Abstract
Youth who are at-risk for social deviance and failure, whether they are in the community or in residential group care settings, are often viewed as liabilities rather than as potential assets. In response to this dynamic, two community service projects, Carry-Out-Caravan II and the Illinois Youth on Campus Service Learning Project, were developed and implemented to foster personal and social growth in atrisk youth. The purpose of these projects was to use a service-learning approach to facilitate the transition of at-risk adolescents into responsible social roles. On the basis of the guidelines for initiating service-learning experiences provided by Giles, Porter-Honnet, and Micgliore (1991), junior and senior high school youth provided grocery shopping and delivery, house and garage painting, yard and garden maintenance, and social and recreation program services to older persons.
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The Carry-Out-Caravan II Project described in this paper was partially supported by Serve Illinois, Office of the Lieutenant Governor, State of Illinois (Project No. IL2010024). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the State of Illinois. Special thanks are extended to the students, teachers, and staff of Project Insight, an alternative high school supported by the West Central Illinois Special Education Cooperative and Thompson’s Food Basket. Versions of this paper were presented at the Institute of the National Therapeutic Recreation Society during the 1993 Congress of the National Recreation and Park Association, San Jose, California, and the 1993 Southeast Regional Conference on Children with Behavior Disorders, Orange Beach, Alabama.
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Zoerink, D.A., Magafas, A.H. & Pawelko, K.A. Empowering youth at risk through community service. Child Youth Care Forum 26, 127–138 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02589361
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02589361