Life Skills Curriculum: ARISE Work in Progress, Book 2

Book excerpt: The ARISE founders are two amazing people. Edmund retired from business in 1982 at age 52 - a grade school dropout and rebel who made good. Susan, with a master's degree in exceptional student education and 27 years of classroom experience, teamed up to reach Edmund's new goal: Sharing personal secrets of success with disadvantaged kids. This vision lead them to: tame the "Miami Monster"( garbage incinerator), bring recycling to Miami-Dade County , partner with the School's Department of Nutrition to improve school food, create countywide programs focusing on inner-city children (Poison prevention and Lead awareness), speak with incarcerated youth and adults, asking what it would have taken for them to avoid trouble, creating over 260 life skills lessons to help at risk-youth make better life choices, and train staff to work with these venerable youth. Edmund and Susan continue on their journey. ARISE has trained over 5,000 group facilitators who have taught over 4, 500,000 hours of instruction to youth .The Bensons continue their mission to help youth. They created the Drop it at the Door training for staff to learn how to handle difficult youth, the five-day Master Training that equips an organization to have their own in-house ARISE trainer to sustain the program and the Family Tools to help families handle their children more positively and efficiently. ARISE is an evidenced -based, results-oriented program that changes the way at-risk youth look at life and the way staff look a the youth in a more positive light.