The YES! Campaign Kickoff Conference

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Sunday, October 23, 2011

The national spotlight has been trained on the devastating impact of bullying following the recent suicides of youth who were targets of bullying in their schools. Concerned adults, including parents, educators, advocates, and law enforcement, have scrambled to come up with effective solutions. Through YES!, our national youth campaign to end bullying, NCCJ will do something unique—gather 450 high school students at a daylong, youth-led conference to ask them what should be done to stop the epidemic of bullying that overshadows their lives. Integrating social media, technology, and the arts, this conference will launch a multi-year initiative that promotes youth voices, strategies, and solutions nationwide.

The kickoff conference will be held on Sunday, October 23, 2011 from 9 am – 5 pm at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. (The Basketball Hall of Fame will close its facility to the public for the day.) Each participating high school will send a team of 5-10 students and one adult, for a total conference fee of $250. Up to 450 high school students from 45 schools in Southern New England (CT, MA, RI) will spend the day identifying strategies and solutions to transform the culture in their schools. NCCJ and its Youth Leadership Team will incorporate these ideas into a replicable model of effective, youth-driven solutions to be implemented in school communities nationwide.

The conference itself will be energetic and interactive—utilizing the Basketball Hall of Fame’s gym, Jumbotron, theatres, exhibits, and breakout rooms. Students will express themselves through the arts; dialogue with NBA/WNBA players; and record videos of their ideas on site. NCCJ-trained youth will team up with social justice educators from area colleges to facilitate discussion and build leadership skills. Adult leaders will have a parallel track of workshops to learn how to support their student leaders. In the afternoon, youth will share their reflections and ideas in a “fish-bowl” style presentation to community leaders, educators, and the media. Every youth participant is a leader; every adult a listener. Comcast, our media partner, will create and air a PSA, record the conference, and produce a DVD for national distribution along with NCCJ’s campaign toolkit.

The Basketball Hall of Fame can accommodate teams from 45 schools. The conference is open to public, private, and charter high schools in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. By the end of May, we will post a pre-conference letter of interest form on this website.  If your school would like to attend, please fill out the brief form and return it as soon as possible as space is extremely limited.  We will choose a variety of schools from across the region to ensure that we reflect the diversity of our communities and schools.

For more information, please contact NCCJ’s YES! Campaign Director Kristen Golden by phone at 860-683-1039 ext. 107 or by email at kgolden@nccj.org.

Program Overview

Sponsor Benefits