Lions
-Quest MD5M13
Lions
-Quest MD5M13
What is Lions-Quest?
Lions-Quest is a positive prevention program through which teachers and others dealing with young people are provided with the expertise and curriculum to teach life skills to youths in their care.The program brings taught under a common philosophy the three stockholders involved with the training and raising of young people namely the parents,the school and the community. It strives to teach positive behaviours such as self-discipline, responsibility and good judgment while at the same time practising strategies to resolve conflicts peacefully, to make positive decisions regarding academic and social pressures placed upon them and to embrace a drug-free lifestyle.Lions Quest curricula:
The Lions Quest program consists of three basic programs. "Skills for Growing" featuring individual curricula for each of the levels Kindergartin to Grade 5. "Skills for Adolescence" which has a common curriculum for the three grades but which has enough material in them to avoid repitition. These two curricula consist of highly organized lessons which focus on the training of life skills, health,character development and the prevention of drug use. To become certified to utilize these very teacher friendly materials, teachers must attend a comprehensive two-day workshop presented by a qualified Lions-Quest trainer.The "Skills for Action" program for Grades 9 to 12 (for teens and young adults)builds essential life and citizenship skills through a comprehensive service learning program and reinforcing such basic values as healthy living, honesty, respect, self-discipline and a commitment to family and community. There is a heavy emphasis upon community service, something Lions can really appreciate. In order to teach this program, teachers are asked to take a one-day workshop.
Refresher Programs:
As changes occur in the curricula and when teachers feel the need to rejuvenate and relive their very positive training experience, they will ask for a refresher course. These can be provided by Lions -Quest for a minimal cost dependent upon the number of participants.Conflict Management Program:
These three programs consist of the Kindergartin to Grade 6 curriculum entitled "Working it Out", the Grades 6 to 8 program of "Working Toward Peace" and the Grades 8 to12 program of "Promoting Peace and Preventing Violence". Although these programs do not require that teachers be specifically trained to facilitate these programs, to obtain maximum success, it is strongly recommended that they take a one-day workshop. As the title implies, these very timely and popular programs focus on skills needed to deal with the many forms of anger expression and with the aggression of others,for example,bullying.Basic Costs:
Thanks to the very generous Core 4 Grant from LCIF,we are able to provide all of these workshops to school divisions at a 40% reduction of normal costs. This means, for example, that the two-day workshop costs to the teachers has been reduced from $360.00 (pre-grant ) to $125.00 per participant. The cost to teachers for the one-day workshops has similarily been reduced to reflect the 40% decrease. Here actual costs vary depending upon the curriculum and on the number of participants. For example, Lions -Quest Canada charges us $150.00 per participant for the Conflict Management program, "Working it Out", but the "Promoting Peace and Preventing Violence" program only costs us $99.00 per participant. Added to that cost are items such as trainer's expenses, coffee breaks for teachers ,etc. After one factors in all the costs for holding the workshop ,the costs are then averaged per participant and reduced by 40%. Basically, one can say that we(Core 4) pay $60.00 to 70.00 for each participant. The "Skills for Action" fee,however, has been set at $80.00 per participant.What is the status of the Core 4 Grant?
As previously mentioned, Lions-Quest Manitoba has received a Core 4 grant of approimately $300,000.00 Canadian to further the holding of workshops for educators .This grant was to be used over a three year period. We have one more year left before we must return any unused portion. This, however, will not be a problem for us since it should be used up long before the end of October,2003. With those funds,we have held just under 60 workshops,and trained 1700 teachers,(this number also includes teacher aids,principals, parents and others related to the education of young people.) We are very proud of the fact that we have also been able to train almost every education student graduating from the Faculty of Education, Brandon University.After Core 4, What then?
After October 2003, we are back to sharing the total cost of workshops with School Division. That means as Lions we will have to dig much deeper into our funds to help support the program that is gathering popularity every day. There is one possiblity that is encouraging to us. Since Lions Club International has very recently purchased complete rights for Quest,we hope they will continue their generosity and continue to provide grants to district such as Manitoba who have proven extremely successful in promoting the program and training instructors.Please see the October 2002 issue of the" The Lion", a magazine publishedby L.C.I,. for further details.Brandon University Study:
A small portion of the Core 4 grant allows us to cover the costs of research. With that moneywe have entered into a contract with the University to do a comprehensive study of the effect Lions Quest has had in the schools in Manitoba. A number of schools have been identified as candidates for study. We now await the study slated to be complete by October,2003.
In the meantime, we have carried out much more minor internal studies of the effectivenes of Quest on school enviornment. The four studies are extremely positive but a more objective study is required ,thus the university study.What Can You Do as a Lion?
In order to be really effective and change the culture of the young people to a much more desirable and safe enviornment, Lions-Quest must to taught on a regular basis. That means, some schools have be encouraged to place more emphasis on the teaching of the Lions-Quest concepts. You can help by talking to your teachers about the program but more importantly, we have to talk to our members of the provincial legislature to put some pressure of them to have the curriculum branch promote the Lions Quest program as" THE" source for the provincial school health curriculum. It is only through a
firm commitment to the program that a significant change will occur in the school's environment and issues such a bullying will not grab all the headlines when education is mentioned in the media.
And, yes,we will be asking for your financial support. You will note that the 5M13 committee have not asked for direct support for the workshops since we have received the grant. Our requests have been for general financial support of the program in anticipation of the end of the Core 4 grant monies.
In order to save about half the cost of holding workshops District 5M13 has trained our first three Affliate Trainers, local educators who can now hold workshops in their school divisions. We need many more Affiliate Trainers especially north of #1 highway.The Lions Quest program really does work. Just ask the inner-school principal in British Columbia who reported that negative behaviour visits to his office dropped from 36 to 2 per week and that expulsions dropped from 1 a week to 0 in one year. Or the "slum" school in Toronto whose student went from a academically very weak performance school to one that rivaled the grade output of the most elite private school,three years after the program was introduced into their school. These examples may be dramatic but they reflect what is happening when schools commit to Lions-Quest.
Present Committee:
The present committee charged with the dispersal of the Core 4 grant and organizing the workshops throughout the province are:
Harvey Kingdon-Core 4 Administrator-P.O.Box 343 Warren, Mb. R0C 3E0 Phone 204-322-5023
Fax 204-322-5212
E-mail:kingdon@mts.
Richard Plaisier-Chairman 5M13-P.O.Box 1083, Virden, Manitoba R0M 2C0 Phone 204-748-3357
Fax 204-748-6197
E-mail:rplaisier@escape.ca
Bruce Mintenko-Chair Core 4- P.O. Box 55, Oakville, Mb. R0H 0Y0 Phone 204-267-2577
Fax 204-267-2740
E-mail:brucemintenko@yahoo.ca