Steward Team Program Outcome Report 2011-2012

Steward Teams is a core program of Solar Youth’s “Cycle of Stewardship,” a menu of programs that allows youth to learn about local ecology and participate in outdoor adventures, build on their experiences, maintain relationships, progressively gain more leadership skills, become positive change agents in their environments, and ultimately serve as role models for younger children.

In Steward Teams, 9-13 year olds build on what they learned and accomplished in Citycology, Solar Youth’s program for 4-8 year olds. Stewards learn more complex environmental issues and concepts, participate in their first camping trips, and tackle a more sophisticated, 9-step Community Service Action Project (C-SAP).

As Stewards get older, they are given leadership roles in Steward Teams, helping the adult and teen staff lead games, and guiding fellow Stewards through the C-SAP process. Like all Solar Youth programs, the main goal of the Steward Teams is to nurture youth into happy and healthy stewards of their lives and communities, prepared and motivated to succeed in life.

Teenage Youth Educator Interns are hired before every season to co-lead each Steward Team with adult staff. These paid interns participate in a two-week intensive training that involves behavior management techniques and skills associated with coordinating youth development activities, and meet on Fridays throughout the season for ongoing training and professional development.

The Steward Teams, like all programs, follow Solar Youth’s unique program model: Kids Explore! Kids Do! Kids Teach! Following this model, youth investigate the local ecology of their community (Kids Explore!), identify environmental issues that affect the health of people and the natural environment, and seek solutions through a process of problem-solving and youth led action (Kids Do!), then teach what they have learned and accomplished to their families and friends through public education projects (Kids Teach!).

In the Fall 2011 through the Spring 2012, Solar Youth ran seven Steward Teams: two at John Martinez Elementary School (one 4th grade team and one 5th/6th grade team), two at Barnard Environmental Magnet School (one 5th grade team and one 6th grade team), and one each in the Westville Manor, McConaughy Terrace, and Newhallville neighborhoods. Each Steward Team meets twice a week for 12 weeks and participates in full day explorations on Saturdays.

The expected outcomes for our Steward Teams are:  A demonstrated development of, at minimum, nine of the Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets (the building blocks of positive youth development, the possession of which has shown to have a significant effect on youth's ability to resist negative influences and achieve success in adult life). The Developmental Assets we measure are within the categories of 'constructive use