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One amazing aspect of the Chill program is that Chill staff and volunteers rarely, if ever, know the exact challenges our participants are facing. Chill\u2019s positive youth development approach focuses on realizing individual potential rather than addressing perceived faults or deficiencies. Every youth is treated with respect and physical and emotional boundaries are closely guarded and maintained by all participants and Chill staff, instructors, and volunteers. This approach also leads to engagement with youth on surprising levels that give participants an opportunity to share their personal stories on their own terms, in their own ways.<\/p>\n
I rode the chairlift last week with Eddie, a Chill participant that I hadn\u2019t yet connected with on previous program days. Eddie\u2019s chaperone (who is a Chill veteran) was with us as well. Eddie attended the Chill program one-on-one with his chaperone, indicating that Eddie\u2019s challenges were severe enough that he required constant adult supervision and engagement. I asked Eddie what his goal was for the day, expecting a standard snowboarding-related response (link turns, graduate to the next chairlift, etc.). Instead, without hesitation, he told me the following:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal for today is to be present and appreciate this opportunity and do my best to forget about the group home, my family, and school tomorrow. I get overwhelmed sometimes and I can\u2019t get out of bed or leave the group home and I don\u2019t want that to happen anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thanked him for sharing that with me and asked if he thought Chill, and specifically snowboarding, was helping him make the life changes he sought. \u201cEverything here is new to me. I\u2019ve never been to a ski mountain, I\u2019ve never ridden on a nice bus, and I\u2019ve never talked to anyone on a chairlift like this before. I\u2019ve realized it\u2019s fun to try new things. I\u2019m still afraid to fail but I\u2019m learning to redefine what failure means.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked him what \u201credefine failure\u201d meant. He looked at me and his eyes lit up; he was clearly excited to have an opportunity to teach me something. \u201cMy goal is to get all the way down the hill without falling. I have to remind myself that if I fall I didn\u2019t fail as long as I get back up and try again. I\u2019ll only fail when I quit trying. In the past I thought I failed at everything and that\u2019s a bad feeling, and it\u2019s not true. Do you understand?\u201d I nodded and gave him a fist bump as we raised the bar and prepared to exit the lift.<\/p>\n
When we were all ready, I asked Eddie if he\u2019d like to lead us down and he eagerly jumped at the chance. He started tentatively at first but quickly gained speed while making wide sweeping turns down the hill. As we approached the bottom of the hill Eddie raised his hands in triumph and promptly face planted in premature celebration. His chaperone and I rushed over just as he flipped onto his back. Instead of frustration or anger he was laughing, his face covered in snow. Once he caught his breath he said, \u201cThat was an epic fail but I\u2019m not a failure. Can we go back up?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One amazing aspect of the Chill program is that Chill staff and volunteers rarely, if ever, know the exact challenges our participants are facing. Chill\u2019s positive youth development approach focuses on realizing individual potential rather than addressing perceived faults or deficiencies. Every youth is treated with respect and physical and emotional boundaries are closely guarded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n