CHOICES (Citizens Helping Our Island Children End Substance-Abuse) recently officially kicked off the new year’s Peer Mediation Super Sibling Mentoring program with a ceremony at Avalon Schools.
The event
was held Sunday night, Jan. 25, at Avalon School.
According to Rhonda Kalish, continuing care specialist for CHOICES, the program is based on the idea that “kindness is vital” and involves older students mentoring younger ones in a variety of life skills. “It’s not just about drugs,” she said.
CHOICES (Citizens Helping Our Island Children End Substance-Abuse) recently officially kicked off the new year’s Peer Mediation Super Sibling Mentoring program with a ceremony at Avalon Schools.
The event
was held Sunday night, Jan. 25, at Avalon School.
According to Rhonda Kalish, continuing care specialist for CHOICES, the program is based on the idea that “kindness is vital” and involves older students mentoring younger ones in a variety of life skills. “It’s not just about drugs,” she said.
“This is for life skills like listening skills, decision making skills, how to take care of yourself, how to have boundaries,” she said. Although this year’s program is just kicking off, Kalish said the program has been in existence for awhile.
“The program actually has been around for 12 years and we would train kids to diffuse conflict peaceably on campus,” she said.
But Kalish admits that the program “never got used” so it was broadened into a mentoring plan.
“I thought how we could use these skills on campus … on how to communicate so (the students) could have someone to talk to and someone who supports them,” she said.
The idea is for high school-aged students to mentor younger students, generally of junior high age.
“We continue to meet with them and we do lunch buddies on campus,” said Kalish.
“All of these programs that we do are all supported by our community,” she said, including the Avalon Lion’s Club, Southern California Edison and the office of Supervisor Don Knabe among others.
More information may be found at the CHOICES website at www.catalinachoices.org.
