Step-Up Program

The Step-Up Program aims to rectify the evident schism between the number of students from low-income neighborhoods capable of entering higher education and the number of those students actually enrolling. The mission of the Step-Up Program is to engage, educate and empower underserved high school juniors in order for them to achieve a post secondary education and develop the practical skills needed to solve health and social problems in their low-income neighborhood. The goal of the Step-Up program is to enable students to envision themselves as an important asset to their community. To achieve this outcome the Step-Up Program provides juniors with the opportunity to experience post-secondary education at San Diego State University and encourages students to apply their newly learned skills in their local community based organizations.

Students enrolled in the Step-Up Program enroll in a Social Work 120: Introduction to Social Work course at the San Diego State University campus, for which students receive 3.0 general elective college course credits. The curriculum material for this course includes a range of social issues, such as, access to health care, public education, governmental aid programs, cycle of poverty, unemployment and others. In addition, students are trained in the consensus organizing model. In this model students learn skills in community organizing such as, mediation, facilitation and advocacy.

The course curriculum also includes 40 hours of community service that must be completed in a community based agency in City Heights such as medical clinics and various non-profit organizations. Students commit to working every week at these agencies, providing them with the opportunity to link their work in the community with what they learned in the classroom.

Email Jessica Robinson for more information.

 
   
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