The ARISE program reaches historic milestone in Florida’s juvenile justice system.

March 10, 2010 - PRLog -- The strength-based ARISE group sessions last approximately one hour and focus on what the youth are doing right, not on anti-social activities or infractions. The ARISE model is based on discovering, highlighting and rewarding individual strengths. Juvenile offenders are guided by ARISE Group Facilitators through easily understood, interactive, real-world life lessons created specifically for those working with aggressive, academically, motivationally and emotionally challenged youth.  

Since 1996 the innovative ARISE Intervention/Reentry Program has trained and certified over 5000 Florida Department of Juvenile Justice officers and staff in both residential and detention facilities. This small army of dedicated professionals has gone on to teach over 4,000,000 documented hours of social and life skills to detained youth with the goal of reducing negative behavior and recidivism.

This record-breaking month of 26,955 hours of group instruction comes as ever increasing numbers of juvenile justice officers complete the formal 14-hour ARISE Life-Skills Group Facilitator training. The staff is able to deal more confidently with the young women and men in their custody through a better understanding of how to build positive relationships and respond to the needs of troubled youth. ARISE staff training also provides strategies and tools for making a difference in their own lives.

The unique ARISE curriculum is part of a comprehensive strength-based approach to providing at-risk detained youth with the core skills needed to succeed in a world that demands law-abiding behavior. The unique, easy-to-understand, attention-grabbing ARISE life-skills lessons are the basis of the approach.  A crucial part of the ARISE program is the training of juvenile justice staff who work directly with the youth. ARISE equips each Life-Skills Group Facilitator with the knowledge, tools and confidence to engage in successful interventions with the youth. They are trained to generate participation and enthusiasm in youth who often prefer facing a dentist’s drill to any formal learning experience. Youth engaged in the ARISE group sessions feel safe and comfortable expressing themselves, and facilitators listen non-judgmentally. Criticism is unacceptable.

Since 1986, ARISE, a nonprofit foundation, has functioned as a developer and publisher of unique life-management skills curricula and staff training programs for staff responsible for overseeing at-risk, incarcerated youth in detention centers, secure and day treatment facilities. ARISE provides much needed structure to well-meaning but often disorganized programs, moving away from lectures and into dynamic group conversations conducted by ARISE-trained group facilitators. Youth talk about their own life experiences and learn from others’ mistakes. The ARISE library of life-skills books is continually updated with current statistics, inspirational biographies and original short stories designed to keep learners totally engaged in the ARISE group discussions.
In addition to the above achievements, ARISE recently opened to the general public its brand new online Life Skills Supermarket at www.at-riskyouth.org. Now youth-centered organizations have immediate access to the hugely popular evidence-based ARISE curriculum specifically developed for use with troubled children, adolescents and young adults. There are two options for purchase: the traditional, beautifully bound hard copies of the ARISE books, or the digital e-books, which are available instantly at half the price of their bound counterparts.

Since ARISE was established over two decades ago, it has trained and certified 5,760 ARISE Life-Skills Group Facilitators who have conducted over 4,055,708 documented hours of ARISE life-skills lessons in almost all 50 states. ARISE has been used successfully in Canada, Jamaica, England, Australia, Bahamas, Bermuda, New Zealand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Botswana and the Kingdom of Bahrain. Requests for ARISE  material and translation have also come in from as far away as Pakistan, South Africa, Cambodia, India, Singapore and China.

For more information, please call ARISE founder Edmund Benson toll free at 1-888-680-6100, or visit at-riskyouth.org