10 Valuable ARISE Posts You Might Have Missed.

As we approach the one year anniversary of the ARISE blog, we thought it was time to refresh our readers’ memories on some of our most popular posts. The most visited entries are the ones featuring quotes. Here are our top 10 blogs featuring wonderful, inspiring quotations. Enjoy!

1. 10 Quotes About Choices
2. 10 Quotes to Help You Stay Positive
3. Five Wise Quotes About Anger
4. 10 Enlightening Quotes about Money and the Economy
5. Five Quotes to Ponder
6. 10 Quotes for Success
7. 10 More Quotes for Success
8. 10 Quotes for Success, Part III
9. 10 Quotes for Success, Part IV
10. 10 Thoughtful Quotes About Worry, Stress and Anxiety

We love quotes because they make us think. We feature quotes prominently in our Life Skills material. For more information on the ARISE curricula, visit the ARISE website.

Five Quotes about Leadership, Brought to You by ARISE Life Skills

The last election and the situation in Iran have proven that human beings yearn to be led by someone fair, decisive and ethical. Leadership ability is something you are born with, but it can also be taught. ARISE offers those that work with at-risk and incarcerated youth several opportunities to become leaders at their facilities, as well as role models and mentors for the youth in their care. By taking a Life Skills Facilitator course or becoming an ARISE Certified Master Trainer, you can transform yourself from someone who simply goes to work each day to someone who is passionate about helping people. To inspire you on your path to leadership, here are five quotes about what it takes to pave a path for others.

1. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”        -Dwight D. Eisenhower
2. “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” -Thomas Carlyle
3. “The real leader has no need to lead–he is content to point the way.” -Henry Miller
4. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
5. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”              -John Quincy Adams

Let Go and Forgive, Brought To You by ARISE Life Skills and Training

A few weeks ago, ARISE founder Edmund Benson came across a fantastic article entitled “How To Let Go and Forgive” by Leo Babauta. The concepts in the article are so crucial to happiness, yet so difficult for most people to grasp. We have all been hurt by someone at some point in our lives. Everyone experiences pain; not everyone deals with it in the same way. Certain people make a conscious CHOICE to let go and forgive. It’s not easy, but the results can be liberating.

In his article, Mr. Babauta explained the following important points about holding onto anger and resentment:

1. You must commit to letting go.  It is a constant, conscious process.
2. Think of the problems that arise from holding pain inside you. Then think of how good it would feel to not have those problems any longer.
3. Realize that you have a CHOICE. No one is forcing you to harbor negative feelings. You can control your actions AND your thoughts. Remember that.
4. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Try to understand and empathize.
5. Try to understand your own responsibility for the situation. Could you have prevented it from happening?
6. Focus on the present. There is an old chinese proverb that says “the past is gone, the future is uncertain…but the present is a gift.” When you start dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, stop yourself and live in the moment. Find the joy in life NOW.
7. Breathe. Think of each breath as a vessel, moving positive energy in and negative energy out.
8. Feel compassion. Realize that by forgiving and moving on, you are allowing yourself happiness. This is not easy, especially when you harbor so much anger towards the person. Take the high road and wish happiness on the other person. Realize that when you hold anger inside, you are only hurting yourself.

ARISE understands the power of forgiveness, positive thought and making a choice to dump negativity. In fact, we created a training workshop called CHOICES: Drop it at the Door just for this purpose.  CHOICES is a two-day workshop with the power to change your entire life. It was designed to help juvenile justice employees and those that work with at-risk and troubled youth, but it can work for anyone. If you find yourself bringing workplace frustration and anger home to your family, or dragging financial or relationship stress to work, CHOICES can help you. Learn how to manage your stress and anger, control your thoughts and make a CHOICE to live a happy, healthy, positive lifestyle.

To learn more about the CHOICES: Drop it at the Door Training, visit the ARISE website.

ARISE will present its life-changing training programs at the Florida Dept. of Juvenile Justice headquarters in Tallahassee, FL.

Dozens of representatives from juvenile justice and nonprofit organizations will engage in a presentation outlining the remarkable ARISE Life Skills and CHOICES training programs.

North Palm Beach, FL – ARISE founders Susan and Edmund Benson will captivate an audience of juvenile justice and youth organization employees at the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice headquarters in the Alexander building on June 10 at 10 AM.

