ARISE Celebrates 24 Years of Reaching Out to At-Risk, Incarcerated Youth Through Exciting Group Life-Skills Lessons and Compelling Interactive Activities

North Palm Beach, FL, March 31, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Edmund and Susan Benson have dedicated their golden years to improving the lives of at-risk and incarcerated youth. They established ARISE, a not-for-profit foundation in 1986, and began teaching life-skills to troubled youth in the Dade County public school system. Susan, a school teacher, and Edmund, a business executive, built a successful enterprise, retired, and wanted to help high-risk youth succeed in life. Edmund Benson was a drop-out, a rebel and, eventually, a successful entrepreneur. At 21, he started his own furniture business. When he retired at 52, he dedicated himself to rescuing juvenile offenders and other high-risk youth from lives of crime. Edmund saw today’s youth where he had been many years before: vulnerable, unloved, and living on the edge. He chose the most difficult populations to help: youth behind bars, gang members and those on the verge of entering the adult prison system. Twenty-four years later, ARISE is more relevant than ever, with ARISE life-skills groups being taught in 101 Florida Department of Juvenile Justice facilities as well as in Washington DC and other locations throughout the country and around the world.

ARISE Foundation is a developer and publisher of unique life-management skills curricula and staff training programs for staff responsible for supervising at-risk, incarcerated youth in detention centers, secure and transitional facilities, alternative schools and after school programs. ARISE is also used as a powerful prevention tool for at-risk students in middle school and for young adults. ARISE programs consist of positive, interactive group discussions and activities designed to break the ice quickly and capture the attention of even the most introverted participants. ARISE gives structure to well-meaning but disorganized programs, moving away from lectures and into dynamic group conversations conducted by ARISE-trained Group Facilitators. Youth are able to recognize their own mistakes and learn from others’. The ARISE curriculum is easily understood by youth with learning disabilities. The ARISE curriculum is continually updated and reflects what is relevant in the lives of troubled youth today. New photos, statistics, inspirational biographies and original short stories are designed to keep learners engaged and give facilitators the latest information.

In addition to the interactive group life-skills lessons, ARISE offers several important, one-of-a-kind training programs for those that work with at-risk youth in high-stress environments. For those wishing to conduct ARISE life-skills lessons with the youth at their facility, ARISE offers a two-day Life-Skills Group Facilitator training. In this workshop, participants learn how to interact with the youth, guide group activities, ask meaningful questions, and listen with an open mind, ensuring memorable learning experiences for all learners.

For those wishing to take their training to the next level, ARISE offers a Master Life Skills Instructor workshop, in which participants learn how to conduct the two-day ARISE Life-Skills Group Facilitator training at their own facilities, essentially creating a self-contained life-skills program in their workplace.

ARISE also offers its unique and powerful five-day ARISE Drop It at the Door workshop. This intense training experience shows participants how to stop the boomerang effect of bringing stress from home to work and vice versa. This remarkable workshop touches on everything from managing anger and stress to dealing with difficult people and curbing workplace gossip. Learning to manage and deflect negative emotions can help participants improve the quality of relationships and create more productive and peaceful environments at work and at home.

Since ARISE was established, it has trained and certified 5,760 ARISE Life-Skills Group Facilitators who have taught over 4,055,708 documented hours of ARISE life-skills lessons in almost all 50 states. ARISE has been used successfully in Canada, Jamaica, England, Australia, Bahamas, Bermuda, New Zealand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Botswana and the Kingdom of Bahrain. Requests for translation have also come in from as far away as Pakistan, South Africa, Cambodia, India, Singapore and China.

For more information, please call Edmund Benson at ARISE toll free: 1 (888) 680-6100 or visit at-riskyouth.org.

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