Program Options

CHOICES Series Program

CHOICES Series Program Overview

Where Can the CHOICES Series Program Be Used?

Flexible Program Delivery Options

What Educators and Experts are Saying About the Choices Series

MAKING CHOICES:  Life Skills for Adolescents Curriculum

MAKING CHOICES Curriculum Overview

Where can the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum Be Used?

Flexible Program Delivery Options

What Educators and Experts are Saying About the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum

CHOICES Series Program

CHOICES Series Program Overview

Today, young people are facing choices and challenges earlier in their lives then ever before. The Choices Series engages adolescents in critical thinking about the crucial and inevitable choices and challenges they are facing as they move into adulthood.

►  Decision Making and Goal Setting

►  Gender Roles and Personal Responsibility

►  Parenting and Family Relations

►  Career and Life Planning

► School to Work Transition

As young people explore these topics they develop an expanded vision for their lives, and learn the essential life skills necessary to becoming self-reliant adults.

For the educator: Equally important, The Choices Series is designed to easily support adults, parents, and teachers who assist young people in planning for their futures.

Where Can the CHOICES Series Program Be Used?

• Life Skills Training and Education

• Career Education and Planning

• Teen/Parent Programs

• Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs

• Youth Groups and After School Programming

• Faith Community Youth Groups

• Juvenile Justice Programs

• Drug Prevention Programs

• Drop-out Prevention

• English and Social Studies

• Student Orientation

• Independent Living Education

• Individual or Group Counseling

Flexible Program Delivery Options

Each program option contains nationally acclaimed life skills books, and easy-to-use instructor’s guides and handbooks.

CHOICES PROGRAM (young women only)

• Small Group/Classroom Program with Facilitator

• Mother-Daughter Choices Program

• Women Helping Girls with Choices Project

CHOICES AND CHALLENGES PROGRAM (co-ed)

• Group/Classroom with Facilitator (co-ed)

CHALLENGES PROGRAM (young men only)

What Educators and Experts are Saying About the Choices Series

Choices: A Teen Woman’s Journal for Self Awareness and Personal Planning

". . . the greatest value of these guides is that the material is presented in a positive, open-ended, nonjudgmental way: Readers are encouraged to look beyond adolescence with flexibility and with confidence in their abilities to make the best decisions for themselves."

 - American School Board Journal

"Every teenager should have one. You created a masterpiece!"

– Career Education News

"A superb book worthy of broad dissemination in both homes and schools."

- Instructor Magazine

"Those who teach, counsel or just care about young women . . . should be glad to know there’s help available."

- Women’s Review of Books, Wellesley College

". . . an invaluable guide to thinking about life for today’s young woman. This should be required reading. The young women.., cannot fail to become self-aware in the process."

Jill Ker Conway, Ph.D. Former President,
Smith College

"Choices really is a major accomplishment; I am sure it will be received with great enthusiasm by the public at large as well as by schools and community groups. Any young girl who seriously goes through all the steps will be strengthened in her ability to make choices and decisions in a rational way. "

Joy G. Dryfoos
Author of Safe Passage: Making It Through Adolescence in a Risky Society

". . . wonderful insights and exercises for today’s young women. Realistic challenges in a practical guide . . . must reading!"

Dorothy Jongeward, Ph.D.
Coauthor of the bestsellers, Born to Win and Women as Winners

"Teenage girls devour this book."

- AAUW

Challenges: A Young Man’s Journal for Self Awareness and Personal Planning (for the boys).

"Challenges is an outstanding guide for today’s young men. A must for planning realistically for the future. An excellent companion for Choices: A Teen Woman’s Journal."

Bill Cirone, Superintendent of Schools
Santa Barbara County, California

"Challenges is a timely workbook that fills many gaps for teenage boys today."

William Glasser, M.D.
Psychiatrist, educator and author of Schools Without Failure

"A real eye opener for any serious young man."

Sam Adams, retired coach,
University of California Santa Barbara,
Director, 1984 Olympic Heptathlon and Decathlon Competition

"Down-to-earth manual for every young man looking at today, tomorrow and the future."

Jack Clarke,
Chair Riverside County, California Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Committee

"This is a superb book. It makes a marvelous contribution to the literature which is of such great value to all young men."