The Bensons were invited to give a presentation by Greg Johnson, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Prevention and Victim Services within DJJ. ARISE programs are currently used in 74 juvenile justice facilities throughout the state of Florida. ARISE has taken a multifaceted approach to improving the lives of incarcerated youth and those that serve them. ARISE trains juvenile justice staff how to conduct interactive group life skills lessons with the youth in their care. The lessons teach juvenile offenders how to manage their anger, handle conflict, build their self esteem, avoid drugs and alcohol, stay out of gangs, find and keep a job and much more. The role of ARISE and the group facilitators is to engage the learners, get them talking and show them that their opinions and feelings matter.

ARISE has not forgotten about the stress and well-being of the staff at each DJJ facility. The CHOICES: Drop it at the Door program is a powerful workshop that provides a solid understanding of how each one of us can make the choice to drop home- and work-related anger, stress and frustration “at the door,” ending the boomerang effect of bringing home the stress from work, or carrying family problems such as financial worries and marital woes into the workplace. Eliminating the harmful transference of tension between the workplace and home is the focus of the CHOICES training.

The purpose of the presentation is to introduce ARISE staff training experiences and curricula to programs unfamiliar with the success of ARISE in Florida, nationally and internationally. ARISE wants to share over two decades of inspiring positive behavioral change in troubled youth and staff. The goal of the presentation is to develop partnerships with those serving vulnerable children and teens, thereby extending the work of ARISE and adding structure to programs and providing professional training to staff that interact with these youth.

 For over 20 years, ARISE has operated as a developer and publisher of Life Management Skills curricula and staff training programs. Designed to reach at-risk, incarcerated youth in detention centers and secure facilities and on probation, ARISE is also utilized as a powerful prevention tool for teenagers and young adults.  ARISE programs consist of interactive group discussions and activities designed to break the ice quickly and grab the attention of even the most turned-off participants. ARISE is particularly appropriate for youth with special requirements such as limited reading and/or writing ability and behavioral problems. 

In its home state of Florida, ARISE were utilized for decades in the Miami-Dade School system. ARISE has forged a strong partnership with the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). ARISE programs have been changing the lives of juvenile offenders in the Florida juvenile justice system since 1996. Its dynamic programs are being taught in 74 DJJ facilities across the state as well as the Salvation Army, Boys and Girls Clubs and alternative schools.

ARISE has also trained staff in the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and over 100 organizations in the District of Columbia, including Washington, D.C. public and charter schools, the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, the Metropolitan Police, the District of Columbia jail and the D.C. Superior Court Probation Department.

 A recent study by Vanderbilt University and the University of Maryland showed that the cost of one offender with at least six police contacts from childhood to age 32 is $3,172,998. In other words, rescuing one child from a life of crime saves taxpayers more than $3 million dollars.

 Since ARISE was established over two decades ago, it has trained and certified  5,284 Group Facilitators who have taught over 4,011,242 documented hours of ARISE life-skills lessons across the United States. ARISE is also being used in Canada, Jamaica, England, Australia, Bahamas, Bermuda, New Zealand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia and the Kingdom of Bahrain. ARISE curricula are presently being translated into Kazakh, Russian. Requests for translations have also come in from as far away as Pakistan and South Africa.

For more information, or to schedule a training, please call Yasmin Isaacs at ARISE toll free: 1 (888) 680-6100 or visit ariselife-skills.org.

Have You Ever Been in a Gang? Tell ARISE Your Story and Get Published.

As the old saying goes, fact is often more dramatic than fiction. ARISE is working on a new book about gang prevention. The book will feature dozens of stories about gang life, meant to illustrate how difficult, dangerous and often deadly it can be. Have you ever been in a gang? Would you like to share your cautionary tale with at-risk youth? These stories will reach thousands of troubled youth. Many of them are hovering on the edge of a very slippery cliff between leading law-abiding lives and sliding into lives of crime.

Many of these young people will not sit still for a traditional classroom lesson. But give them a great story, and you have their attention. Get their attention, and you can sneak in under the radar and teach them lifesaving lessons about what gang life is really like. They need real, gritty, honest stories.

Can you tell them one?

If you have an interesting story about gang life to tell, please email it to adoucette@arisefoundation.org. The story does not necessarily have to be autobiographical, or even true. But it has to teach a lesson, and it MUST be well-written and easy to understand for people with limited reading and writing skills.

Accepted stories will become property of ARISE. Accepted stories will be published as part of the ARISE Life Skills gangs stories book , where they will be read by thousands of incarcerated and at-risk youth. This is a chance for your writing to have an amazing impact on a young person.

I look forward to reading your story.

