TEAM KIDS INC
5011 HEMLOCK, IRVINE, CA 92612 www.teamkids.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Team Kids Outcomes at a Glance: FY 2019:4 States: Team Kids Challenge (TKC) Implemented in California, Virginia, New York and Arizona15 Cities: TKC implemented in: California: Compton, Irvine, Tustin, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Rancho Santa Margarita, Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, Placentia, Villa Park, Torrance, Palos VerdesVirginia: ArlingtonNew York: Brooklyn Borough: Brownsville CommunityArizona: Tempe17,180: Number of students who completed the TKC$85,684: Funds raised by TKC student participants for charity (includes in-kind)30: Number of 501(c)3 charities who benefited from TKC and student donationsTeam Kids Mission: To empower our kids to change the world. The Team Kids Challenge (TKC) is Team Kids flagship program. The TKC is rooted in the Search Institutes 40 Developmental Assets framework, which has shown that the more assets children acquire, the less likely they are to engage in high risk behaviors (alcohol and other drug use, crime), and the better their chances of positive o

Team Kids' mission is to empower kids to change the world. The flagship, empirically validated Team Kids Challenge Program is delivered in schools in CA, AZ, VA and NY alongside on-duty police and firefighter mentors. Results of a recent Team Kids study implemented in Los Angeles and New York City were published in the APA Journal, highlighting powerful outcomes to strengthen protective factors in youth, while building trusting relationships with law enforcement.

