Equipping Youth

What is Equipping Youth

Every day teens are faced with important decisions, but the importance of those decisions might not be recognized until much later in life. Our Equipping Youth (EY) program is designed to educate middle and high school-aged students about the long-term effects that decisions they are making today have on their tomorrow.

Students learn the importance of goal setting and develop implementation strategies that will aid them as they enter adulthood. In addition, the program educates them on the risks of drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, tobacco, and violence and how to avoid the dangers related to them altogether.

Equipping Youth Program

Equipping Youth is a risk avoidance, primary prevention, positive youth development program for middle and high school students that enhances good decision-making skills. It cultivates protective factors in teens by building youth development assets and enhancing self-regulation, motivating and equipping teens to make healthy choices in the five key high-risk areas of drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, violence, and tobacco/nicotine and builds students’ developmental assets, enhancing successful life and academic achievement through intentional goal planning and implementation. Lessons are designed to include all four learning modalities and incentives enhance long term retention.

Smart Goals
Risks & Consequences
Social Media Safety
Peer Pressure & Boundaries
Relationships

Aside from the topics mentioned above, our program offers education on two of the most relevant issues in our society today: Human Trafficking and Suicide.

The Human Trafficking portion is designed to create an awareness of the methods that victimizers use to attract unsuspecting youth, while the Suicide portion focuses on the consistently affirming a student’s worth and educating them on how to avoid or overcome depression.

Throughout the program we provide students with resources such as crisis hotlines so that they will either have something to offer or somewhere to turn in the event of a crisis situation.

According to the E3 Family Solutions student surveys for years 2024-2025, there were significant attitudinal shifts in students in both middle and high school after participating in the Equipping Youth program.

For example, the survey response to #7: “I now recognize the red flags of a toxic relationship,” increased by 19% and “I am now very aware of the dangers of human trafficking by 22% in the high school program. Middle school surveys revealed an increase of 38% on “I have now written down SMART goals for my life after high school,” and 39% for “I now understand the difference between someone caring about me and someone controlling me.”

To see results of all the survey questions for middle and high schoolers please click on the link below.

EOY Surveys for 2024-2025:

Middle/High School Survey

So, I went to this party with my buddies, but when they started drinking and partying, I kept thinking about what you said Monday about my choices and how they could affect my future dreams. I couldn’t get that phrase, “Every choice you make NOW has a consequence later. So, I asked my buddies to leave and go home, but they said no, they came to party. So, me and this other guy left and went home. When I got to school this morning, I found out those other guys got into a wreck and are in the hospital today. So, I’m not kidding when I say – you may have saved my life.
Mike’s Story

Join The Mission

The Equipping Youth Program is currently taught in public schools throughout Florida’s Lake, Sumter and Hernando Counties. We began serving students in Hernando County in the fall of 2020. Our partnership with Hernando School District has allowed us to serve over 3000 high school students since that time and we continue to collaborate with local youth serving organizations to equip students to make healthy choices. Are you ready to be a part of the conversation? Contact us today to find out if our program is taught in your child’s school. An interactive and engaging faith-based option is available for churches and private schools upon request.