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PARTNERSHIP WITH CHILDREN ENTERS THREE NEW SUMMER SCHOOLS  
During Summer 2003, Partnership with Children, with funding from the Robin Hood Foundation and FEMA, implemented its Open Heart - Open Mind Summers program in three new elementary schools: PS 67 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn; PS 256 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; and PS 19 in the Lower East Side, Manhattan.
The goal of Open Heart - Open Mind Summers is to provide students who are at-risk of repeating a grade, the social and emotional support necessary for them to concentrate on their academics. During the school day, social workers provide individualized academic support and instruction to students in the classroom. After school hours, a time which might otherwise be unsupervised and lead to negative behaviors, the program provides engaging activities for the children. These activities are derived from Open Heart - Open Mind’s Best Practices and they promote socialization, articulation, the processing of emotions and the learning of positive communications skills. Proven therapeutic Open Heart - Open Mind program components, such as newspaper groups, peer mediation, team-building projects, and kinesthetic/movement activities, are utilized. Many of the activities incorporate literacy, math, and art skills to further support the children’s academic progress. Additionally, Partnership with Children’s social work staff is available full-time for crisis intervention and parental and school support. The previous summer, Partnership with Children ran its first Summer School program at PS 64 on the Lower East Side with outstanding success. One hundred percent of students who participated stated that they felt better about themselves as a result of their involvement in the program, that Partnership with Children helped them academically, and that Partnership with Children helped them feel safer at school. Aditionally, all of the students involved in the program indicated that they would like to participate in Partnership with Children programs throughout the school year. | |||||||||
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