Students struggle at the next level for many reasons, but those who find success are confident, ambitious, hard-working, and independent. The goal of GROW is to instill these traits into each student through a three-stage program.





Skills Cultivation & Growth
The first stage of the program focuses on executive functioning skills which are taught progressively through nine distinctive modules during the course of 4 months. The core of the executive function curriculum is planned with the purpose of introducing to students the imperative and critical skills needed to succeed during their career education/training and at the work place.





Reading Your Career Compass
The second stage of GROW focuses on guiding, supervising, advising and assisting students through their career education/training (vocational or college), internships and the process of submitting applications, with the use of all of the School’s resources and partnerships all-around the Midlands and neighbor communities. Throughout the students’ career education, he/she will apply and enroll in at least one class for a full semester or trimester whilst taking advantage of incentives and grants in order to pay the least amount of money possible. Students will sign up for an early morning class with the objective to meet at GROW’s facilities to discuss classes, professors, assignments, and, of course, study. Students will share their experiences and help one another with projects and papers. Each student’s goal is to earn an A in the class as well as a reference from their professor.

A large part of the Stage Two aim is the search for a career education, either vocational or college. Depending upon student workload, side projects will include researching careers in order to find the vocation path that is right for each individual student. Once a direction is chosen, students will create a plan with short and long term goals.

At the same time, students will take classes at GROW on the need to better understand their own learning style. In addition, students will continue taking daily courses following through the executive functioning skills curriculum.

GROW students will have the occasion to take part of community based internships, intended to present students with the experience of exploring various industry areas, structuring a right and proper persona to become a good worker, and offering training in certain vocational interest areas.

Path to Independency
The third stage of GROW focuses on the students path to independency, making the difficult transition from the dependency to the independency of adulthood.




At the same time, students will take lessons exclusively on employment skills to become more employable, productive, and self-sufficient community members. This agenda takes place by putting into practice the employment skills by means of actually getting a part-time job. The process and progression are monitored on a one-on-one foundation. All students will create a professional resume, participate in mock interviews, and learn the art of oral presentations and public speaking.

The students’ income will play a role in creating budgets and setting short- and long-term financial goals. For instance, students will open a savings account with online banking which will allow the class to analyze, discuss, debate, and record financial decisions, among others. As a result, students will learn the importance of punctuality and hard work in the workplace, solve political and social problems with co-workers and supervisors, find solutions to problems and increase efficiency, work toward increasing trust and responsibilities in order to become more valuable to the company, open a secured credit card - very low limit - in order to understand the importance and dangers of credit cards and credit scores, set realistic financial goals to commence achieve immediately, and earn a job reference from their supervisor while creating positive work history. Financial planning assignments are comprised of real world situations and focus on each student’s ability to make educated financial decisions. Students will work within set budgets while conducting research for car buying, apartment seeking, insurance premiums, cell phone plans, and travel arrangements, among others.

Moreover, students will attend workshops focused on the dynamics of relationships and establishing friendships. Also, part of the third stage agenda includes students addressing seniors from Glenforest School on several topics related to their personal paths to independency.

After a successful third stage, with all of the experience they have gained in one year, they will revise their resumes, including their work history, community service, and three professional references. Using their new organizational skills, students will organize a parent-student event where enjoyable activities will take place. The students will present to parents their short- and long-term goals, and personal mission declarations to hold themselves accountable. After graduation, all students will be presented with GROW’s support service system to utilize after completing the Program, to ensure they realize their goals.