GBA TOOLKIT

GBA's curriculum was designed around Give Back's three trauma-informed, evidence-based core competencies: Economic Stability, Resiliency Building, and Relational Wealth. The core competencies, sub-competencies, and learning objectives are outlined in our curriculum web. This curriculum was created through the collective efforts of our team after decades of work supporting youth who have experienced economic instability, traumatic events, and inconsistent supportive relationships. Providing youth opportunities to connect with relatable peers, build a toolbox of life skills, and practice self-advocacy will empower them to remain committed to their education and strive for a successful and fulfilling career.

Economic

Stability

Economic stability is achieved by having a stable and sufficient income to meet basic needs and lead a fulfilling life. To help our students achieve this state, we guide them toward finding and maintaining a career path that aligns with their interests, celebrates their strengths, and fills them with purpose. We teach students that a stable income can positively benefit their mental and physical health, relationships, and sense of self-worth, as well as that of their future family.

Resiliency

Building

Resilience, or the ability to bounce back in the face of adversity, is a quality that the youth we work with already possess. However, as a means of survival in the face of instability, students often close themselves off from growth-oriented thinking. Since maintaining a growth mindset is crucial to building resilience, we consistently encourage students to maintain agency over their attitudes, emotions, and intentions to create positive opportunities and interactions in all areas of their life.

Relational

Wealth

We define relational wealth as the presence of intentional and authentic relationships that can provide a student with guidance, connection, and support. We educate students on the brain-based need for human connection and that social interactions can build empathy, produce self-esteem, regulate emotions, decrease depressive symptoms, and positively impact the immune system. Through a high-quality, competency-based education model, we ground our instruction in helping students build strong personal relationships.

COMPETENCIES

Using the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework and the Standards for Career Ready Practice (SCRP) as our guides, we designed four thematic units, each with activity-based, 50-minute modules, that meet the mandates in many states to integrate social and emotional learning and career exploration curriculum into the school day.

We have included multiple levels of engagement and styles of sharing in each module to give students the opportunity to practice vulnerability and connection at their own pace.

As outlined in the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework, GBA was specifically designed for and tested in a Tier 2 (supplemental support) setting with groups of up to 25 middle school or high school-aged youth who share similar life experiences. We suggest that educators progress through these lessons in the order that they are presented because we have found it is important to create a strong community support system before asking youth to engage in more personal activities that involve evaluating their character, emotional wellness and career aspirations. However, youth may move schools or have individualized learning needs, so these lessons can stand alone or be delivered in a Tier 3 (intensified support) setting in any order that benefits the specific student. The curriculum is also appropriate for a Tier 1 (universal support) setting.

Student incentives and branded, themed giveaways are an important component of our curriculum. Students feel loved and celebrated when they receive gifts, which helps to build connection and unity throughout our programming. Many of our items are coming soon in our store for purchase, but we also encourage you to create your own giveaways to match the specific program you design within your organization. Better yet, involve students and let their creativity flow. Branding your GBA club and including giveaways gives students a sense of shared organizational values and reminds them…

You Belong Here!

Each unit has an introduction page that gives a description of the unit and its theme. Our team divided each unit into modules that allow youth to practice the skill described in the unit title. As users click through the modules, they will notice several repeating sections such as The Basics, Supplies (including downloadable worksheets), Schedule, Introductions, Icebreakers, and Activities. The lesson outline, worksheets and detailed descriptions in these modules will provide users with everything they need to deliver this powerful content to students or youth in their program.

Ongoing student feedback and the encouragement of student voice and input has been an important component in the development of our curriculum. Our vision for this school-based mentoring model was to connect a community of school-age peers who, with some adult guidance and engaging activities, can empower and inspire each other. Because we want our modules, activities and incentives to speak directly to students' interests and needs, it is important to include their feedback in the creation and fine-tuning of our program. As trauma-informed educators, we must stay curious about whether or not our efforts are making a positive difference in the lives of the students we are hoping to serve. If our goal is to positively influence our student's connectedness to other peers, help-seeking behaviors and hopefulness for their future, we must assess these areas pre- and post-implementation of our curriculum in surveys such as the ones provided here.