John Williams
Noted composer and father of three

"Challenges is great . . . It’s something every father should share with his son."

Dick Van Patten
Actor and father of three sons

Changes: A Woman’s Journal for Self-Awareness and Personal Planning

"This book offers women of today, who find themselves often faced with significant change in their lives, an opportunity to learn strategies for dealing with change and the knowledge that they are not alone. An excellent book."

Mary M. Wiberg, President,
National Association of Commissions on the status of Women

"Changes is a long overdue resource designed to help adult women make informed decisions and choices about career and life planning."

Marie Mayor Chief of Planning,
Finance and Facilities Division of Vocational-Technical Education
Maryland Department of Education

CHOICES PROGRAM (young women only)

Small Group/Classroom Program with Facilitator

Thought-provoking exercises and dynamic group participation techniques make Choices an effective tool for your classroom or small group needs. This curriculum can be from 6 weeks to a half year depending on time and need. The Choices Curriculum for girls is designed to empower young women to take responsibility for their futures, develop quantitative goals, make sound decisions, assert themselves, and evaluate career options, marriage, family planning, child-rearing responsibilities and lifestyle budgeting.

Materials Needed for the Small Group/Classroom Program

Mother-Daughter Choices Program

Girls today need their mothers’ support and guidance more than ever as they enter adolescence. Mothers of adolescent girls need support too. This exciting and timely six-week interactive program brings mothers and daughters together in a mutually engaging and empowering group experience.

In this supportive environment, girls and their mothers gather in small groups to discuss some of the most important decisions girls will be making throughout the passage from childhood to young adulthood. Mothers are helped to listen to their daughters while continuing to share their ideas and demonstrate their own values.

Using Choices for the daughters and Changes for the mothers, the program focuses on examining attitudes, decision-making, and goal setting. Both books are designed as personal journals for self-awareness and life planning.

This Exciting and Timely Program:

• Strengthens Mother-Daughter Communication
• Builds Understanding and Trust
• Clarifies the Need for Girls to Examine Gender Roles, Career Options, and Economic Independence
• Teaches Problem-Solving, Decision Making, Goal-Setting, and Assertive, Responsible Behavior
• Provides Opportunities for Mothers to Re-Evaluate and Re-Imagine Their Own Career and Life-Choices

A Memorable and Life-Changing Program

Learning together through respectful listening and honest dialogue, sharing their love and support for one another, and forming friendships with other mothers and daughters, as well as having fun together, is all part of this unique experience. Positive memories are created, and lives change!

• Daughters develop an expanded vision of themselves and their capacities, and can come to see their mothers as important and trusted role-models
• Mothers learn to understand and support their daughters’ changing needs, are re-affirmed in their mothering roles, grow in self-esteem, and can become the significant role-models their daughters need.

How Does the Program Work?

Groups of 4 to 8 mother-daughter pairs come together for six 2-hour meetings. The meetings are held either in the homes of the participants or at a community site. Thought-provoking exercises, guided discussions, and interviews engage the mothers and daughters in lively and meaningful dialogue within each group, and with one another. The flexible curriculum allows the program to be used in a variety of ways by many diverse groups. For example, some groups choose to complete the curriculum at a special weekend event.

"Great program and the girls loved it."  - MOTHER

"The group brought my mom and me closer together." - DAUGHTER

"It was the best thing we've done together for a long time." - MOTHER

"My mom and I talk about more things now."  - DAUGHTER

Who Can Start a Mother-Daughter Program?

Any mother, individual or community organization may start this program. We’ve made it easy by providing a comprehensive handbook and a 2-hour training video. All you need is the desire and some eager girls and mothers.

Click here to see the Mother-Daughter Flyer.

• A Mother/Daughter Circle of Friends
• School Administrators
• School Counselors
• Community Agency Program Directors
• Girl Scouts of America
• Women’s Service Organizations
• Church Leaders
• Professional Women’s Organizations
• Parent-Teacher Organizations
• Youth Organizations
• Corporate Employee Groups
• Trade Organizations
• Private Therapists

Women Helping Girls with Choices Project

• Starting a Choices/Challenges Program in your School
• Developing a Mother-Daughter Choices Project
• Creating an Innovative Career Planning Symposium for Mixing Career and Family (for high school girls)
• Holding a Unique Math-Science Fair (for middle school girls)
• Beginning a S.M.A.R.T. Project (Science, Math And Relevant Technology)

Why the Women Helping Girls with Choices Project is Important Now!

