03-26-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING March 26, 2018 DePaul Academy, you start off on an OT Status and you have to progress throughout the program to get to the final status, Ram Status,when you receive a lettermen jacket. It represents all the hard work and dedication you have put into the program and it just allows everyone to see what it can be like to be a leader. At DePaul, they give us positive skill development groups and treatment groups to help you learn skills you need for real life. They try and help you prepare for real life. Some of those treatment groups are anger-replacement therapy, substance abuse groups,biological behavioral therapy groups, and I have attended all of those groups. They really do help as they help you build skills and coping skills to use when we are outside of DePaul Academy. The whole program is good for the youth. I think the Woodford Home would be a really good thing for the community because it gives youth who don't really have a positive environment to go back to, a place and chance to stay out of trouble. It will also be good because all of the kids that are there are kids that will want to be there. They are not court-ordered to go there. They want to participate and make a positive impact on South Bend. We participate in a lot of community service projects. We try to help out the homeless, we go to church, and I think putting more student athletes in the community will help the community. Joe Aarons, 1000 S. Michigan Street, South Bend, IN, stated, I am a student-athlete at DePaul Academy right now. ROP has taught me a lot of stuff like the stages of change. The first step is pre-contemplation.The next are contemplation,preparation,action,maintenance,and relapse.Pre- contemplation is when you think you don't have a problem and probably everybody that comes into DePaul Academy and ROP think they don't have a problem because they are just used to doing it on the outside. Going through DePaul Academy helped me realize that I need to work on my future and my goals. When I graduate DePaul Academy, I'll probably have eleven(11) credits and will be a sophomore. I just need to catch up on all my things and DePaul Academy really helped me. Outside, I never really went to school. DePaul Academy makes you go to school. A structured environment is what kids like us need. Validating DePaul Academy is to achieve personal goals, better your self-esteem, your future, and your outlook on life. It teaches you ways to succeed and cope with problems. The Woodford Home will put us in situations where we can practice these skills. If I didn't have a place to go, it would definitely be much worse. Ike Shipman, 17265 Juday Lake Drive North, South Bend, IN, stated, I am the Program Director at DePaul Academy and I will be the Program Director of Woodford Home should this pass. All too often, I think we talk about young men rather than letting them stand up and speak for themselves and listening to what it is they have to say. Yesterday, I asked two (2) students if they would be willing to come and speak tom. What they said today is what they came up with after saying yes. I wanted you to hear directly from them to see who they are so you can understand the quality of young men we are working with and the quality of people that are putting the time and energy into our students. The Woodford Home building has been unused for years. It held forty (40)patients. We will be using it for ten(10)to twelve (12)young men. They will be students and young men from the area that will be returning back to the area. This is a perfect use for this space and this building. It is about the quality, not the quantity. We will effect big change only by working with individual students, on an individual basis, one (1) at a time, through good, quality work and transition. It takes courage, not only for our students to make those changes, but for our staff to work with these guys. I also think about the neighborhood itself. I think about the individuals living in that neighborhood and they are thinking about the unknown.The unknown of a new neighbor moving next door to you can be a worry and concern. I moved to South Bend two (2) years ago to help start DePaul Academy. This need arose only as a result of the needs of the children we are serving. They had nowhere to go. A third of the students had no safe home to transition to. We are ready to make that transition and are capable of making that transition. I came to help facilitate the needs of this community and I love being a member of this community. South Bend was somewhere I was drawn to. I love the people here. The outpouring of support that has come. We want to continue that support through the Woodford Home and will continue the quality that has started. We want to help and be good neighbors in this area. We had a few of our students go over to see the facility and during that day we were there,the snow was falling,and the neighbor immediately to the south got their car stuck in the snow. The student-athletes helped her dig the car out. They did that because there was a need. We will continue to provide in ways like that. Through education, vocational training, and community service projects, we want nothing more than the opportunity to prove to the neighbors what kind of asset we can be. We will have the 21