National Guard: Free State Youth ChalleNGe Program
Aberdeen, MD

An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — March 17, 2000

The goal of this field trip was to provide policymakers a chance to see an alternative intervention program in Maryland that has proven effective for improving the lives of at-risk youth. The Free State Youth ChalleNGe program, run by the National Guard in Aberdeen, Maryland is just one of twenty-five sites across the country where the National Guard helps high school dropouts redirect their lives and attain ambitious educational and career goals.

Youth ChalleNGe programs provide high school dropouts ages 16 to 18 with values, life skills, education, and self discipline through a twenty-two week, military-oriented residency program. Following the residency phase of the program, the youth are paired with a responsible adult from their community who has been trained by the Youth ChalleNGe staff and has agreed to serve as a mentor for an additional year. Youth ChalleNGe serves a diverse population; nationally, 81% of the youth are males, 49% are white, 37.5% African American, 7.5% Latino, 4.5% Asian American, and 1.5% Native American.

Begun in 1993, with sites in nine states, the National Guard now operates Youth ChalleNGe programs in twenty-five states, and sixteen additional states and U.S. territories are on the waiting list for new sites. Congress originally allocated $50 million dollars to the Youth ChalleNGe program through the Department of Defense. This initial allocation covered 75% of the funding for local sites and required an additional 25% in matching funds from the states. In 1998 legislation stabilized the funding stream for ChalleNGe by making it a permanent part of the National Guard, however, this legislation also reduced the federal commitment to individual programs so that the ratio of federal/state funds now stands at 60/40. Youth ChalleNGe fares well in comparison to other time-intensive youth programs, costing on average only half as much as Job Corps and one-third as much as juvenile correction programs. In Maryland, for instance, the annual budget for Youth ChalleNGe is $2.8 million or $14,000 per youth participant.

A 1998 evaluation conducted by Social Consulting International, Inc. reported that Youth ChalleNGe participants completed an average of 78 hours of community service, going above and beyond the 40 hours required by the program. After the twenty-two week residency phase, ChalleNGe participants had increased an average of 1.1 grade levels in reading and 1.7 grade levels in math. In addition, 72% of the program graduates received their GED. These academic achievements led to better access to employment and higher education for program graduates, of whom:

• 26% were awaiting notification from employers, colleges, or the military
• 24% were employed
• 23% enrolled in post-secondary education
• 10% had enlisted in the military
• 7% were attending vocational-technical schools
• 6% returned to high school
• 4% were unsure about their future plans

The Free State Youth ChalleNGe site in Aberdeen, Maryland produces just these sorts of positive outcomes for high school dropouts from throughout the state of Maryland and Washington, DC. Colonel Vernon Sevier, the program director at Aberdeen, welcomed policymakers to the FreeState ChalleNGe program and began the tour with a video and a discussion with the teaching staff.

The Maryland ChalleNGe program begins long before the twenty-two week residential phase with recruitment of potential participants. School guidance counselors alert program officials about recent dropouts, who may be interesting in volunteering for the program, but the most powerful form of recruitment is through neighbors, friends, and relatives of at-risk youth, who recommend the program as a way for youth to turn their lives around. Out of five hundred applicants, the staff picks approximately 175 youth to being the rigorous two-week pre-ChalleNGe program that tests the resolve of even the heartiest young men and women. A zero tolerance for fighting, drug-use, cursing and other discipline problems ensures that the young people are serious about ChalleNGe. One hundred participants complete the two-week course and continue in the program.

The twenty-two week residency phase includes academic classes that are geared toward helping students attain their GED and life-skills courses designed to foster self-confidence, self-esteem, and discipline. At the Maryland program, policymakers toured computer facilities, where students created resumes and familiarized themselves with word processing programs, as well as science, math, and writing classes, where students learned more traditional academic skills. The teacher of the life-skills classes, Major Michelle Graff, explained that service learning is a key component of her curriculum. Volunteering at rest homes for the elderly and at day care centers for young children teaches the participants empathy and responsibility.

