The Indian Valley Character Counts! Coalition’s First Student Support Card survey results were revealed to an audience over over 100 attendees on October 19, 2010. Indian Valley was mentored by Upper Bucks Healthy Community Healthy Youth (UBHCHY) Coalition, and used funding from a recent grant from the federal Drug Free Communities Support Programs of $150,000.
Indian Valley Character Counts! Coalition members and Souderton Area High School students learned about the region’s successes in raising and educating teens as well as the raising flags on the areas that need improvement. The student support card, according to mentor and Executive Director of justCommunity, Inc. and Upper Bucks Healthy Community Healthy Youth (UBHCHY) Coalition, Lee Rush, the support card
“measures how much support students feel is coming to them from their friends, their peers, how much support they get from their families, how much support they experience in school, in the boroughs, the townships, the neighborhoods and cul-de-sac.”
Some of the support cards positive highlights include:
- 72 percent of the surveyed students said they are optimistic about their personal futures
- 71 percent said they act on their convictions and stand up for their beliefs, and 69 percent say they’re motivated to do well in school and that their family life provides high levels of love and support
- 83 percent of students said their parents disapprove of drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and/or smoking marijuana, while 71 percent do not regularly drink alcohol, 83 percent don’t regularly abuse prescription medicine, and 76 percent don’t regularly use marijuana
- Out of the 40 total developmental assets measured by the survey, the average surveyed student possesses 19.3, above the national average of 18
Some items revealed from the survey include areas of concern, which the region will begin to address immediately:
- 19 percent of surveyed students said they spend three or more hours per week in lessons or practicing music, theater or the arts
- 20 percent said they read for pleasure for three or more house per week
- 25 percent of students said they feel the community’s adults value youths
- 77 percent of students said it would be easy for them to get alcohol, and 68 percent said it would be easy to get prescription drugs
- 52 percent of students in the high school’s class of 2010 have reported having sexual intercourse, with 32 percent of those students not always using protection
The support card is based on data gathered form a survey of 1,261 Souderton Area School District eighth, 10th and 12th grade students surveyed earlier this year.
Read various local reports on the Indian Valley Character Counts! Coalition’s 2010 Strudent Support Card from the Intelligencer, The Reporter Online, and Montgomery News.
View the full 2010 Indian Valley Character Counts! Student Support Card by clicking on the Support Card Cover:
Watch Coalition Vice President Christopher Hey and Lee Rush, Executive Director of justCommunity, Inc. discuss the data on the number of developmental assets each SASD student possesses, and how the community can help raise the number of assets per student here and here