About

CONFERENCES:
  • Overview
  • Violence
  • Eating Disorders
  • Sex & AIDS
  • Drugs & Alcohol
  • Teen Suicide
  • Family Dynamics
  • Impact of the
    Internet
  • Conference Photos
  • Upcoming Events

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This program is generally delivered as an evening program lasting two a half hours with the youth, educators and parents together. A committee of students selects the topics and design the evening, thus enhancing their leadership skills. Issues or topics addressed have included HIV/AIDS, drugs and alcohol, drunk driving, teen suicide, perfectionism and parental expectations, eating disorders and others. Our staff serves as facilitators and other presenters include those personally affected by the topics selected. Our survey results have shown that after the SpeakUp! session, students feel informed to make positive life choices on the issues discussed; feel their voice is heard; and feel informed about and connected to community resources to help them.

The design of the day for SpeakUp! this year is based a five step decision making process:

1. See the Situation Clearly
2. Know What You Want
3. Expand Your Possibilities
4. Evaluate and Decide
5. Plan and Act

We’ve created an easy way to remember the process:
"SEE the situation clearly, and K.E.E.P. making sound choices"

Throughout the program, participants will use this process and learn to break down complex situations into manageable pieces. Through a combination of large and small group discussions, our goal is to help youth, educators and parents/guardians come away from SpeakUp! this year with a realistic, useable tool for making sound choices.

Through many opportunities to share, participants will have the chance to consider their personal decision making, which emphasizes personal responsibility, self-awareness, critical thinking, goal setting and planning. All examples used are derived from students’, educators' and parents/guardians’ real life situations, an important step to making sure that small and large group discussions are relevant. Students and adults can use the decision making process to gain objectivity in their own personal situations and find new ways to handle decisions that they face.

The decision making process at the center of this year’s SpeakUp! was originally created as the core process for Vita Education Services’ Decisions for Teens program, which is a 12-hour interactive training taught to small groups of teens. Vita’s Decisions for Teens is taught throughout the Delaware Valley by teams of trained facilitators. Visit Vita, Inc.’s booth at the Service Fair to learn more about bringing their 12 hour training program to your school, community, church or youth group.