The Asset Champion and TOT News: Combined Features, Stronger Content
Many of you have been subscribing to a newsletter written by Search Institute’s training and speaking team called TOT News. After surveying our readers and learning more about your needs, we have decided to incorporate the content of TOT News into one of our other newsletters, The Asset Champion. We believe this combination will make the newsletter more valuable for all of our subscribers.
Those of you who already subscribe to The Asset Champion tell us you love hearing about the inspiring ways people are putting research into action, empowering youth, and transforming their schools, families, and communities. We are excited to supplement those stories with the experience and strategies our trainers possess. We’ll continue to offer the tools and free downloads you count on, but with a greater emphasis on the leadership skills you need to succeed.
In addition to The Asset Champion, you might also be interested in the other free newsletters we offer for parents and people who work with youth. Click here to learn more and to sign up.
Building Initiatives through Facebook: Omaha, NE
In the social networking world, there is a lot of discussion about taking your online community offline and meeting face-to-face. But what about taking your offline community online? That’s exactly what the Greater Omaha Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth (GO HC • HY) initiative has done by creating a thriving online presence through Facebook.
Building Assets via Text Message: St. Louis Park, MN
Intergenerational communication can be tricky — many adults are finding that, to reach young people, it’s necessary to adapt to the forms of communication that are popular with younger generations. This is why Shelly Beissel, the Youth Services Coordinator for Minnesota’s St. Louis Park Schools and Community Education, uses text messaging to reach the fifty students she works with through the Youth Development Committee (YDC).
Monthly Training Tip
Nathan Eklund, Senior Education Consultant
First the good news: using social media effectively will allow you to connect organizations and people in your communities in ways that far exceed more traditional forms of emails. Who wants a flyer stuck under their windshield wiper?
Unfortunately, you might not feel all that comfortable and knowledgeable using social media. You might be asking, “So, wait. Am I supposed to tweet this to your Facebook?”
Back to the good news: your community initiative just happens to have an almost-unlimited access to experts in the field of social media. Right in your own backyard you have hundreds of people who live, breathe, and “get” social media — your youth.
Additional Tools and Resources
Search Institute was viral before the internet was invented! Many of our materials reach people in handout form.
This collection of 90 reproducible handouts delivers fresh, new ideas and resources for asset building, with ideas for individuals and groups; tools for community initiatives; Spanish-language materials; and tips on using books, videos, and magazines to build assets.
All the handouts in the book are included on a CD-ROM, making it even easier to reproduce the materials and spread the asset message!
Download four free handouts from Pass It On!: Ready-to Use Handouts for Asset Builders
