The Director's Corner
We are close to four months into the calendar year and Brandon House continues to make progress. Since our last communication, Brandon House was awarded a third contract through the City of Little Rock Department of Community Programs to create a program called Fall In Deep. The Fall In Deep initiative grew out of a need for Little Rock teens to have a safe space and safe place to address hard, tough, sensitive, and challenging topics and address social and emotional experiences that can lead to trauma in their later years. Additionally, the rising crimes in the city of Little Rock, which have been perpetrated by teens, led Brandon House to create this program calling it Fall In Deep because the youth expressed a need to have open, honest, and deep conversations about their social and emotional experiences as teens and the issues of being pressured by their peers to engage in juvenile delinquent behaviors.
Brandon House is on the front line working within low-income communities to identify high-risk youth and engage them in positive youth development experiences. The FALL IN Deep Program target opportunity and disconnected youth, ages 13 to 18, and is an arts-based youth prevention the program is designed to offer opportunities for older youth to address their social and emotional health through academic enrichment, career and college awareness, theater and drama, and youth empowerment strategies using media and digital interactions. Brandon House is driven by a critical need in the communities we serve for middle and high school students, opportunities, and disconnected youth to be educated and trained in career readiness and 21st-century workforce skills to prevent them from perpetuating the school-to-prison or the pipeline-to-prison trend.
Brandon House was awarded a half-million dollar grant to implement our DreamStarters. Program at our West Little Rock [WLR] site. The DreamStarters Program is a creative arts-based youth prevention program designed to expose elementary students to arts-infused learning experiences as a way for the youth to address their personal, academic, social, and emotional development needs and to prepare them to build skills for life. Brandon House’s WLR site will enroll 50 youths, ages 5 through 13 years of age; with 30 of the slots reserved for families who are eligible for the Arkansas Department of Human Services child care voucher. Stay tuned to our monthly newsletters to learn more about the DreamStarters Program at our WLR site. As we gear up for our summer programs which will begin June 5, 2023, we are excited about the opportunities we can provide for our youth. To enroll in BH programs, complete the online enrollment form on our website. Click Here For the
Enrollment Form.