National Youth at Risk Conference. No. 530.

Successful Programs for Empowering Youth: Overcoming Poverty, Violence, and Failure

The conference trains adults who serve youth to create safe, healthy, caring, and intellectually empowering educational environments that foster the well-being of all children and adolescents. To accomplish this mission, it offers over 100 presentations by nationally and internationally recognized presenters to over 1000 conference participants from across the United States. In these presentations, participants learn about current research-based educational programs and strategies, which empower young people to overcome at-risk conditions that may threaten their safety, health, emotional needs, or academic achievement. Participants also gain knowledge of proactive solutions and best practices for meeting the serious challenges faced by many of our youth today such as school violence, poverty, learning difficulties, underachievement, achievement gaps, illiteracy, boredom, apathy, low expectations, misbehavior, dropout, drugs, bullying, gangs, teen pregnancy, sexual harassment, racism, and dysfunctional families. Furthermore, participants gain effective educational tools to build strong caring schools, communities, and families, which can meet the diverse needs of all our young people. Illustrative of the conference mission, the conference logo--consisting of three overlapping circles--represents the well-trained collaborative efforts of schools, families, and communities in fostering the well-being of our youth.