Empowering Our Young Men

Abstract

During the 2015–2016 school year, I developed a cognitive–behavioral group titled Empowering Our Young Men (EOYM). The group is facilitated by me (the school social worker) and an educational specialist who noticed the need for a program that would help students who demonstrated great potential to avoid falling through the cracks of the educational system. The goals of the EOYM program are to improve academic performance, enhance self-esteem, give exposure to colleges and careers, and decrease office discipline referrals. In October 2015, EOYM was implemented within Choptank Elementary School (CES) located on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The school’s county is a rural area that relies heavily on two areas of the private sector for employment: (1) manufacturing and (2) trade, transportation, and utilities. The median household income for the county is far below the average for the state at $45,095, with 13.1 percent of the population living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). For the 2015–2016 school year, CES had a total of 397 students, of whom 70 percent are African American; of these, 56 percent are boys and 91.4 percent receive free or reduced-price meals. In 2013, CES became a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) school. PBIS is a process for creating school environments that are more predictable and effective for achieving academic and social goals. For some schools, PBIS will enhance their current systems and practices, for others it radically changes the culture for the better.