• Encourages higher educational and career aspirations by making girls aware of the current facts concerning women’s roles in the workplace and at home
• Encourages economic independence by increasing knowledge about the realities of supporting a family, and by increasing awareness of career opportunities and their associated salaries, as well as by improving attitudes about higher-paying, non-traditional jobs
• Encourages girls to delay motherhood by increasing knowledge about the economic, social, emotional and physical costs of child-bearing
• Discourages self-destructive behavior such as drug/alcohol abuse, pregnancy, or dropping out of school, through helping girls visualize rewarding and self-reliant futures

Suggested Materials for the Women Helping Girls with Choices Project:

Designed to be used side-by-side, these books provide the framework for many of the Project’s activities.

• Women’s Service Organizations
• Professional Women’s Organizations
• Corporate Employee Groups
• Girl Scouts of America Big Sisters
• Community Agency Program Directors
• Church Leaders
• Parent-Teacher Organizations
• Youth Organizations Trade Organizations
• School Administrators School and Career Counselors
• Private Therapists
• Take Your Daughters to Work Day Organizers
• Shadow Day Organizers

Group/Classroom with Facilitator (co-ed)

Choices for girls and Challenges for boys is an effective and timely tools for your co-ed small group or classroom needs. Thought-provoking exercises and dynamic group participation techniques invite boys and girls into lively and respectful dialogue with one other about the important life issues they are each facing. With a few necessary variations in presentation, the subject matter is parallel in each book, and page numbers are identical. Both books emphasize the need to be responsible, self-reliant, economically independent, and productive human beings. This curriculum can be from 6 weeks to a half year depending on time and need.

 Encouraging Youth To:

• Think about their Futures
• Plan for Post-Secondary Education
• Examine Gender-Roles and Career Options
• Understanding Marriage, Family, and Child-rearing Responsibilities
• Develop Quantitative Goals
• Make Sound, Responsible Decisions
• Learn Lifestyle Budgeting and Money Management
• Materials needed for the Choices and Challenges Program:

Group/Classroom with Facilitator

Statistics show that young men need guidance now more than ever. The Challenges Curriculum addresses gender-role myths and the hard realities young men will face as they enter adulthood. This timely and exciting program empowers adolescent boys to become responsible men by helping them evaluate career options, understand marriage, family planning, and child-rearing responsibilities, and learn practical goal-setting and money management skills. Curriculum can be from 6 weeks to a half year depending on time and need.

Materials needed for the Challenges Program:

MAKING CHOICES:  Life Skills for Adolescents Curriculum

MAKING CHOICES Curriculum Overview

Developed and designed to correlate with state standards for life skills development programs, MAKING CHOICES is used successfully in small to large group settings. In addition, we are pleased to add our MAKING CHOICES Workbook in Spanish to our curriculum. This workbook fills a growing need for Spanish language materials for youth and offers the versatility needed when language is a barrier to learning.

MAKING CHOICES has had tremendous success over the years. We have received extremely positive feedback from adolescents, staff and parents. Important Features of the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum Include:

• Simple, thorough, and effective Curriculum and Instructor’s Guide
• Sound group participation techniques
• Exciting and interesting hands-on activities that are relevant, timely, and student-oriented
• Facilitator friendly lesson plans that include: clear objectives with mini-lectures, exercises, summaries, key points and follow-up activities for each section
• Student workbook that stimulates and charts personal growth and change
• Flexible program design: lessons can be used sequentially or stand alone

Partial List of MAKING CHOICES Curriculum Topics Include:

• Adolescent Development
• Self Esteem
• Setting and Attaining Goals
• Gender Equality
• Cultural Diversity
• Conflict Resolution
• Creating Your Own Dream
• Skill Development
• Personal Integrity and Values
• Personal and Family Relations
• Child Growth and Development
• Personal Health
• Career Planning
• Financial Management
• Leadership Skills

Where can the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum Be Used?

