Office of the Attorney General (GRIP INITIATIVE)
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
With the provision of federal grant money under the national initiative known as Gang Reduction Intervention and Prevention Program (GRIP Initiative), U-TURN is partnering with the Commonwealth of Virginia's Office of the Attorney General in a pilot wellness and fitness program for young children residing in one Richmond's most active gang areas. The four cities in America chosen by the federal government to receive grant money to address this growing epidemic of youth involvement in gangs are:
- Los Angeles, CA
- Millwaukee, WI
- North Miami Beach, FL
- Richmond, VA
Specifically, for the 2005-2006 school year, Greene Elementary School has been identified as the school in which this transformational program is being piloted. The children in this school zone have been identified as at-risk youth of future gang influence and require services designed to prevent gang involvement. It is under this methodology that U-TURN is operating.
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
Beginning with the 2005-2006 school year, U-TURN provided a combination of life-skills education and sports-based wellness and fitness to the third grade class of Greene Elementary School. While aiming to influence students at an early age to not to get involved with gangs, U-TURN simultaneously attacked the epidemic of childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles. Students received instruction in basketball, tennis , football and sports science. . U-TURN's pilot program at Greene Elementary will run through the 2006-2007 school year. students train in four nine-week sessions while rotating sports. After the pilot program, U-TURN, the OAG, and the Richmond Public School system aims to expand this critical outreach program to all of the cities elementary schools.
U-TURN's strategy was to deliver an athletic based wellness curriculum to achieve two goals 1. Improve overall fitness and athleticism. 2. Demonstrate the correlation between applying discipline and focus towards achieving physical fitness/athletic success and using the same approach towards improving grades and behavior. Life Skills were a big part of our curriculum for the year as we focused on RESPECT AND TEAMWORK! We reinforced our life skills via structured recess sessions. We focused on physical activities that required students to work together to be successful.
PROGRAM OUTCOMES
U-TURN was blessed to help positively impact the lives of 70 third graders in the 2005-2006 school year. What we found at the beginning of the second nine weeks of training was that 25 of the 70 students were below average in either grades or behavior. Once we started our program this dramatically changed.
At the end of the second nine weeks only 8 of the 70 students were below average in either category. At the end of the third nine weeks only 4 of the 70 students were below average in grades or behavior. Of the top ten athletic performers only 2 were below average in grades or behavior.
U-TURN is awaiting final grades so we can tabulate the results to end the year and we hope to find that none of the participants are below average in either grades or behavior. STAY TUNED!
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