Results Part 2: How Growth Planning Achieves Mindset Change & Development

Our most recent growth planning group was made up of 12 African-American 9th & 10th grade males who completed Phase One of our program held the summer of 2010 at The Bridge of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville. 

During Phase One of the program growth planners used our 35 Mindset & Lifestyle Development Indicators [click to see Indicators] to give themselves self-ratings on each of the 35 Indicators.  Using a 10-point scale, the average self-ratings on the each of the 4 parts of the 35 Indicators were:

  • 7.42 on The 10 Growth Planning Life-Skills

  • 7.38 on The 8 Mindset Orientations

  • 7.12 on The 12 Lifestyle Behaviors

  • 7.34 on The 5 Critical Transition Skills To Young Adulthood Indicators

Of course, any evidence of deep-down mindset change & development among adolescents is extremely difficult to prove.  And, evidence of lasting lifestyle change must be proved over time by such evidence as improved school grades and staying out of trouble. 

Now in the Phase Two Benchmarking part of our program, youth are in the process of obtaining line-of-sight observer ratings on the same 35 Indicators from adults who know them ... including a family member, a teacher or counselor, and any other adult, such as a youth worker in an after-school program. 

Then growth planners develop, analyze, and set specific benchmark objectives based on an individualized composite priority-ranking of both their self-ratings and their observers’ line-of-sight ratings on the 35 Indicators.