Guiding youth on the path to persistence and completion.
While academic classes prepare students with the knowledge needed for testing success, college acceptance, and/or workplace skills, the purpose of “You Are Here … Now What? (YAHNW) is to increase the students’ potential for persistence and completion in their post-secondary education experiences and in achieving workplace/career success. This is accomplished through:
· Developing thoughtful and effective communication skills that lead to self-confidence and supportive, considerate interpersonal relationships.
· Making judicious selections of post-secondary education opportunities and career aspirations through self-understanding and effective planning skills.
The mission of You Are Here... Now What? is three-fold, supporting formal education by focusing on communication, personal development and citizenship:
To enable students to become more effective and confident communicators by helping them to distinguish the variety of communication channels, to recognize the overt and covert messages in entertainment and advertising, to identify the filters that influence how we construct what we say and how we interpret what we hear, and to recognize the roles that all the senses play in receiving messages.
To guide students in appreciating the value of relationships between self and other individuals and within both social and workplace groups and to give them the skills for selecting relationships that will provide them with growth, enrichment, and encouragement.
To develop in students an understanding of the importance of citizenship, nationally, locally, socially, in all communities, and to help them appreciate the worth of both self-fulfillment and giving back to their communities.
Communication… The Foundation
We are witnessing the disintegration of humanity in communication. This is largely the result of our dependence upon electronic devices and media influences. These influences are removing the human connection to our relationships and interactions. The explosion in digital communication has coarsened face-to-face communication and emboldened disrespectful behind-the-screen communication.
The purpose of the Outfluence program “You Are Here . . . Now What?” is to bring students, faculty, administrators, parents and Board members back into their immediate environment, which is the root foundation of life – interactions with people in their communities. Conversation during work and play is gradually giving way to the broadening digital existence, the non- reality, the lure to gain information from and to share information with people at a distance. The digital access presents convenience for certain activities but it is proving to be toxic to relationships and communication.
The disintegration of humanity in communication is seen in a range of classroom management struggles, and in the need for de-escalation of conflict.
Learn More about the Three Pillars
Engagement: Communication, Observation, Self Awareness
Confidence: The Power
of Self Assurance
Persistence and Completion: The Keys to Achievement
We Have Worked With…
