See a Man Be A Man
ProgramINTERVENTION, MENTORSHIP
& ELECTIVE COURSEWORK FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
For the past seven years our most impactful program “See A Man Be a Man” (SAMBAM) has been serving a select at-risk group of young male minority students at Locke High School in the Watts community of South Los Angeles.
Students meet with SAMBAM staff and program partners five days a week for an in-school class where they receive course credit through the implementation of our award-winning nine-point curriculum. This course engages students in all four years of their high school process and ensures that they have goals and are achieving them throughout the course of their matriculation.
Evidence based practices such as Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Trauma-Informed Care and Client-Focused Care, are embedded within the programmatic approach.
Within our curriculum, each core life area of the program is a stand-alone unit with a working definition, set of activities, and measurable deliverables. As students progress through high school, the program’s expectations and rigor increases.
PROGRAM SUCCESS
In all, the See A Man Be A Man program at Locke High School has graduated 100% of the youth who traversed to the 12th grade, with 80% enrolling in college (4-year universities, community colleges), and 20% enlisting in the United States Military
College enrollment of African American males at Locke has improved from 4 in 2017, to 7 in 2018, and most recently 12. All of these boys who have chosen college enrollment in this dataset were participants of our program.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS DURING COVID-19
As documented by the LA Times, 3 weeks after Covid-19 forced LAUSD schools were forced to close their physical locations and move to online learning platforms. The trend they see is that *“1/3 of their students stopped participating in classes”, while nearby LAUSD high school teachers are reporting “just 45 percent” of “students were showing up to Zoom classroom meetings”. Coupled with only “45 percent of Angelinos” being employed as of mid-April, many students are looking for employment and are at high risk of dropping out within the year.
In light of the new realities of Covid-19 in our educational system, we are committed to replicating our current education modules as online courses during fall 2020 and beyond.
