• Some of our youth coalition members and staff attended the Thrive Youth Leadership Conference hosted by Franklin County Prevention Coalition Check out some of the pictures below!
• It's Back to School season! Shannon had a great day at the Back to School Bash in Hampton. We were also able to partner with Bridge to Shore and Recovery Resources to offer backpacks to recovery community kids at the Johnson City Recovery Center. Surprise- there are pictures below! :) Stop by and see Brittny on Saturday at the Elizabethton City Schools bash! 
• Shannon partnered with Project Move, Tri- Cities Moms Demand Action and many other community organizations to provide gun locks and medication lock boxes at an educational event around permitless carry. 
• Nash partnered with the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library to host successful Monday morning summer camps throughout July in the South Hills community and wrapped up a fun season of "Art in the Park" with Elizabethton Arts & Cultural Alliance.  
• Tia partnered with Olson's Martial Arts for an impactful anti-bullying, mental health and suicide awareness event for families. 

July Update

By Shannon Payne, PEAK Mentor Program Director 

I recently did some research on the importance of mentoring programs. This is what I found…. 

Do you know that mentoring programs help kids negate adverse childhood experiences. Across the United States mentors are providing safe adult nurturing relationships for at-risk youth. I hoped to learn that my research would show a positive impact mentoring programs have improving academic performance in at-risk youth. I found mentoring programs provide at-risk youth with a safe place to be vulnerable in expressing their emotions in a healthy manner. Allowing mentees to be themselves while being attuned to the positive factors that help build resilience in at-risk youth. My research found mentoring programs function as positive factors in at-risk youth’s life evoking positive change in self-esteem, aggression, drug use, truancy, perception of school, mental health, and improved academic performance. 

The research suggests favorable results in mentoring programs being beneficial for at-risk youth with mentors that are attuned to positive regard of their mentee. Moreover, showing indisputable rise in mentees’ school efforts and GPAs. My research shows at-risk youth averaging GPAs of 1.97 for kids participating in mentoring programs compared to GPAs of 1.90 of non-mentored comparison groups. Not only do mentoring programs help at-risk academically, they also provide moderate enhancements in depression and substance use.  My research provides support in the importance of mentoring programs being a low cost effective intervention in advancing at-risk youth academic performance. Additionally, mentoring is an effective strategy in providing at-risk youth with support from a positive role model assisting mentees in forming their own values, improving potential, and making better overall decisions leading to increased academic performance. Mentoring programs help at-risk youth negate adverse childhood experiences, helping them build trust in caring adults and create social skills boosting resilience in at-risk youth.

If you are interested in becoming a PEAK Mentor and being a positive influence in a kid's life, please reach out via email, phone, text, or Facebook to Shannon Payne shannon@cartercountydrugprevention.org (423) 707-9207. Please refer kiddos that could benefit from our program via email or phone. 

Every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story!