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Venturing Programs
By the time they enter their teens, young people have established their attitudes, interests, and opinions about many of life's issues and choices. However, the need opportunities to evaluate their beliefs, goals and abilities. However, they need opportunities to evaluate their beliefs, goals, and abilities. Specifically, teens need to test their capacity to:
Venturing is a new, comprehensive program developed with the needs of teenagers in mind. It offers teens an opportunity for investing their time in their futures. Time in the Venturing program is truly time well spent. The Venturing program is unique because it utilizes extreme outdoor adventure as the method for building character, peer-to-peer bonds, and independence. A recent research study by Louis Harris & Associates determined that through activities such as camping, hiking, boating, snorkeling, and mounting climbing, a majority of Venturers receive the following benefits:
Another value of the Venturing program is its design for encouraging youth to provide service to others. Most Venturers (56 percent) participate in a service project in their community, such as cleaning up property, organizing food and blood drives, and working with the elderly. The importance of service projects is three fold:
"Aloneness" is perhaps the largest factor contributing to a growing degree of disconnectedness between teenagers and their families. One outcome of this is a growing incidence of depression in the lives of teens. A combination of expanded options for individual activities has led many teens to spend significant time alone. Venturing is a catalyst for interactions between peers with like interests and gives crew members and parents common ground for communication. Source: A Louis Harris & Associates research study titled A Year in the Life of a Cub Scout . . . Boy Scout . . . Venturer, 1998 Venturers mention that because of the program they
The middle school through high school years are the last opportunity for young people to prepare for the challenges of adulthood. For those facing the task of providing structure and resources through which teens make their final preparations for their adult lives, Venturing provides the very best foundation. Whether your teens are preparing for high school or getting ready for college, the program is flexible enough to meet their needs. Venturing is time well spent for your youth.
Learn more about how Venturing can work for your youth by contacting your District Executive or the Mecklenburg County Council Service Center. |
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Last updated: Sunday, 26 February 2006 04:19 PM |
Mecklenburg
County Council
Schools,
sports, part-time jobs, religious activities, family commitments, homework, and
just taking time to "hang out" with friends result in many teens having no time
for anything else. People concerned with meeting the needs of busy teenagers
today often merge a variety of resources or develop their own programs to
accomplish their goals.