Pictured: Juan Pancheco, former gang member, tells his story to a group of middleschoolers. Photo courtesy of North County Times, Virginia

I’m Listening: ARISE Foundation’s Newest Program to Help At-Risk Youth

How often do you feel as if you are truly being listened to? With the invention of cell phones and the Internet, sitting in front of another person and engaging in meaningful dialogue is becoming an extinct art form.  85% of what we know, we learn from listening—yet we spend only 45% of our time listening, and we only remember 20% of what we hear. Most of the incarcerated teens in the juvenile justice system simply want someone to listen to them. But needing to be listened to without judgment is something everyone on this planet needs.

Did you know that less than 2% of us have ever had formal education on how to listen? ARISE is out to change that. Inspired by a program called “The Listening Post,” created by Dr. Mabel Barth of Denver, Colorado, ARISE set out to create a program to teach people, especially those that work with at-risk youth, how to become nonjudgmental listeners.

I’m Listening is a four-hour training workshop that teaches you how to set up an “I’m Listening” table, listen without judgment or interruption and give the speaker vital feedback to let them know you are invested in what they have to say. I’m Listening is not about counseling or advice—it’s simply about listening. Period.

Smile! The many benefits of a big grin, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills

 

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered alonglife’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.”  - Joseph Addison

Has this ever happened to you? You’re having a terrible day. Everything is going wrong. It seems as if the universe has pitted itself against you. You walk into a coffee shop, or your dry cleaners, or a gas station. You go up to the person at the cash register and encounter a dazzling smile.  The smile is so warm, so inviting and so sincere that you can’t help but smile back.  All the negative thoughts that crowded your mind dissolve, even if just for a moment. You smile unconsciously and hold open the door for someone coming in. That person sees your happy grin and is compelled to smile in return. And so, one smile creates a chain of good will.  Just a simple upturn of the lips and crinkle of the eyes—that’s all it takes.

Beyond the good cheer a smile can bring to those around you, a smile has numerous health benefits. Being optimistic can help you live longer! Here are just a few examples:

1. Smiling helps you fight off disease.   “The research is very clear,” says Christopher Peterson, Ph.D, a University of Michigan professor, “There is a link between optimistic attitudes and good health. It has been measured in a variety of ways. Overall, we have found that optimistic people are healthier. Their biological makeup is different. They have a more robust immune system.”
2. Smiling helps you live longer.  According to a study published in the November 2004 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, elderly optimistic people, those who expected good things to happen (rather than bad things), were less likely to die than pessimists. In fact, among the 65- to 85-year-old study participants, those who were most optimistic were 55 percent less likely to die from all causes than the most pessimistic people. What’s more, after researchers adjusted the results for age, smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity and other measures of health, the optimists were 71 percent less likely to die than the pessimists.
3. Smiling is better than chocolate.  Acording to The British Dental Health Foundation, a smile gives the same level of stimulation as eating 2,000 chocolate bars. Eating chocolate is said to give you the same feeling as being in love. So the conclusion could be drawn that smiling gives you the same rush you get from being madly in love. Who wouldn’t want that?*

Having a hard time finding that elusive grin? Try visualizing things that make you happy. Listen to your favorite music.  Take a break and walk barefoot on the beach. Share a hot fudge sundae with a friend. Make a child laugh. Remember that everyone gets the same 24 hours in a day. It’s your choice to spend that time in a good mood or wallowing in unhappiness.

SMILE!

The ARISE Choices: Drop It At The Door program is designed specifically to teach participants how to choose their emotions and leave stress and negativity “at the door.” For more information, visit the ARISE website.

*special thanks to sixwise.com for providing info on the research study about smiling.

Homeless Children: How to Help the Economy’s Most Vulnerable Victims

 

One of the risk factors for ending up homeless is if your parents are homeless. In a crumbling economy, rife with job loss and foreclosures, the number of homeless people has started climbing again after experiencing a downturn from 2004-2007.

“‘I’ve never seen it like this before, and I have 30 years of experience working with the homeless,’ said Darlene Newsom, head of the UMOM Day Centers emergency housing project in Phoenix, Arizona, where the number of homeless families seeking services has doubled in the past three months.” (Reuters, March 26,2009)

The Sun Sentinel ran a piece on April 13, 2008, entitled “Economy takes toll on kids” about the South Florida’s growing population of homeless children. Schools are often left to cope with the effects of families that lose their homes. Homeless kids struggle to stay focused, are often stressed, and act out to get attention. Many are teased by their classmates.

