PARENT ORGANIZING: BECOMING THE AWESOME PARENT YOU ALREADY ARE

The first-ever Parenting Workshop series at St. Stephen’s Youth Programs is off to a fantastic start! St. Stephen’s Youth Programs is partnering with Families First  to offer a series of four workshops for parents to gain skills and confidence in their parenting. During the first workshop, which focused on creating homework-healthy households, parents learned how to adapt the homework environment to individual learning styles and work with their child to create a routine. The highlight of the second workshop on school partnerships was parents role-playing a parent-teacher conference at their child’s school. Parents have been loving the workshops so far. In the words of one mom, “It was very helpful. I was happy with everything and the atmosphere is very comfortable.” The next two workshops will cover Parenting and Technology (March 8th), and Challenges and Changes (March 22nd). This series is offered in Spanish and is open to the public. If you or someone you know would like to attend, please contact Ariel (ariel@ststephensbos.org).

Parents learn about strategies for productive parent-teacher meetings at their student’s school.

Parents share stories with one another at the second Parenting Workshop.

Everything Going On!

At St. Stephen's Youth Programs, there is ALWAYS a lot going on! The building is open seven days a week and welcomes more than 150 youth, college students, adult volunteers and others every Monday through Friday. Three nights a week, fifty middle and high school students stay to get help with their academic work or build their professional skills. 

Tuesdays are supposed to be one of the less busy nights. But that was not true on Tuesday February 9th! There were three simultaneous things happening:

A mentor training in which our college and career mentors learned  more about implicit bias and the ways race and class issues play into their mentoring pairs. And they built skills to build relationships across difference and to overcome some of the challenges these implicit biases create. 

A parent workshop for parents of our B-READY students to learn more about how to support their child's learning, including how to build better connections with the child's teachers and best use parent-teacher conferences.

A BRIDGE Scholar meeting for parents of the teens who will be traveling to North Carolina in April for a service-learning trip where they will discover Appalachia, learn about rural poverty, and help a family improve their home. 

The entire building of St. Stephen's was abuzz with people, learning, and leadership growth! 

Signs point parents, young people, and mentors to the right place.