PLUS Program

What is PLUS Program?

In the development of Safe Schools and Communities, the consistent recommendation by the experts in the field is the importance of establishing a Peer-to-Peer program.  Students must be brought into the process of developing safe schools and communities and let them take ownership in the outcomes on their campus and community.  The PLUS Program is a peer-to-peer student leadership model that equips schools, communities and after school programs with the tools to identify and address the critical issues that impact positive youth development and the conditions for learning of all students.  

The PLUS Program simplifies building safe schools and addressing the critical issues we must target to assure the health and safety of kids.  School Administrators, Counselors, S3 Coordinators and After School programs are using PLUS to discover the direction they must go with their Safe School Plans and community development. By implementing the PLUS Program:

1. • *Schools establish a team of student leaders who serve to address the social issues on their campus.
   • *After School Programs establish an identity to their youth leadership program
   • *S3 coordinators, Administrators and Counselors will have a team of diverse student leaders who carry out activities outlined in the safe school plans
   • *ASB Programs and student councils will compliment the organizational leadership activities in their classes with activities that focus on social leadership.
   • *Schools and communities will be able to localize data and track student behavior utilizing the survey assessment tools.
   • *The survey database serves as a tool to identify critical issues to address, suggests activities to implement to target the identified critical issues, links to resources for critical issues, and funding streams to gather funds to address the targeted issue. 
   • *Students will have a student leadership program that they can feel a strong sense of belonging too and that serves to implement activities that gives them a voice, connections, community, and a caring climate.
   • *As recommended by the US Department of Education and Secret Service in the Safe Schools Initiatives, schools will be able to assess the emotional climate of their campus, build healthy relationship between students, involve students in the process, implement activities where students and staff listen to each other, and develop a mechanism of developing and sustaining a safe school climate.

All activities of the PLUS Program are a result of the extensive research findings validated in the success of peer-to-peer programs and positive youth development approaches.

How does it Work?

A team of student  leaders will be identified and trained in the facilitation strategies to implement the activities of the PLUS Program. These student leaders will be identified as the PLUS Team and will work under the guidance of a trained advisor.  Through the PLUS Training the student leaders and advisors learn how to utilize a series of activities and lessons that seek to “create a culture in kids to take care of kids”. At the center of this activity based approach is a peer-to-peer led forum of discussion that creates an opporunity for young people to be empowered to engage in discussions, bond with one another, and identify their critical issues that are impacting their campus climate.  The PLUS Forums focus on using activities to create dialogue between students that address the critical issues that are impacting the students now on campus. The trained student leaders use a series of activities that enable them to: 1. identify the critical issues on campus, 2. discover how those issues impact students on the campus, 3. come up with solutions together to what they can do about those issues on campus. All students who go through forums on campus become part of the PLUS identity and have the opportunity to participate in the activities implemented by the PLUS Team throughout the school year.  

The Forum Process

The forums serve two powerful purposes for schools and communities.

1. The forum activity creates a Pro-Social Bonding moment. The conversations among students create social understanding and opportunities for young people to foster their pro-social norms. Participants of the forum will identify the critical issues on their campus/community, discuss how the identified critical issues impact their campus/community, and discover together what can the students do together to address the critical issues on their campus or in their community. Simply put, it gives students the opportunity for their voice to be heard amongst the peers in their community. The forums create a personal campus where students understand and value the other students are on their campus. The forum serves as a rite of passage for all participants into the PLUS identity. All students going through a PLUS forum will become part of the PLUS program identity thus creating a connection to a positive peer group on campus who will serve to create meaningful activities for students to participate in.                                                                                                                                                                                                              

2. The activities outlined in the Forum will enable schools and/or communities to gather, both quantitative and qualitative data. By gathering data and assessing student behavior on a regular basis, student leadership programs and Safe School committees will know which critical issues they need to target with their program development throughout a school year. Schools implementing the PLUS Program will have unlimited access to the PLUS Program Surveys Database. This database will enable schools to create their own surveys and trend specific critical issues identified as part of the program development. 

Data Integration and Program Development

The data gathered from the PLUS Forums will be stored in the online survey database. By gathering data, student leadership programs, S3 coordinators and site administrators will be able to trend specific critical issues throughout the school year. School leadership programs are trained in how to identify critical issues that need to be addressed within their calendar of activities. The forums along with the online database will serve as a tool for schools and communities to assess whether or not the activities they are implementing are making an impact on the critical issues identified. By implementing PLUS, the overall program development of a school or community will be guided by the identified areas of need discovered through the implementation the PLUS Forums and the results found in the data assessment. 

On-Going Activities

The power of the PLUS Program is that it grows a little different in every community.   Students leadership programs are challenged to innovate new ideas, strategies, and activities to tackle the critical issues in their community. Different programs will be guided in different directions. What direction a program goes throughout the year will be dictated by the findings in the forums.   Some schools will end up identifying bullying as a critical issue, while others might find the need to address alcohol and substance abuse. Whatever the issue, schools and communities implementing the PLUS Program will have a tool in place that will guide them in the right direction for their program development.