Our Unique Strengths

• Most after school programs reach very few kids at risk.  That’s because kids at risk rarely get involved in after school programs.  The exciting fact is 90% of kids involved in the Unity Project pilot had never been involved in any extracurricular activity before.  We reach those kids most at risk.  Our secret for success is that our action learning is based on what students say is important to them.

• Our Transformation Exercises are a revolution in after school programming that we expect will re-invent the way skill building is approached in students.  

• The Unity Project is forming a national movement!  Its roll out to 323 SADD chapters in Massachusetts, reaching over 6,000 students, will expand to the 10,000 SADD national chapters, serving 350,000 additional students.  We are also beginning work with the Department of Youth and Community Development of the City of New York in 201 high school out-of-school-time programs reaching 23,000 students. 

• Research shows that resilient skills are best reinforced when developed in the context of peer support and cross generational role-modeling.   The Unity Project provides exciting and innovative methods that do just that to help kids stay in school and out of trouble.

• The Unity Project builds a united culture based on personal and diverse group strengths by helping youth learn and practice the steps of positive cooperative decision making.

• The Unity Project provides powerful reinforcements to the Virtuous Cycle of support needed to help students make positive decisions and to counteract the Vicious Cycle of negativity around them.   

• The Unity Project has capacity to conduct research and assessment to validate its success and refine its methods through Harvard University’s Judge Baker Children’s Center and other universities.