Start an HPAC where you are.
A course for the adults who run youth groups: teachers in elementary, middle, and high school, church youth leaders, YMCA leaders clubs, after-school programs, and youth groups across the country. You learn the HPAC model and the IDEAS process, you run it with your young people, and your group joins a network of youth designing their own projects.
Any adult with a group of young people and a Tuesday afternoon
Teachers
Elementary, middle, and high school. HPAC maps to standards in English, science, math, social studies, and health science, so it fits inside a class or a club.
Church and faith groups
Youth ministries that want service projects with research behind them, grounded in the congregation's own assets.
YMCA leaders clubs and youth groups
Leaders clubs, scouts, rec centers, and after-school programs that already meet weekly and want a year-long project.
Groups across the country
HPAC began in Ohio and has run in rural and urban communities. The course is online so a group anywhere can start one.
Eight sessions, then a year with your group
Online, two hours each, with a coach call every month during your first project year. Toolkit included: the decks, the calendar, the research modules, the judging rubric, and the facilitator guide.
The model
The Asset-Based Paradigm, reading the rings from the outside in, and why young people are treated as community leaders.
Your community's story
Time, space, and story. Listening, hearing, being the eyes, and mapping the assets before naming a problem.
Identify
Asset cards, challenge cards, and how a group chooses one question it can actually answer.
Develop
Research with young people: credible sources, a sharp question, and partners who already exist.
Enact
Projects small enough to finish: the pitch, the plan, the mini-grant, the pushback.
Assess
Measuring what changed honestly, with pre and post tools you can run without a statistician.
Share
Posters, talks, and the Community Journal. Running your own Scholars Day or joining ours.
Sustain
Year two: alumni as mentors, the Junior CHW pathway, and keeping the group alive when you move on.
Youth designing their own projects, together
Every group that completes the course joins the HPAC network: a shared calendar, a yearly virtual Scholars Day, a place to post projects and posters, and mentors drawn from HPAC alumni. Projects are published in the Community Journal with the young authors' names, with permission.
Toolkit
Everything on the High Tech page, packaged: decks, the student project calendar, five research modules, the rubric, and the grant application.
See the toolkitSelf-assessments
Asset inventory, work style, and career interest tools your young people can use in week one.
Know yourselfJunior CHW
High school groups can run the Junior Community Health Worker pathway alongside the project.
CHW AcademyDates, pricing, and the first cohort are being set.