were completed, students were encouraged to continue seeking out community service and volunteer opportunities on their own.

Each mentor group adopted a community service project to benefit a specific cause.  By doing so, students discovered how volunteering can help others and themselves through benefits such as:

• Synergy – Volunteers bring about improvement in their lives by becoming more connected to friends and family, being happier and having a more positive outlook on life in general.
• Education – Teens often gain new skills and find new career opportunities through community service. The experiences gained in volunteer settings provide teens with skills in leadership and decision-making. These assets look attractive on college and scholarship applications.
• Personality – Volunteers learn about respect and kindness through community service. Teens in particular develop a better appreciation for the “little things” in life and also gain the personal satisfaction of knowing they have made a difference.
• Employment – Besides finding new career opportunities, volunteering also provides teens with other skills necessary in the job market such as communication and interpersonal skills.

This important “Life Skills” lesson is outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

According to Winning Futures’ Program Facilitator Taquaryl Franklin, “70-percent of Winning Futures’ students improve their test scores and overall grades by at least half a grade over six weeks.” Some of the techniques used to achieve these extraordinary results are:

• Studying early and regularly as opposed to “cramming.”
• Carefully reading course materials and test directions.
• Using tricks such as acronyms to aid memory retention.

Tips such as these – and many more – can be found in Winning Futures’ “Road to Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

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!

Guidelines for maintaining a young person’s confidences

• Respect their privacy
• Don’t share with others what they have told you about him/herself

Guidelines for deciding whether to break confidentiality

• If what you heard or experience feels “wrong” to you, contact staff member ASAP
• If you are not sure, ask

You MUST break confidentiality when you have a “Red Flag” issue 

• The young person’s safety or someone else’s safety is in danger, or
• An illegal activity is involved