TIES and Boy Scouts: A Community Collaboration

Posted

on Mar 11, 2015

At today’s meeting, we were joined by Renee Herman from the Pal-Mac School District and Eric Israel from the Boy Scouts. They were here to talk about the new partnership between the TIES program and the Boy Scouts Explorers program. Our club recently contributed money to help establish a new Explorers chapter here.

Chris Isreal, Renee Herman, and Rotarian Peter Park

Ms. Herman explained that TIES (Together Including Every Student) a national peer-support program which pairs kids with developmental disabilities with high school students who act as mentors. The kids get to participate in activities which they otherwise might not. The mentors learn how to support and interact with the participants. To the participants, the mentors are “just older kids,” as opposed to their parents. Sometimes these youngsters are more likely to try the activities if it’s “just kids” doing it; otherwise, they might be the only one participating with a parent helping out.

Mr. Israel told us how the Explorers program helps high school students find tools to succeed in college and careers. Exploring helps kids find out what being a “fill-in-the-blank” is all about. It is a worksite-based program. Typical Explorer posts include groups of teenagers specializing in a field such as law enforcement, fire and emergency service, health careers, engineering and aviation, among others. The new Exploring post begun here will support TIES mentors who might want a career in special education.