The MAKING CHOICES Curriculum is used successfully in a variety of educational, institutional and community settings throughout the United States. Below is a partial list of those settings:

• Life Skills Training and Education
• Career Education and Planning
• Teen/Parent Programs
• Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs
• Youth Groups and After School Programming
• Faith Community Youth Groups
• Juvenile Justice Programs
• Drug Prevention Programs
• Drop-out Prevention
• English and Social Studies
• Student Orientation
• Independent Living Education
• Individual or Group Counseling

Flexible Program Delivery Options

The strength of the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum lies in its flexibility. MAKING CHOICES can be delivered in either a co-ed or single sex group or classroom setting.

Advantages to the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum:

1. Cognitive/Educational Approach: MAKING CHOICES curriculum has a cognitive/educational (experiential learning) approach which recent research shows to be extremely effective with youth, especially those in the juvenile justice system. Feedback we have received confirms that the program helps youth develop valuable life skills, including critical thinking, communication skills, and boundary setting.

2. Simple, Effective Curriculum: The instructor’s curriculum is a powerful tool. Ninety-six complete 50-minute lesson plans and minimal prep time provide needed support to overworked and overloaded instructors.

3. Flexible Lesson Plans: Lessons can be used sequentially or a la carte allowing the curriculum to be tailored to a particular group’s needs. This is a major strength of the MAKING CHOICES CURRICULUM which covers a broad range of topics that include: self-esteem building and interpersonal skills development, conflict resolution techniques, boundary setting in regards to sexual behavior and drug abuse, career planning and money management. Each individual lesson can be delivered independently from the others or can be presented as part of a unit or delivered as a full 3 month, six month, or one year course. We have found that facilitators typically use the sections that are suited to the needs of the particular group they are working with. For instance, if adolescent pregnancy is an issue they will emphasize that section first, if drug abuse is particularly high they will pull out that section, etc.

4. Student Workbook: The workbook (student’s personal journal) reinforces the lessons taught, providing a personal record of a student’s individual change, skill development, and progress.

5. Staff training: The lesson plans, tips for working with adolescents, and facilitation techniques actually provide on the job training for teachers and staff. This built-in training is particularly valuable as schools and institutions experience dramatic budget reductions.

6. Builds bridges between teens and parents: Students bring the workbook home and share the life skills information with their parent, adding an additional benefit of involving parents in the process. Parents gain new perspectives and fresher and more positive avenues of communication evolve between parent and child.

7. Student Workbook (Spanish Edition): Not only offers the workbook to Spanish speaking students where language is a barrier to learning, but it allows the parents to help their children and share in the life skills building process as well.

Materials needed for the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum:

What Educators and Experts are Saying About the MAKING CHOICES Curriculum

"I recommend MAKING CHOICES. It provides provocative information and offers exciting and interesting hands-on activities that are relevant, timely, and student-oriented."

Milton P. Wilson, Ph.D., Coordinator
Parenting Education Curriculum Task Force,
Ca. Dept. of Ed.

"Making Choices equips students with the necessary tools for facing life’s challenges with positivity and direction."

Stu Semigran, Vice President
Educare Foundation
ACE Program Director

"At last a program for young people to learn the essential skills needed for successful life planning."

Dr. Nishna I. Duffy, Gender Equity Coordinator
New Hampshire Dept. of Ed.

". . . MAKING CHOICES cover everything from cultural diversity to personal hygiene. The work book provides a lot of simple exercises for the students that generate interesting and varied discussions. Throughout the curriculum an emphasis is placed on processing ideas in a group, critical thinking, and recognizing individual values. Communication skills are both learned and practiced. "
". . . Making Choices Curriculum is particularly well suited for young girls. Many lessons reinforce the ideas of setting boundaries around sexual behavior, understanding and preventing domestic violence, and recognizing the impact of teen pregnancy. For young people in general it gives an awareness of what it means to be an adolescent, knowledge of the changes to expect, and opportunities to set goals for the future. "

Brandon Bannister
Kid¹s Grant Coordinator
Drug Abuse Alternatives Center
Santa Rosa, CA