Youth Development Workshops

 Self Defense- Let's First Start With What is Self-Defense. We hear it many times in frightening situations such as a court hearing. Does this sound familiar "He is claiming Self-defense for justification of the homicide"? Well, we want YOUth to know that self-defense is a right you have to protect yourself from immediate danger. Self-Defense, like all skills, have to be implemented appropriately, learned at peak effectiveness to empower youth development and that is why we are here. 

Websters defines Self-Defense As:

-The act of defending oneself, one's property, or a close relative.

The Cornell Law School Defines Self-Defenses As:

-The use of force to protect oneself from an attempted injury by another. If justified, self-defense is a defense to several crimes and torts involving force, including murder, assault, and battery. 

We have further uncovered this in our research there. Five inter-related elements are necessary to justify using deadly force in self-defense:  Innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonable.

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Every parent has that unrelenting fear and prevalent possibility their child could get abducted, or worse. This is where our workshops come in. Our Workshops are specifically designed for youth and challenging situations they may encounter, such as bullying, confrontations with friends, the Stranger Danger, and inappropriate interactions from bigger and stronger persons. As our focus remains to Empower our Youth With Choices, we strive, in combination with the Police Department, to develop fun, youth-centered drills that will build confidence and increase awareness. Our goal is to equip youth with skills they can remember and use if they need them! The unfortunate realization is that aggressors target children, so we want to provide them with the tools to defend against specific situations. 

We strive to equip them with:

1. Forceful contact strikes when encountering a bigger and stronger person
2. Effective defense responses to grabbing of arm/hair etc. 
3. Defense techniques when being unwillingly picked up

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Gun Saftey- 

We Found there was no clear definition of gun safety, which was disturbing in itself, but we digress. Through our research, we located a synopsis of the idea of gun safety. Gun safety is the study and practice of using, transporting, storing, and disposing of firearms and ammunition, including the training of gun users, the design of weapons, and formal and informal regulation of gun production, distribution, and usage, to avoid unintentional injury, illness, or death. Guns have somehow become a toy and an immediate fall-guy for conflict resolution in our city. This is unacceptable to us, and we believe that we can re-frame this unfortunate ideal with proper education. 

Guns ARE NOT toys. Guns are hazardous when not handled properly and can easily cause injury or death to yourself and those around you. As with other mistakes, you may get a second chance. There are no redos with improperly handling a gun! In combination with the Police Department, we will be developing a vitally important gun-safety workshop. This workshop will empower youth with the skills to handle a firearm properly and pass this information to their friends. Safety Tips from the NRA that we will be presenting to our youth

1. Always treat the gun as loaded and pointed in a safe direction
2. Always keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
3. Always Keep firearm unloaded until ready to shoot.

We further want to instill the importance of: 

1. Being aware of your surrounding 
2. Learning the mechanical and handling characteristics of the firearm you are using
3. Being sure the barrel is clear of obstructions before loading and shooting.
4. Not relying solely on the firearm's safety lock to keep it from firing.

Some Facts:

• Child and teen gun deaths hit a 19-year high in 2017 and have remained elevated since.
• In 2019, nine children and teens were killed with guns each day in America—one every 2 hours and 36 minutes.
•  An estimated 16,644 children and teens were injured with guns in 2018—one every 32 minutes 

 Gun violence impacts all children, but evidence shows that boys, children of color, and older youth pose a greater risk. See the following courtesy of  The Children's Defense Fund

• Black children and teens had the highest gun death rate in 2019 (11.9 per 100,000) followed by American Indian/Alaska Native children and teens (6.4 per 100,000).
• Although Black children and teens made up only 14 percent of all children and teens in 2019, they accounted for 43 percent of child and teen gun deaths.
• Black children and teens were four times more likely to be killed with guns than their white peers.
• Eighty-six percent of children and teens who died from gunfire in 2019 were boys. Boys were six times more likely than girls to die in gun homicides. Black boys were 18 times more likely to be killed in gun homicides than white boys.
• Eighty-five percent of child and teen gun deaths occurred among 15- to 19-year-olds
• In 2019, 86 children under 5 were killed with guns compared with 51 law enforcement officers in the line of duty.

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Domestic Violence-Why a domestic violence workshop? Great question, primarily because these workshops link together in an eerily simar way. take this fact from https://ncadv.org/

"The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%."

But let's first define domestic violence. Domestic violence is violent or aggressive behavior within the home, typically involving the violent abuse of a spouse or partner. Award-winning Documentary "A Dangerous Silence," created and produced by our very own Marketing Media Director Mr. Jacobe Love, does a fantastic job relaying that message and chronicling the lives of those we have lost and their families. 

