Blessed Child’s Get Inspired Project will serve youth and young adults ages 12-27 in the south suburban areas of Chicago Heights, Country Club Hills, Hazel Crest, Matteson, Park Forest, Richton Park, and other surrounding suburbs.

The key elements of the Get Inspired Project are:

1. Street-based outreach: Building new relationships and maintaining existing relationships with street-involved youth. They do this by conducting outreach directly to street and system involved youth who have been victims of violence and/ or perpetrators of violence.

2. Conflict resolution and mediation: These two components are key to the strategy of violence prevention and interruption. This service will be available at the agency via a contracted mental health professional.

3. Life skills and job skills: Both components are essential for providing youth with alternatives to violence, incarceration, and the street economy. Life skills include referral to GED or alternative school programs where needed, conflict resolution, anger management, stress reduction techniques, and mental health workshops. Job skills include technology training, resume writing, job search training, interview role plays, and post training and job placement follow-up and evaluation, financial literacy and money management classes.

The program will provide computer literacy classes, financial literacy classes, and etiquette/life skills classes. The agency will have a mental health professional available to meet the needs of program participants and host community events. The communities will be made aware of the events and services through the engagement and relationships built by the peacekeepers. Peacekeepers are members of the organization that actively work to stop or prevent conflict between the communities. They will constantly engage the communities’ youth, stakeholders, institutions, and other agencies. Participants will be identified by location, age, and needs. Peacekeepers will look for youth in the programs proposed service areas, schools, institutions, and other agencies who fit the defined parameters of youth and young adults ages 12-27.