Students earn digital badges at PAL!

The PAL Teen Center is currently closed due to COVID-19, but is supporting members through virtual programs and a food pantry.

The Fairfield PAL Teen Center, together with the Fairfield Suisun Rotary Club, is pleased to announce that they have awarded digital badges in TIME MANAGMENT to:

Veronica Hernandez-Gonzalez

Lukas Jimenez

Carlos F. Hernandez-Gonzalez

Cidaio Shortridge

The Time Management badge has a set of competencies that require learners to demonstrate understanding through a final Capstone Project and the application of a Time Management roleplay group project. Digital Badges help PAL members tell a story about what they know and what they can do. This badge requires that learners demonstrate through a final Capstone Project an understanding that links theory with practical application and strategies for gaining control of time, setting priorities, managing habits, and productivity.

“Learning how to ‘EAT THE FROG’ can be the key to your happiness and success because you will have something accomplished something to feel good about, and that can improve your mental health” says recipient, Carlos Hernandez-Gonzalez. Fellow recipient, Lukas Jimenez, agrees “The idea of learning to “EAT THE FROG” stuck with me because I’m a big procrastinator and this helped me understand why I do it and how to force myself out of it! It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.” “I never knew about how habits formed or that they can be helpful and not helpful!” shared Veronica Hernandez-Gonazlez. “Now,” she said, “I can use the three R’s (Reminder, Routine and Reward) to use habits to optimize my performance!” “The idea about how to use rewards to manage my time really stuck with me and I can see how it will help me in school!” said Cidaio Shortridge.

Ready to Succeed is a joint program held virtually at the PAL Center to help prepare local teens for life after high school. The current sessions are using the Winning the College Game curriculum as a framework. Winning The College Game is a 12 week program that is based on the curriculum for the award-winning Freshman Seminar Sharon Padilla-Alvarado designed at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, California (which has been identified as one of the top 10 most diverse public two-year colleges in the U.S.). Workshops topics include: Why You Should Play the College Game, Know the Rules of the Game (the difference between highs school and college), Have a Game Plan, Things that Throw Off You Game (Barriers to Academic Success), Play to Win, You’ve Got To Pay to Play (financial literacy), Strategies for Winning the College Game, Play Fair, Play Well, Keeping on Winning, Stay in the Game, Play for Life (developing transferable skills).

Winning the College Game is part of the PAL Ready To Succeed series that is required for any PAL members wishing to apply for the Fairfield / Suisun Rotary Success Scholarship program for Solano Community College.

ABOUT FAIRFIELD PAL

The Fairfield PAL Program is open to Fairfield, Suisun, and Travis Students enrolled ages 13-18 who are enrolled in school. Memberships are FREE and can be applied for at the Fairfield Community Center (1000 Kentucky Street) by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 707.428.7435.

PAL uses traditional recreational programming to create an environment that draws young people to support the development of the social and emotional skills required to promote a positive self-identity and become productive and engaged members of our community. By offering teens programs they are interested in and choices, it becomes possible to slip in pro social skill building and development utilizing youth development practices and techniques.

For more information about these PAL activities, please call 707-422-6288 or visit the program’s webpage at www.fairfield.ca.gov/pal under the Quick Links or follow us in real time by visiting the program’s Facebook page at @Fairfieldpal1, Twitter at @pal-fairfield, and Instagram at ff_pal_center