Our domestic violence workshop will teach our youth the signs and empower them with solutions, so the cycle does not continue. 

https://www.justice.gov/ provided this:

- Domestic violence, also described by the terms family violence, intimate partner violence, and teen dating violence, is a widespread problem in Georgia and across the country. The Office of Violence Against Women defines domestic violence as "a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that one partner uses to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner."  Common abusive tactics include physical violence, sexual violence, isolation, economic abuse, emotional abuse, intimidation, reproductive coercion, and stalking.

Here are a few heartbreaking facts:

-Georgia was recently ranked 10th in the nation for its rate of men killing women. 

-Firearms were the cause of death in 73% of recorded domestic violence fatalities in 2019. 

-4 49% of victims in cases studied by Georgia's Domestic Violence Fatality Review Project began their relationship with the person who eventually killed them when they were between the ages of 13-24. 

-In 37% of the cases studied by Georgia's Domestic Violence Fatality Review Project, children witnessed domestic violence homicide. 

So what will our workshop do? We will empower our youth with the healthy relationship skills they need to succeed. Skills such as communication, effectively managing feelings, and problem-solving can prevent violence. These skills can stop violence in dating relationships before it occurs. We have done extensive research, and many programs help women and children and men too to get away from their abusers, and those programs are absolutely phenomenal! We want to stop the cycle before it starts so that we won't need to get to a place of fear! Providing the proper prevention protocols for our youth is a step in the right direction. Here is the thing: We aren't just focusing on our young men; although society likes to portray our young men as assailants, women are also a part of that static. please see below from 

- https://ncadv.org/ 

• On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. This equates to more than 10 million women and men during one year.
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence; intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, etc.
• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. This includes a range of behaviors (e.g., slapping, shoving, pushing) and in some cases might not be considered "domestic violence.
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence (e.g., beating, burning, strangling) by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.

Our focus remains to EMPOWER, and we will do so in every aspect of their lives! Here's to Empowering YOUth with choices!!

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 Our FCDP Listens program is all about hearing our youth. They often act out or have behavior struggles because they feel they are alone, and the only way to express themselves is by acting out. That is why we are here! We will be that ear they need to listen to their problems and help them develop age-appropriate solutions, and provide them with age-appropriate guidance on how best to tackle their challenges-

Summer Camp: We have three classes (Pre-Teens 7-12, Teens-13-14, Young Adults 15-17!  Our summer camp program puts them in another element. It allows them to interact with their peers and develop valuable skills they can use through life. In Our  four-week-long, 8 hour a day program we provide them the tools for:

-communication

self-expression

-conflict resolution

-self-discovery

-empathy vs. sympathy

-professionalism for our pre-teens

-resume writing skills

-college readiness

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 Youth Advocacy Sessions-What are youth advocacy sessions? Even deeper, what is a youth advocate? A youth advocate is a person who acts in the best interests of the youth with which they are working. The overall purpose of a youth advocate is to ensure that youth maintain their human rights while aiding in skill development in all areas of life, such as education, health, housing, employment, relationships, etc. Through the year's youth advocacy programs have not only given children a platform, but they have given them a voice, which inturns "Empowers Them With Choices" Each day, our children take on a world full of new challenges and re-emerging old ones! Let's take the past few years, for example; Our Educators are challenged by a global pandemic that has caused 8th graders to be still operating on 6th-grade mentality due to their inability to develop the necessary skills caused by the removal of that social interaction medium! As we power our way forward through the midst of a pandemic, we must take the first step and acknowledge there is an issue that can be resolved and improved with a choice. 

Our Youth Advocacy programs let our youths know they have someone in their corner to fight for them. We often dismiss behavior challenges as "something they will grow out of" when it is their cry for help! We will develop that relationship and level of trust with our youth so that they can come to us when challenges arise, and we can help them work through them! we want to assure them FCDP is a safe place where they can

-feel confident enough to be themselves 

-Create positive and lasting connections

-Learn their strength and develop their skills

Our youth advocacy program is how we will revive our communities and save the lives of our youth. As there is no better way to improve the community than right from the inside of the community, that is what we will do! We will partner with local schools and youth programs to ensure they are well equipped to take on the world and anything that comes their way! Becoming that haven of choice for youth and their families allows FCDP to touch so many lives today and beyond.

Here's to Empowering YOUth With Choices!