Broward County, FL has about 1,600 homeless children enrolled in the school system, according to the article. Palm Beach County has 953. Most of them are living “in shelters, motels and cars, or doubling up with friends or relatives.”

Being homeless puts kids at risk of foregoing their education and turning into homeless adults. “Fewer than one in four graduate from high school, and homeless children worry more and get sick more often than other kids.” (Sun Sentinel)

In addition to the high toll homelessness takes on their own lives, these at-risk kids, should they decide to drop out of school, cost taxpayers milions of dollars as they grow up and become dependant on the state.

So what can be done to give homeless children the tools they need to survive these hard times?  It is possible for homeless and at-risk youth to remain strong and resilient through their families’ struggles. Being homeless as a child does not have to automatically equate to a wasted life.

ARISE Foundation’s vast library of life skills material can help homeless kids build their self esteem, stay in school, handle bullies, manage their anger and experience an outlet for their emotions. ARISE lessons offer kids and teens practical advice, tips and tools to help them make the right decisions. The lessons are best taught in a group environment, where learners can share their experiences, get things off their chests and feel validated and appreciated in spite of their economic situations.

The following ARISE books are ideal for a homelessness prevention program, a support program for youth that are already homeless, a dropout prevention program or a life skills workshop:

1.  Anger Management
2. Self Esteem
3. So You’re Thinking of Dropping Out?
4. Networking, Jobs and Money
5. Learning Strategies and Time Management
6. Violence and Conflict
7. Substance Abuse and Guns

All ARISE material is best taught by certified ARISE Life Skills Facilitators. When you go through the ALSF training, you learn how to bring the learners out of their shells, how to engage and interest them, how to conduct the lessons in a productive way and how to make sure that you get the most out of each book.

To learn more about training or purchase ARISE materials, visit the ARISE Website or call TOLL FREE (888) 680-6100.

10 Quotes to Help You Stay Positive, Brought to You by ARISE Life Skills

1. “I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
   - Martha Washington
2. “Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.” — Frederick Langbridge
3. “In seeking happiness for others, you find it for yourself.” Anonymous
4. “The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
   -Allan K. Chalmers
5. “In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, But the gratefulness that makes us happy.”
   -Albert Clarke
6.  ”What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.
   -Thomas Bailey Aldrich
7. “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.” -Frederick Nietzsche
8. “Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” -Lao-Tzu
9. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” -Oprah Winfrey
10. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill

For more inspiration or to schedule a CHOICES: Drop It at the Door training in order to learn how to control your anger, manage stress and stay positive, visit the ARISE website.

Need a Little Inspiration? ARISE Introduces New “Combination Pack.”

The world needs affirming thoughts now more than ever. It’s easy to dwell on the negative and be swept into the flood of turmoil and tragedy. It’s more challenging to stay positive and look for the good in others. ARISE has three products that provide a daily nudge toward positivity. Until now, those three products were only available separately.  You can now purchase all three in a handy “combination pack.” Here is what you will receive, for the astounding price of $15.00:

• Stop!  The average person spends an hour in a car during each weekday commute. When you find yourself with an idle moment, choose to use your time wisely and build a more positive outlook for yourself. The ARISE Red Light Affirmation cards can be placed on the dashboard and read at every red light. Instead of staring into space or fiddling with the radio, use every red light as an opportunity to fill your mind with positive thoughts, such as “I look at what is right in people, not what is wrong.” Look at red lights not as roadblocks that keep you from moving forward, but as blessings for yourself and others.
• Look! Positive Cards are thoughtful ways to salute someone else’s selflessness. When you notice a random act of kindness, give ’em a Postive Card. They make excellent morale-lifters in the workplace. Use them at home if you catch your children doing something right.  Give them away to total strangers you catch in the act of doing something good. It’s amazing how your entire world view shifts when you purposely look for the good around you. Everyone involved will be happier, and we can’t get enough of that, can we?
• Pray! Give a little bit of yourself by offering a prayer for a youth who is struggling. This card can help you with the words. It will only take a moment, and you could bring some peace to a troubled heart. 

Each package of 30 cards, 10 of each, comes with directions on how to use them effectively. Each set of cards is bound with a special wrapper containing an inspirational message. If you need more cards, they are for sale individually on the ARISE Website, 50 for $9.95.  The website is also a great place to find new ideas, sale items and free downloads.

MAKE EVERY MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE COUNT.

“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future” -Steve Miller