Teen Spring Break Leadership Institute

About the Program

Category: Libraries (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Teen Spring Break Leadership Institute provides an alternative spring break experience for teens who do not have other opportunities. The inspiration for this program came from the goLEAD model. GoLEAD is an intensive leadership program that encourages teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving skills while benefiting the community in a capstone project. Through this program, students work together to identify a problem, work through possible solutions, and design and implement a service project to make a positive change in their local community. In the spring of 2014 HandsOn Greater Richmond received a grant from Capital One to host a goLEAD facilitator training, and Chesterfield County Public Library (CCPL) participated by sending one of its staff members. In 2015 CCPL hosted its first Teen Spring Break Leadership Institute using the goLEAD model, and six teens from South Chesterfield participated. The teens identified hunger as community need that they wanted to address. From their recommendation the library hosted a food drive for local citizens. The gratification and excitement of helping others was clear when the teens distributed food at the Chesterfield County Food Bank. Because the first institute was so well received by the teen participants, CCPL wanted to host another one the following year. Feedback from teens indicated that the 30 hour goLEAD model was too intensive for a spring break. To be considered a goLEAD Institute, it must adhere strictly to the guidelines. CCPL decided to discontinue the goLEAD model and opted instead for a shorter, less intensive program. During this same time, CCPL had been discussing a possible program with local author Cordell Farley. Mr. Farley’s book, Life Lessons of a Throwaway Kid, seemed to fit perfectly into the teen leadership theme, so we decided to combine the two programs into one. Staff led an icebreaker session the first day so teens could get comfortable with one another then the Farleys led a two-day leadership workshop with exercises focused on self-awareness, goal setting, and emotional intelligence.