Team Kids Challenge Program: Team Kids, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, runs the empirically-validated Team Kids Challenge (TKC). The TKC is school-based program that protects and empowers youth, while mobilizing them as our next generation of compassionate leaders, social entrepreneurs and philanthropists. The TKC is an empirically-validated program to empower youth as powerful advocates to address their communities most pressing issues, strengthen protective factors in youth to reduce high risk behavior, and to provide opportunities for elementary school children to work collaboratively within a non-enforcement and non-surveillance context with law enforcement and fire fighters.The TKC is a structured, in-school, five-week-long program implemented by Team Kids Coaches, typically college-aged adults trained in the program and in Positive Youth Development (PYD). The TKC begins by training police and fire fighters to interact with students in a non-threatening, non-surveillance-related environment where the common focus is on community-relevant outcomes that the kids themselves care about and choose. An in-school assembly is held in which police appeal to students with the following message, Our job is helping people. We cant do this work by ourselves. We are truly inspired to learn how you will work together to make a difference in your community, and have one question for you Can we be on your team? Students in the upper grades then identify community needs and select weekly school-wide challenges to benefit local 501(c)(3) organizations within the community that address those needs (e.g., collect food for the hungry, collect 200 gently used blankets for local animal shelters, etc.). Then, during the three weeks following the assembly, the students in the upper grades volunteer to serve on the Leadership Team, organizing these weekly challenges (e.g., food drives for people in the local community experiencing food insecurity, support letters to active duty military, collecting blankets and towels for local animal shelters). These students also meet weekly with public safety mentors to plan a school-wide carnival that raises funds to benefit a non-profit of their choosing. Based on the issues they see in their community, the students decide where the proceeds will be donated (e.g., child abuse, suicide, homelessness, abandoned animals). Within the weekly meetings with public safety officials, students work in small groups to create free or low-cost games (e.g., bowling using recycled bottles) for the TKC carnival. In the final meeting, students present a physical check to a chosen representative of their selected non-profit beneficiary, and they are congratulated for their achievements as compassionate community leaders by the police officers who mentored them.The TKC uniquely provides repeated, weekly opportunities for elementary school students in grades 4, 5 and 6 to engage in school-based community service projects during the school day over a 5-week period. Because it takes place during the schools lunch period, it does not interfere with class time yet still reaches the youth who cannot participate in PYD programs that ordinarily take place after school. Further, it is provided at no cost to the children and the schools, which eliminates the barriers to entry for many positive youth development programs.The TKC practice heeds recommendations by the Presidents Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015), which called for increasing opportunities for police to engage with communities in non-enforcement settings. Most programs, however, are focused on teenagers, missing the window of the most impressionable age to build relationships with law enforcement. Further, they focus on youth in specialized settings like (e.g., basketball camps, after-school programs) which not only excludes the vast majority of youth, but also limits the youth who are impacted by the programs to the youth who have the resources or skills to be able to join the programs. The TKC is the only program to unite police as positive, non-parental, adult role models during the school day with elementary-aged youth to together make a difference in their community. A quantitative program evaluation of Team Kids in six schools in Torrance (CA), Compton (CA), and Brooklyn/Brownsville (NY) has demonstrated that the Team Kids Challenge is effective at strengthening protective factors in youth and building more positive perceptions of law enforcement among youth (Fine et al., 2019). This research was published in the American Psychological Association Journal of Psychology, Public Policy and Law in August, 2019. In regards to the TKC promoting the growth of developmental assets, Professor Fine and his research team conducted the first pre/post evaluation of the effects of the TKC on youth from five racially/ethnically diverse, low-income elementary schools in southern California as well as the first randomized controlled trial on two pairs of matched schools from Compton, CA. Results overwhelmingly indicated involvement in the TKC improved youths developmental assets and positive youth development, with additional peer-reviewed studies on the way (e.g., Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Experimental Criminology). The positive youth development (PYD) approach is increasingly shaping child and adolescent research, policy, and practice. Counter to more traditional, deficit-based perspectives that examine why some youth exhibit problem behaviors (Bandura, 1964), this strengths-based approach centers on understanding and promoting thriving (Lerner et al., 2018). At its core, the PYD stresses the critical importance of non-parental, adult authority figures for improving youths developmental outcomes. Indeed, research suggests that to the extent that non-parental adult authorities forge strong, supportive relationships with youth that empower youth, they can promote positive youth development, developmental assets, and overall thriving (Garca-Coll et al., 1996; Leffert et al., 1998; Scales et al., 2015).However, it is an unfortunate reality that many children in the U.S. grow up disconnected from mainstream social institutions and prosocial sources of support (Carter & Reardon, 2014). To this day, contextual resources are not equally distributed among children (Eichas, Montgomery, Meca, & Kurtines, 2017) and children of color in impoverished communities often face striking amounts of inequality (Lewis & Burd-Sharps, 2015; Meier et al., 2018). In particular, there is marked inequality in their access to contextual resources, which is why the PYD research community repeatedly calls for more PYD-informed research to focus on racial/ethnic minority youth in low-income communities. However, PYD-programs are disproportionately applied to wealthier communities and to predominantly White youth. This failure of researchers to provide racial/ethnic minority youth in low-income communities access to PYD interventions is a marked inequality. A second area of marked inequality in the United States pertains to youth-law enforcement relationships. It is now well established that as compared with White youth, racial/ethnic minority youth particularly those in low-income communities are more likely to experience negative interactions with law enforcement and to report worse perceptions of law enforcement (Alberton & Gorey, 2018; Fine & Cauffman, 2015). They are rarely afforded the opportunity to engage with police in non-enforcement-related contexts, thus it is unsurprising that few youth from these communities wish to become police officers and the police forces rarely represent the communities they serve. As a result, The Presidents Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015) specifically called for increasing opportunities for police to engage with youth in non-enforcement and non-surveillance-related settings. Although scholars recognize that children, particularly those who are racial/ethnic minorities and low-income, are now developing in an era of mistrust of law enforcement (Trinkner & Tyler, 2016), few studies have examined the potential benefits of positive, structured police-youth interactions grounded in respect, dignity, and voice (see Freiburger, 2018; Goodrich et al., 2015; Fine, Padilla, & Tapp, 2019). That is, despite the Taskforce and countless researchers, policymakers, and practitioners recognizing the inequalities in police-community relationships, few innovative programs and studies focus on building the bridges so that youth and police can work together in structured, non-enforcement settings on community service projects that empower youth to contribute to their communities in ways that they find meaningful.

Team Kids Youth Council:The Team Kids Youth Council is comprised of middle school and high school students from all over Orange County, LA County and Arlington County, VA. Adult coaches train, mentor, and support the Youth Council members, who then assess community needs, plan youth-driven service projects, and engage others in their passion for community service.

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