Running Your Program

Once you have agreed upon outcomes, established program activities, defined roles with partners, provided for the logistics, and hired and trained your artists , you are ready to invite the youth and begin your program. The Evaluation chapter contains information on ways to keep track of how well your program is working, which in turn will help you make adjustments as needed. You should also ask the youth their views of the program while it's in session and after it's finished.

This section includes information about:

• inviting youth
• release and consent forms
• conflict management

Download the full section (in PDF format; see pages 65-68).

Invitation to youth

The invitation to participate in an arts program should include benefits to both the youth and their parents as well as program specifics and a permission form to be signed by the parents.

An invitation may not be enough to motivate the youth to come to the program. It may help to call each youth personally to invite them to the program. In some cases, attendance is required as a part of the youth's probation. Since probation officers participate in the program on a regular basis they are able to give youth encouragement to start and stay with the arts program.

• Review an example of an invitation.

Participant release and consent forms

Check with your partners to see if a participation form is necessary; they may already have the necessary permissions. If not, to protect your organization and to have permission for youth to participate in events, plan on having parents sign a participation form. If information is going to be shared among agencies that operate under different protocols, the participant release and consent form is imperative.

• Review a sample release consent form.

Conflict management

These programs use art-making as a tool to give youth other skills and benefits, such as discipline, timeliness, communication, follow-through, increased self-esteem, decision-making, anger management, and community involvement. We approach conflict management through curriculum development; involvement of youth in making decisions; role modeling by artists, educators, and caseworkers; group rap sessions; behavior modification techniques; and engaging youth in arts projects.

This section covers the importance of involving youth in the process of establishing program ground rules as a conflict management technique as well as a technique, to teach youth skills such as showing up on time, follow-through, working together as a team, and so forth. The Team Training section offers other conflict management techniques.

Resources

• For case studies, see the full chapter PDF.
• Review the complete list of rules and regulations in the Employee Handbook.
• Review a sample letter of agreement.
• For information about the 15 agencies that provide programs for youth at risk here, see pages 69-74 of the full chapter PDF.

To be most effective, the program rules must be developed with involvement from the youth, and each youth must commit to these rules. In fact, everyone who comes into contact with the youth needs to know and commit to the rules.