RISING STARS YOUTH LEADERSHIP-TEACHING YOUTH TO BE FUTURE LEADERS
A life process preparing students for a future of success and excellence.
The Rising Stars Process was designed to help today's youth develop their personal leadership skills. Leadership is essential in enabling youth to develop character, confidence, and values that promote the goal of healthy behavior. Research shows a majority of American youth engage in health compromising behavior. In her pioneering book, Adolescents at Risk, Joy Dryfoos concludes that half of all ten to seventeen year olds are at high or moderate risk of undermining their chances for a healthy life because of substance abuse, unsafe sex, teen pregnancy, school failure and delinquency, crime, or violence. More importantly, a recent report from the American Medical Association captures the importance of this goal: "For the first time in the history of this country, young people are less healthy and less prepared to take their places in society than their parents. Moreover, this is happening at a time when our society is more complex, more challenging, and more competitive than ever before." In addition, a recent research report, Workforce 2020: Work & Workers in the 21st Century, Carol D'Amico found that employers grouped leadership as one of the essential skills entry-level workers lacked. This group of skills included strong work ethic, problem solving, creativity, along with organizational and interpersonal skills. These skills were ranked ahead of writing, math, and reading.
Educators, parents, government officials, and business people have all realized the importance of helping our youth develop their personal leadership skills. Empowered youth grow up feeling confident with themselves and with their ability to achieve goals.Rising Stars is in part based on recognizing the Search Institutes forty developmental assets, experiences, opportunities, and internal capacities essential for health and success in our complex society. Search Institute is an independent, nonprofit, nonsectarian organization located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, whose mission is to advance the well being of adolescents and children by generating knowledge and promoting its application. Search Institute and Rising Stars believe if our society would invest more in positive attributes young people need, then we could expect high yields (in terms of healthier youth) as young people become healthy, contributing members of families, communities, workplaces, and society. The Rising Stars Program is an innovative and unique inside-out development program that focuses on three critical elements that promote personal leadership, healthy behaviors, and the skills employers identify as essential. These elements are: developing attitudes, developing interpersonal skills, and developing goal-achievement skills.