USC Youth Leadership Institute:  Courage, Cooperation, and Perseverance.

This July, 40 high school students ages 14 to 18 from various communities throughout the United States will come together on the Xavier University campus to focus on leadership development. During the six day program, students will  participate in coaching education, youth development workshops, service and leadership trainings, and cultural/educational experiences.  The theme of the 2010 Youth Leadership Institute is Courage, Cooperation, and Perseverance these themes will be infused into programming throughout the week.

Xavier University Cincinnati Ohio July 26-31, 2010.

Youth Coaching Youth:    A Youth Coaching Education Coarse

A youth certificate developed specifically for the institute that focuses on teaching the participants how to coach elementary and middle school age youth in urban soccer youth development programs.  They will focus on issues unique to urban soccer programs, how to include healthy life style curriculum, the fundamentals of developing a practice session, and how to insure adequate physical activity during the session.

Setting Goals:            Youth Development Workshops

These workshops will focus on three areas: general goal setting, college prep, and careers in soccer.  Students will learn how to assess their academic, athletic and personal goals and use these assessments to develop individual action plans.  They will participate in college prep workshops that focus on how to assess “post-high school” options, what they need to do to prepare for college, and what it means to be a college athlete.   Most of the youth in USC programs will not play professional soccer, the careers in soccer workshop will consist of presentations from various professions such as sports agency, sporting goods, team management, sports medicine, coaching, etc.  The students will learn how to assess their interests and talents and start making contacts in those fields through internships.

Service through Soccer:    Service and Leadership Training

Students will learn the definition of service-learning, how it is different from a service project and why both are important. They will plan a mock service-learning project and then use that exercise to create a simple service-learning project to implement with the participants in their sponsoring programs at home.  They will end the week with a local service project in Cincinnati.

The Freedom Center:        Cultural/Educational Experience

The Institute will open with an interactive tour of the Freedom Center, an educational center dedicated to telling the history of and lessons learned from slavery and the existence of the Underground Railroad.  The center tells these lessons in three sections: courage, cooperation, and perseverance (the theme of the institute).  Each day of the institute will focus on one of these themes.

For more information on the 2010 Youth Leadership Institute

Read about the 2009 Youth Leadership Summit