Lions-Quest
From Service-Learning Wiki
| This program was profiled in Growing to Greatness 2004. |
Lions-Quest programs provide sequential, grade-specific classroom materials that teach competencies such as self-discipline, communication, problem-solving, cooperation, resistance, and conflict management skills.
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Service-Learning in Lions-Quest
Lions-Quest programs help students discover the roles they can play in their communities while reinforcing positive social behavior and developing essential citizenship skills. Through their international Lions Youth Outreach Initiative, Lions Club members assist schools in service-learning efforts. Three of the eight underlying principles for Lions-Quest guide ongoing research and development to ensure that programs are effective service-learning:
- Collaboration and partnership between home, school, and community;
- Programs are values-based; and
- Programs are community-based.
In addition to this, Lions-Quest ensures linkages to learning objectives by providing curricula, products, training, and services to support adults in helping young people deal with the complex issues they face every day. Lions-Quest Skills for Growing is a K-5 program focusing on life skills, service-learning, and character education. Skills for Growing incorporates positive prevention strategies and an implementation process for linking the home, school, and community in teaching essential life and citizenship skills.
Lions-Quest Skills for Adolescence is a comprehensive life skills and drug prevention curriculum for grades 6-8 that emphasizes character development, communication, decision-making skills, and service-learning. Lions-Quest Skills for Action is a curriculum for grades 9-12 that builds essential life and citizenship skills through community- and school-based service-learning experiences.
Scope of Service-Learning
The Lions-Quest program has been supported by more than 50 grants with a total of more than $8 million to expand or establish programs in all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, and over 30 other countries, encompassing over a quarter of a million teachers and touching the lives of more than ten million young people over the past two decades. In 2002, about 1.4 million students participated in Lions-Quest worldwide, nearly 60 percent of whom were middle school students; 30 percent were elementary school students; and about ten percent were high school students.
Intended Outcomes
Incorporating risk, resiliency, and asset-building research, Lions-Quest programs engage families, schools, and community members in working together to increase the protective factors that promote young people’s healthy development and reduce those factors that put children at risk for problem behaviors.
In evaluation results from more than 60 surveys and studies, Lions-Quest Skills for Growing (grades K-5) have demonstrated effectiveness in changing the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs that lead to violence and substance abuse, and in strengthening the factors that protect young people from harmful, high-risk behaviors.
