More than half of the impact FYI makes in the community is on kids through mentoring and training students. So when local schools opened recently with various plans to safely educate the youth in their districts, that also meant FYI had to adjust and adapt as well. In the process, FYI has also grown.
For example, the Mentoring Program has had unique challenges in trying to continue its efforts in the COVID-19 environment. The program is currently exploring various ways to keep connected with students, including through such possible avenues as mentoring via video conferencing and helping parents with one-one-one tutoring.
Meanwhile, the program is staying active by returning for its second year back at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center.
“It is pretty much business as usual at the JDC,” said Mentoring Program Co-Director Bryan Moore. “We have four girls and six boys in our sessions, and they have gone great so far.”
The program is using the foundation that was built during the first year of the JDC program in 2019-20 to expand this school year.
“In addition to our six visits per month, we’ve hired Stefan (Swanson) to fill in the gap between those visits so they will have someone available to follow up with,” Moore said. “He will pretty much be an onsite mentor, offering advice, coaching and any other assistance he can.”
Not only is Swanson new to the FYI family, but so are Greenon Mentoring Program Coordinator Staci Sowders and Real Life Teen Choices Educator Jeremy Bereczky. Sowders will take the Enon reigns from Moore, who will focus more on job-seeking training and job readiness. Bereczky, a former police officer and current sports coach in the Tecumseh School District, will be teaching the Real Life curriculum in six counties. Right now, that means mostly online teaching, mixed in with some in-person training in school districts like Springfield City Schools.
The Real Life Teen Choices Program is excited to be back in the schools. Many schools are back in their buildings and able to have the program in due to the educational nature of the program. The Real Life team is also working with schools to provide live virtual programming for those who are virtual and those who are unable to have us in, in person. The team has worked hard to set up a studio area in the conference room for virtual teaching and learned how to use Google classroom.
For more information or to volunteer, call (937) 845-0403 or email nikki@fyiohio.org.
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