Making every school day successful.
Resource Coordinators
There are so many moving parts to a student’s education, and so many potential barriers. Our Resource Coordinators are the critical link to the care and services we provide. They work side by side in the schools with teachers and administrators to identify barriers to success and find the resources to eliminate them.
Resource Coordinators can provide one-on-one and small group tutoring. They facilitate Service Learning activities, and oversee the 321 Read program in elementary schools. Resource Coordinators make sure that basic needs items get to our houseless and low-income students through the Bare Necessities program. They make referrals to outside agencies as they discover additional family needs. And they work with school staff and Centerstone Therapists to develop a School Support Plan and individual Student Support Plans for Youth Link Southern Indiana Case-Managed students.
321 Read
No skill is more crucial than reading. It opens up every other world. Every class you take, and every assignment, involves reading. So if a student falls behind in reading, they’re probably falling behind everywhere.
321 Read matches a community volunteer with a struggling reader for a one-on-one weekly session of reading to and with the student. Each week, the student is given a new book of their own to take home and add to their home library. Once the student is matched with a “reading friend,” we make sure they have a volunteer to read with them for a full three years, from first through third grade, the most critical years for reading mastery.
Watching a student slowly, steadily go from struggle and frustration to success is truly incredible, one of the most joyful changes you can imagine. As a student, with the patient help of a volunteer, slowly begins to read and understand each new word, each new sentence and each new book, you can see their excitement grow. More important, you see a love of learning ignite as their newfound abilities lead to success in all of their classes. And that is literally life-changing.
You can be a part of this amazing transformation in two ways. One is to support Youth Link Southern Indiana financially by donating below. But the other — and it’s a game-changer — is to volunteer to read with a student. If you can invest 30 minutes each week during the school year as a student moves from first through third grade, you can set them on a path to success that was impossible for them to even see before you arrived. You won’t just be changing their life. You’ll be changing yours.
Mental Health Services
A car pulls up to a school. Inside are a mom, her kids, and all their belongings. They’ve just fled from an abusive home, and now the students are being dropped off for school. What are the chances that those little ones will be able to concentrate on school after what they’ve just been through?
Because a student’s mental health is central to their ability to focus, learn, socialize and succeed, we partner with Centerstone Mental Health to provide a licensed, Master’s-level therapist at participating schools during the school day. Every student receiving therapy is referred by a teacher and counseled with parental or guardian consent.
Making therapists available during the school day eliminates the formidable barriers to mental health treatment for low-income families, such as lack of transportation or lack of insurance. Our partnership with Centerstone ensures that students who need it can receive help from a therapist regardless of insurance status or income level.
And the impact goes beyond any single event or circumstance. Students who receive therapy when it’s needed are more grounded and successful not only in school, but also later in life, becoming healthier and more stable members of our community.
0
students
received counseling from a licensed Centerstone therapist.
0%
of students
who worked with a Resource Coordinator showed performance improvement.
Based on data from the 2021 – 2022 school year.
Bare Necessities
Remember the old joke — when you’re up to your waist in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your job is to drain the swamp? School is just like that. When you’re hungry, when you’re embarrassed, when your clothes are torn or don’t fit, when you’re cold, when you can’t see well…it’s impossible to learn. It just is.
Our Bare Necessities program works to remove those barriers to learning. When a student doesn’t have a coat, we get them one. When they need shoes that fit or don’t have holes in them, we get them a pair. If they get lice, we give them lice shampoo. When their clothes are too small or too old or too tattered, we get them clothes that fit. And if families need additional assistance, we put them in touch with other community resources that can help.
The result? Time and again, day in and day out, when kids get what they need, they can relax, focus and learn. And that sets them up for success, not just for a day, but for weeks and months and years.