During Session 1 of the NCUFY Summer 2020 Internship, a group of NCUFY Youth worked together to create a cookbook with a variety of recipes to encourage community families to spend time together in fun and healthy ways. Cooking is an activity that allows families to gather in the same place and work together on a common project, such as a delicious family meal. NCUFY Youth members worked together to research recipes, find options that were appropriate for all ages, and create a final cookbook that could be shared with community members.
During Session 1 of the 2020 Summer Internship, New Castle United for Youth interns worked on identifying activities families in our community could do together to promote family connectedness. The interns recognized that during these difficult times there is a limited amount of activities to participate in and an increased amount of free time to spend. In an attempt to create activities for families to participate in together, the interns put together a booklet of crafts that can be enjoyed by family members of all ages. We hope that this will help to give your family a positive and rewarding experience that you can all enjoy! Feel free to share these crafts with us, either by tagging us on instagram (@ncufy), twitter (@ncufy) or by emailing us a picture at newcastleunitedforyouth@gmail.com.
In early 2020, a group of NCUFY Youth Council members began working with NCUFY member Vince Canziani on a project to identify the strengths in our community by having conversations with each other and community members. Through these conversations, participants are discovering the stories of success, helpful actions, and support that are part of what keeps youth growing and maturing. Ultimately, participants will sort through the information they have gathered to identify and explore the positive pathways to healthy maturity.
The goal for this project is the creation of a product to share these stories publicly in a way that contributes to an increase of youth choosing healthy pathways and adults supporting them. This effort seeks to give youth the best opportunity to develop and realize their potential, while at the same time minimize the dangers posed by drug and alcohol use, and other risky behaviors.
During the winter and spring of 2019, New Castle United for Youth ran a youth media project where teens will participate in creating a Public Service Announcement campaign for our community. We have partnered with a media and marketing specialist to develop a campaign that explores the positive choices that teens can make everyday in order to support a healthy lifestyle. Led by media marketing specialist Lauren Amsterdam, Coalition Coordinator Joe Durney and supported by a group of Youth Media Project Leaders, participating teens are working in groups to create a variety of media campaigns to share with our community.
Summer interns in Session 3 of 2020 spent time talking about how peer to peer relationships influence teen attitudes towards alcohol and other drugs. They developed an assessment survey to better understand local teens views about alcohol and other drug use and their ability to say no. Help them collect data by completing their survey.
They also researched refusal skills for teens. Here’s a link to one of their favorite articles on the topic.
Summers interns in 2021 spent some time learning about the risks of marijuana use. Youth coalition members then applied that knowledge to create a series of posters to share important marijuana information with our community.