Crisia Santacruz

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S.W.O.T. for Save Our Youth (Part One)

Strengths
S.O.Y. provides a mentorship program with various organizations from UCI that
have workshops on suggestions for students on what to do to reach their goals.
(Positive Youth Development, Lerner 2014)
There are programs, which are in various languages like Spanish and English to
relate to multiple parents who may not have English as their first language.
(Factors that Influence Participation Simpkins 2012)
Incentives are given to students once their homework is completed, or if they are
actively participating in activities. This will encourage more and more children to
do the same and as if they are doing something right. (Sense of Belonging,
Fredrick 2014)
The program is open to everyone and anyone and having staff that are bilingual
allows students to feel at ease and want to come to this program. (Sense of
Belonging, Fredrick 2014)
The people in charge make sure to not only be welcoming and warm but to also
be engaging with the clients. (Sense of Belonging, Fredrick, 2014)
Weaknesses
To make sure that parents are actively participating in activities, there should be
some type of encouragement for that because this can alter if students want to be
in the program or not. (Factors that Influence Participation Simpkins, 2012)
Children arrive and just start playing games instead of going straight to their
homework. (Huang & Dietel, 2011)
Opportunity
There are other schools other than UCI that could volunteer so that participants
see some diversity within the volunteers. This also can bring different
perspectives. (Positive Youth Development, Lerner 2014)
Not only staff but also volunteers, can create programs and seminars for the
students so that they can talk to someone whom they can relate to. (Fostering
Initiative, Larson 2000)
Threats
Since there is little revenue and it is all donations, there is a threat that staff may
leave the job to find a more secure job. (Huang & Dietel, 2011)
Volunteers are crucial for this program to continue because there is little to no
revenue coming in therefore volunteers make up a huge portion of mentors and
helpers in the center (Huang & Dietel, 2011)

Crisia Santacruz
95829637

S.W.O.T. for Save Our Youth (Part Two)

Based off my SWOT, the two theories that stand out the most were Sense of
Belonging (Fredrick, 2014) and Making Afterschool Programs Better (Huang &
Dietel, 2011). In the sense of belonging theory we see how making sure the program is
inclusive can affect positive development, social skills, and motivation of youth. If a
student cannot relate therefore being excluded, this can affect their attitude, their wellbeing, even their desire to participate in activities within the program. Since there are
volunteers and staff that are bilingual and can relate to students we see this as a strength
that the program has. Not only that but the rewards system that is in affect allows students
to reflect and realize that what they are doing is something positive so they should
continue doing it.
With the theory of Making Afterschool Programs Better, there were five main
goals that each program should have which are goals, leadership, staff, program and
evaluation. Implementing these goals will allow the program to continue to flourish and I
have seen that at my site. The staff are all welcoming and friendly, not only do staff have
goals but so do the students, to make sure that the program is running smoothly there are
opportunities for parents to voice their opinion on the positive and negatives about the
program, and finally the leadership is taken by each volunteer and staff. All of the
volunteer and staff want the best for the students so no one is ever sitting down with
nothing to do, there is always something to do which shows that there is leadership within
the program. Having all of these qualities is going to allow S.O.Y. to continue growing
and continue helping youth advance in their everyday lives.