In addition to classes and service learning, the youth learn responsibility and discipline from numerous tough but caring adults who serve as residential "cadre" leaders. The cadre leaders wake their squads at 5:15 a.m. every morning to clean the barracks before breakfast and morning classes. After classes end, there is time for what the ChalleNGe staff refers to as "footlocker counseling." The impact of this informal relationship may be hard to quantify, but it is certainly crucial to the success of the program. The schedule of classes, three square meals per day, regular exercise, washing clothes and cleaning barracks also contribute to the program’s success in that they instill responsibility and discipline. But the ChalleNGe program is not all work. Students spoke glowingly of the recreational activities such as the Silver Wings program, which rewards high achieving youth with a chance to fly a National Guard plane with Colonel Sevier or other staff members.

Half of the way through the program, the youth are paired with a mentor from their community. Harry Ballard directs the mentoring phase of the program. With mentoring and various other aspects of the ChalleNGe curriculum, Ballard boasted, "We pride ourselves in addressing the whole person. We tell the youth what we expect, and they do this." Mentors attend a half-day training session with Ballard and other ChalleNGe staffers, where the professionals address some of the exciting possibilities and potential pitfalls of the mentoring experience. At this same time, the youth go through a similar training to learn how the mentoring will work. Ballard then coordinates activities between the mentors and the youth during the second half of the residential phase, building a relationship that will carry through the year following program graduation.

The participants in the Youth ChalleNGe program share troubled backgrounds that often include drug use, delinquency, and crime, but they also share a desire to change their lives for the better. If he had not dropped out last year, John White would be attending a Baltimore high school known to the students as "Heroin High." White told the visiting policymakers that he was a "club kid," into drugs, drinking, and partying until 4:00 AM every night, a lifestyle left little time for school. After dropping out, White learned about the ChalleNGe program and signed up. Though he said the first two weeks were tough, he was glad that he stuck with the program where he "has learned what respect is." His goal now is to go into the Navy and work with computers. Like John White, Jerome Hunter realized that to achieve his dream of becoming a chef, he had to get away from the "drugs, fighting and temptations" on the streets of Landover, Maryland. The ChalleNGe program provided him with that opportunity. When asked by a visitor from the Department of Education how he will handle the temptation when he returns home, Hunter replied that the training of the ChalleNGe program will help him, and like other cadets, he plans to get an "honest job" when he graduates.

At the conclusion of the walking tour of the Youth ChalleNGe facilities, visiting policymakers had a chance to observe the cadets as they marched in squads to the mess hall. The visitors then ate with the youth and had a chance to speak with them individually. All of the policymakers agreed that the lunchtime conversations were integral to their understanding and appreciation of the ChalleNGe program. "I enjoyed lunch with the students," one policymaker said. "Their comments about their experiences at their home high schools and at Youth ChalleNGe were very illuminating about the problems in education, viewed from the youth’s perspective."

The Youth ChalleNGe program is relatively unknown in the broader field of youth education and work-readiness initiatives, in part, because of the set funding from the Department of Defense. Yet, awareness of the program is growing, and states on the waiting list for Youth ChalleNGe sites have seen the positive potential of this program in existing sites. The Free State Youth ChalleNGe staff admits that the program is not for everyone, but it is an alternative initiative that has proven effective for one segment of the at-risk youth population.

For more information about the National Guard ChalleNGe program, visit their web page at www.ngycp.org

For local program contact information see the Oregon Youth ChalleNGe web page at http://www.oycp.com/, which has addresses and links for many of the state programs.

Contact Information

Colonel Vernon Sevier
Director
Free State Challenge Academy
Building 5469
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005
Phone: 410.306.1802 Fax: 410.306.1829
vsevier@mdchallenge.apg.army.mil

Colonel Howard S. Freedlander
Executive Officer
Maryland National Guard
Fifth Regiment Armory, Room B25
Baltimore, MD 21201-2288
Phone: 410.576.6088 Fax: 410.576.1454
Freedlanderhs@md-arng.ngb.army.mil

Joe Padilla
Chief of Youth Programs Branch
National Guard Bureau
Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 11200
Arlington, VA 22302-3259
Phone: 703.607.2664 Fax: 703.607.1744
padillaj@ngb.ang.af.mil

Major Bob Stone
Deputy Director of Outreach Programs
Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs
1500 Defense Pentagon, Room 2E515
Washington, DC 20301-1500
Phone: 703.614.0636 Fax: 703.697.6072
bstone@ra.osd.mil

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