Health & Life Skills

Health & Life Skills
These initiatives develop young people’s capacity to engage in positive behaviors that nurture their own well-being, set personal goals, maintain healthy, active lifestyles, and live successfully as self-sufficient adults.

SMART Moves

The SMART Moves (Skills Mastery and Resistance Training) prevention/education program addresses problems such as drug and alcohol use and premature sexual activity.

The program uses a team approach involving Club staff, peer leaders, parents and community representatives. More than simply emphasizing a “Say No” message, the program teaches young people ages 6 to 15 how to say no by involving them in discussion and role-playing, practicing resistance and refusal skills, developing assertiveness, strengthening decision-making skills, and analyzing media and peer influence.

The program is broken down into four phases: Smart Moves Smart Kids (ages 6 to 9), Smart Moves Start Smart (ages 10 to 12), Smart Moves Stay Smart (ages 13 to 15), and Smart Moves Smart Leaders (ages 16 to 18). By the final phase of the program, teens have grown to become confident and positive role models for their peers. The ultimate goal: to promote abstinence from substance abuse and adolescent sexual involvement through the practice of responsible behavior.

SMART Girls

An outgrowth of the popular and effective SMART Moves program, SMART Girls is a health, fitness, prevention/education, and self-esteem enhancement program for girls ages 8 to 17.

The program is designed to encourage healthy attitudes and lifestyles that will enable early adolescent girls to develop to their full potential.

Passport to Manhood

Passport to Manhood promotes and teaches responsibility while reinforcing positive behavior in male Club members ages 11 to 14.

Passport to Manhood consists of small-group sessions, each of which concentrates on a specific aspect of manhood through highly interactive activities. Each participant is issued his own “Passport” to underscore the idea that he is on a journey of maturation and personal growth.

Date Smart

Date Smart This program allows teens to examine their feelings about dating and relationships, while providing guidance on how to achieve safe and healthy relationships.

Street Smart

Street Smart educates pre-adolescents, ages 11 to 13, about the destructive lifestyle of gangs, avoiding conflict, and developing resistance and refusal skills.

Act Smart

A program designed with age-appropriate lessons to educate youth about HIV/AIDS.

Healthy Habits: Triple Play Mind

Healthy Habits - Tripleplay Designed for ages 6 to 15, the program aims to incorporate healthy living and active learning in every part of the Club experience.

Healthy Habits, which is also the “Mind” component of Triple Play, emphasizes good nutrition, regular physical activity and improving overall well-being.

Funded by The Coca-Cola Company

NetSmartz

NetSmartz teaches Internet safety skills through engaging multimedia activities and offline interaction with Club professionals.

NetSmartz has three age-appropriate modules: Clicky’s Web World (for ages 6 to 7); NetSmartz Rules (for ages 8 to 12); and I-360 (for ages 13 to 18). Topics include personal safety, shopping safety and ethical use of the Internet. To learn more, youth ages 12 and younger can go directly to www.netsmartzkids.org; while teens, parents and Club staff can learn about Internet safety at www.netsmartz.org. BGCA collaborated with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to develop NetSmartz.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.