Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Leticia Samuels | Sgt. 1st Class Khan Eakin, NCNG transition assistance advisor, (right) talks to a teen...... read more read more
Subscribe
FORT FISHER, N.C. – When you hear resilient, most think of the toughest role model in their life, but in the case of the North Carolina National Guard, they are building resiliency in the next generation of children during a weeklong teen retreat here, Aug. 3-7, 2015.
The North Carolina National Guard (NCNG) sponsors numerous activities that involve youth development to include the NCNG Teen Retreat. At the retreat, teens from age 11 to 18 develop their intrapersonal communication skills, decision making skills, and understanding choices to better prepare them for issues adolescents with parents in the military face every day.
“With each passing generation, it gets tougher and tougher for teens,” said Sgt. 1st Class Khan Eakin, a NCNG transition assistance advisor. “There are too many distractions, choices and options, and what this teen resiliency program does, is focus on how people can take blame and reasons and use them as excuses,”
Eakin continued “We actually peel back the layers like an onion to find out what the root cause of the situation is and develop skills to identify it and go forward to overcome those challenges.”
In the week-long journey, teens participate in canoeing, kayaking, geocaching aka ‘treasure hunting” and gyotaku; a Japanese form of fish painting and sand casting. While teens are able to participate in outside activates, the program is centered mainly on resiliency classes similar to preparatory classes Guard members receive.
“On the service member side, it’s just books and reading, but we try to give them real life scenarios through games so that it makes sense on how they can use these resiliency skills,” said Kristi Wagner, an NCNG child and youth services coordinator.
Teens learn about the six core competences of resiliency and absorb it in a simplified 17 step process. Understanding this process helps teens to slow down their thought process to better understand why they and others their age react in certain ways.
“The reason I think it is really important for them is because they have not had certain life experiences to handle situations,” said Wagner. “So this is giving them avenues on how to slow down their thought process, and figure out, why is this happening all the time.”
Scenarios are also implemented to include constructive confrontation, interactions with illegal substances, and assertive communication. These different scenarios are designed to jerk teens out of the technology world and thrust them into the face-to-face interaction world.
“I see life in a new way. We stop looking at everything so negative and start looking at everything that is positive,” said Kimberly Corporan, teen retreat participate “when you look at things everyone sees it in a bad way, but when you look at things you really have to turn it around and look at it the good way.”
North Carolina, along with 19 other states, have pilot teen resiliency programs. This allows states to test the effectiveness of incorporating resiliency training through surveys and feedback from the teens as well as conducting after action reviews to evaluate what works and what needs improvements. This data is submitted to the National Guard Bureau and will eventually be filtered through all 54 states and territories.
“They are rolling it out with us because as you know Guard and Reserve is unique and dynamic,” said Wagner. “You’re not sitting where all of your support systems are, so you have to have your own support system and these events connect our kids.”
This opportunity not only strengthens relationships and communication skills with teens and their parents, it has the potential to effect anyone teens come into contact with. Volunteers are always welcome, including active Guard members to serve as role models and instructors.
“I think this is a great opportunity for soldiers to be a part of this; to be a mentor and a counselor, because it will challenge their leadership styles and it will help them grow individually,” said Eakin.
“I really had a lot of ‘ah-ha’ moments to how I can implement these skills because I saw where my faults were and was able to put better ideas in place, in my own life, and use them,” said Wagner. “Hunt for the good stuff, reminding them [the teens] to quit looking at the negative stuff in every day.”
| Date Taken: | 08.06.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 08.17.2015 11:09 |
| Story ID: | 173399 |
| Location: | NC, US |
| Web Views: | 81 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NCNG: Building youth resilience, by SFC Leticia Samuels, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT