Ep.8 - Yvonne Green on Creating a High School Mentoring Program for College Access

Yvonne Green works in the Broward County Schools and shares her work with the BRACE Cadets, a group of students who are selected, receive training, and then create projects to share information about going to college and paying for it. We talk abut the primary and secondary gains these mentors get from the program, and the impact of the program in the Broward Schools. We also talk about funding this program, ideas on how other high schools might create their own mentoring toward college programs, and how colleges might partner with high schools to help create a college-going culture.

Yvonne Green
Yvonne Green's superpower is taking complex ideas and turning them into impactful programs for K-12 students. Helping children succeed in school is her great calling in life.

She currently works with Broward County Public Schools, where she piloted and managed BRACE Cadets, a successful college and career readiness peer mentoring program. 

In October, she will release the BRACE Cadets mini-documentary, We Are YOU! Going To College Debt-free$$! This features the stories of three  first-gen, college-bound BRACE Cadets who applied what we taught them about scholarships and are headed to college debt-free.

Yvonne's career has always revolved around children and education. For the past 15 years, she has focused on increasing post-secondary access and success for all students, but with an emphasis on students who are the first in their families to go to college.

Yvonne has consulted nationally and internationally on developing strategic partnerships, and has presented at national and regional conferences on peer mentoring, community schools, and strategies to increase post-secondary access and success.

She holds a Master's in Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work.

Family, faith, and good food are important to Yvonne. She recently returned to her roots and started cooking Jamaican food and is getting very good at it!

You can reach her at yvonne.green@browardschools.edu and you can find her on LinkedIn @ChangeAgent12. 

Please help others find this podcast by rating and reviewing wherever you listen!

You can find me at https://www.firstgenfm.com/ and on LinkedIn. My email is jen@firstgenfm.com.

Transcript

 Hi, and welcome to First Gen FM, a podcast for educators who want to learn more about serving, working with, celebrating first generation college bound and college students. Today, I have the pleasure of talking to Yvonne Green. Yvonne Green has a superpower, and that is taking complex ideas and then turning them into impactful programs for K 12 students.

Helping children succeed in school is her great calling in life. She currently works with Broward County Public Schools, where she piloted and managed Brace Cadets, which we are going to talk about today. And it's a successful college and career readiness peer mentoring program. In October, she's actually going to release the Brace Cadets mini documentary, We Are You, Going to College Debt Free.

Yvonne's career has always revolved around children and education. For the past 15 years, she's focused on increasing post secondary access and success for all students, but with an emphasis on students who are first in their families to go to college. Yvonne has consulted nationally and internationally on developing strategic partnerships and has presented at national and regional conferences on peer mentoring, community schools, and strategies to increase post secondary access.

She has a master's degree in social work from Hunter College School of Social Work. And it was such a pleasure for me to interview you, Yvonne. Please enjoy this podcast. And if you have any questions or want to reach out to Yvonne or me, I'll share that information at the end of the podcast. Here we go.

I am so excited to have with me today, Yvonne Green, who is going to be talking about brace cadets, but I have this great feeling that we're going to learn much more about what she does with the cadets and beyond her work with the cadets. So Yvonne, welcome to the first gen FM podcast. Thanks for being here today.

Oh, thank you so much for inviting me because this is such a great opportunity. I've listened to most of your, your podcasts and they are amazing. And especially the most recent one with Dr. Hart, I really loved how passionate she was and how you helped to tease that out of her. 

Yeah, thank you so much.

Yeah, that was a really, they're all, I have all the episodes are my favorite, but that one was very special because of knowing Natalie Dr. Hart, as I love to say over and over again, Dr. Hart for so long. I'm going to celebrate that all the time. Dr. Hart. That is worth, 

worth 

celebrating. Absolutely. So I, I know we, we talked before you reached out and we spent, I think an hour talking and I'm like, you have to come back so I can talk to you on the podcast and actually record this.

So I always like to start off with, tell me what about yourself. But then also, what was the spark that got you into this 

work? I actually have dedicated my entire career to public education. And the spark that really started it for me was just kids. I, I just had this compassion for kids because I felt so many bad things happened to them and so I have kind of just dedicated my career to helping children, even though I didn't plan to.

It wasn't like something I said, Oh, I love kids so much. I want to help kids. No, it's just like, I just fell into it. So my career began about 30 years ago as a school social worker in East Harlem. New York. I worked at PS 146 as a school social worker, and my primary responsibility was to do a special ed assessments.

But I always wanted to do more because I wanted exciting work. And so I started to do therapy with the kids. And I have to tell you, the most important life lessons. And values that I live by. I learned from those kids. Yep. And then I also worked in as a consultant with a company helping school districts around the country to create community schools again, working with.

Poor and recent immigrants and minority students in 10 states. I worked in Washington, D. C. to establish a community school there. And I also worked with an organization that you're familiar with, the College Success Foundation. Yes. The College Success Foundation. And my work was develop, helping the city to develop a strategy to increase college career.

Success, you know, not just the readiness and the success, but the success. And then I've also worked now, most recently in Broward County in Florida to establish the Brace Cadets, which is a peer mentoring program. And it has been a very exciting journey. So as I wrote this out and reflected on my career, I'm like, I've always been working with first gens, even without knowing it.

And so that's been exciting. And, quick fun fact, I was on LinkedIn the other day and saw one of my students from DC. He's now a teacher. He has his master's degree and it made me smile because our kids do end up doing good. Yes, 

absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just love it that we both have the college success foundation in great organization.

You know, and this is, this'll be a great episode to, to listen to you and to Dr. Hart, like back to back. Cause you know, a lot of conversations about mentoring and success with the little college success foundation sprinkled. 

Nice 

plug. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Tell me more about the brace cadets. How did it get started and what role, what role do you play in making it all run?

Okay, excellent question. So, the Brace Cadets was started in Broward schools by our former director who As he looked at the data that we had a ratio of 550 students to one counselor, yikes, yeah, that's no way, even if you hired counselors to help so many kids, and so he felt that there had to be a way around this.

And so he said, why not leverage peer influence positively to help more kids? And so he had the idea, but he didn't know how to implement it. And he contacted me and said, can you do this? And, you know, my superpower is really to take ideas and bring them to life. So I welcome the opportunity. And I have done that over the last four years, implemented the Brace Cadet.

So its intent was to help more students to reach more students and help them to prepare for post secondary life, primarily because of the ratio, the outrageous ratio of 550 to one, but also because we recognize that there is a power. Appears to influence each other when they would probably not even listen to the school counselor or to the for us it's a brace advisor.

Yeah. 

And now the brace. So explain. Explain how it works. So, so you're, you select a group of students who then go back out to the high schools. Walk, walk us through that and, and how that all works. Cause I'm sure I'm taking notes. Others I'm probably taking notes too. 

Okay. So we actually have a recruiting process and if it's okay with you, I'd love to tell you the first recruitment that we did.

Please do. So we were I'm new to the school district. My colleagues and I are working together. We just post the announcement on, I think it was Naviance, which is our platform. Then we got over 460 responses. Wow. Can you imagine this for 60 slots? So we had a big problem and a good problem. So basically, our process is to post the opportunity on our All the platforms that the kids are on, whether it's Naviance, Canvas, whatever it is, and have it circulate within our high schools that this opportunity exists.

We have an application, which we've now put online and basically the application asks Students to tell us one about their motivation, their their motivation to be a brace cadet. Tell us about their academic career because they have to have a GPF 2. 3 and above. And also we want to make sure that these kids are already taking action, getting themselves ready for college or career.

So we ask them to send us screenshots of certain things like send us a screenshot that you've created a Common App account, that you've created a scholarship account, you know, like, you're taking action, that you've completed a career readiness assessment. And this was for both public and the charter schools.

So while we could ask our kids to use our platform, which was Naviance, the charters did whatever. Okay. So we definitely wanted kids who were already taking action. And then we asked them to tell us about what is the problem at their school that they want to solve? What, who are the kids they want to help?

And what is it that they want to do? To help these kids, because we want to hear if they're just, you know, wanting to do something because it seems cool, or they have ideas. And so they tell us about that. And then we also have an interview. They actually tell us that in the interview, we've now, you know, redesigned our process.

And then they have to complete a sample implementation plan. That it's, it's. Just a short form of what they'll do if they get selected. And that again tells us who is it that you really want to help? Who's your target group? What is the problem you want to solve? Now tell us three important actions that you would want them to take.

So it's not just about thinking, oh, it's a bad thing and oh, I want them to remember that. It's good to go to college or whatever. We want very concrete, finite actions. Yes. Students can take. And so based on that whole thing, we select our brace cadets. 

That's, that's wonderful. And in the way you've designed the selection and the recruiting sounds like it's also.

Like a little bit of training that's going into it because not only are you selecting students who are prepared to do the work and have ideas about what it is that they want to do and who they want to serve, they're actually starting their planning in the selection process so they can really hit the ground running.

That is exactly what we did. So we decided, you know, that we wanted the application process to actually simulate the experience. And so you picked it up very well. And we also timed everything because it's a very fast paced project program. And so, yeah, there's a timeline for everything to be submitted.

And yeah, We find that kids will eliminate themselves because I can't be bothered to get the, you know, send the screenshot. So I can't be bothered to do this. And so it's good for both of us because they know this is too much. And then we know, Oh, this is a, this is exactly who we're looking for. 

And who can apply?

Are they rising seniors? Are they juniors? 

Yeah, we, we opened this to students in ninth to twelfth grade. So they're rising sophomores and rising seniors, rising sophomore to rising seniors. So they get selected like we just selected in January, in the spring semester the cohort that begins in the fall.

Okay, great. And then how, how many students is it totally? Is it, is it still the 60 that you originally did a few years ago? No, 

so we've moved from 60 because we, we want to get students in all our high schools and we're so excited that the charter schools are very invested in this too and I mean they send a lot of kids some of the schools.

So, yeah, I think we're up to 120 now. Wow. Yeah, but we ideally want to have at least three kids in each high school. We have 38 high schools, so we are still below what we want, plus the charters. So, we, we might, we would love to expand. 

Yeah, that's great. I'm sure you who are listening out there are thinking like, wait, wait, she has to ask, how are you funding this?

So 

that's exactly what I was 

thinking. Yeah. Yeah. So where's where, how are you funding this? Because I mean, I know this cause you talked to me earlier, but you also are giving the students a stipend who are stepping up into these leadership roles. 

Yes, so the students who complete all the requirements, they end up getting they're eligible for 500 stipend.

And we're kind of cute on our application. We say, would you accept a stipend of 500? So, in terms of how we are funded. My position is funded by the district. I'm part of the district. And then the money for the stipend for the students come from title for monies that we have specifically for this. And it's, it doesn't cover anything else that's very small part of money, but the district is very invested in this and goes after that money every year.

That's great. So you didn't have to twist any arms or really say over and over to people who are in administration, like we need this, we need this. They recognized it right off the bat and have since been supportive. 

So we, the stipends are underwritten, but everything else we have to beg, pray, and courtesy.

So my colleague, I mean, when we're doing the in person training, you have to have food, right? Because you bring the kids for the day. Our summer training is three to four days. So she would go to different vendors and say, can you give us some money here? Can you sponsor this? You know, and that continues to be a stressor for us because there is no dedicated funds for that.

And then the uniform that the kids wear, we also have to curtsy, shake hands. You know, just say, can you underwrite this? So for anything beyond the stipend on my position, we have to find additional funds. Okay. All 

right. That's, that's good to know because like, as I said, I'm sure everybody was thinking the same way I I did is like, wait a minute.

How, how do you get the funds for this? And I beg prey and curtsy. I think I might just steal that because that that real, that really is what it is. Beg prey and curtsy. I love that. Okay, so you've selected your students you're going into training. Mm-hmm. , what are some things that you do in training to get the students prepared for going back into the high school and working with their peers?

Which, you know, for some of them, if they're a sophomore and they're working with seniors, might be a little 

intimidating. Oh, absolutely. So our summer training is like the biggest thing and we hype it because we want kids to feel if you get to come to this training, you are it and we make it fun, but we also deliver content.

So we design it that each day we focus on something. So let's say the first day we're going to focus on college readiness. The second day we'll focus on financial aid, so fafsa, our state scholarship, which is a bright futures and scholarships. And then the next day we would, let's say, focus on careers and career readiness.

So every day it's like focused. It's a lot of content really, to be truly honest. And we don't do all the training ourselves. We invite our colleagues in the district, you know, let's say the co, the cts. partners, our local Broward College partners. We invite other partners with expertise who we know want to get in front of these students to share what they have and important next steps so that it's a win win for both of us.

And that has been just an extraordinary experience partnering with other You know, district offices, for example, last year for the last couple of years, we've been focused on helping the kids to understand how to first of all, the importance of taking more rigorous coursework and. What the district offers.

So we have our colleague come in to do the training, and we've seen just a dramatic increase in the number of kids who are doing projects around this because they see that fewer of their peers are taking rigorous coursework, and they're like in one of our charter schools, one student got 20 kids together and she talked them through all the options they had.

And then they had to meet with the school counselor if they're serious. And she had students who then, you know, chose more rigorous coursework to move forward. It's very much related to. What needs to happen in our schools, 

right? So it's not just something about admissions. It's really preparing yourself.

And you had said this before. It's not just college readiness. It's how to be successful in college, not just how you get in, but how you're going to succeed once you get there. And as And admissions and scholarship person. I know that rigorous courses are a great way to prepare. So I love that. What, what are some other projects that students have done you know, that you've seen be successful.

So we had some students. So, one of the things we recommend to students is do passion projects. Is this, if you want to know something, or you don't have expertise in something, and you want to know more about it, then make a project about that. So, last year we had some girls who did a project on institutional scholarship.

They wanted to know more about it. How to apply, how to, you know, discover where they are. And so that was their project and they all, you know, got kids to sign up and worked on that and they themselves applied. And then we had another student who like. This is a special story. She had so much challenge and tragedy in her family, but her project was she wanted to study STEM.

And so she said, okay, I'm gonna help kids to find STEM scholarships and understand that world more. But she wasn't. helping herself. But she started to see that the material, the content she was giving to the kids, they were getting scholarships. So she said to me, I said to myself, if I can help them, I can help myself.

So she. She helped them. She got her scholarship and she's right now studying in the HBCU institution. FAFSA, we had one student from her junior year. She started helping seniors with FAFSA. I said, why would you want to do that? You're not a senior. She said, I want to do it so that when I get to my senior year, I know how to do it and I can help more kids.

You know, one thing I want to point out about the kids is the generosity of heart that they have. That there is deep compassion for their peers and just an endless generosity. As you would hear this girl say, I want to learn it for myself, but so when I get to senior year, I can help more kids. And that's what we've seen as almost the signature of the successful students.

Yeah. 

Well, it's such a great model because it's, you know, one person sort of teaches this group and then they go out and if each of them is touching, you know, 20, 40, 60 students in the schools, plus even if they're not a brace cadet, that knowledge that they have is still sort of fanning out, spoking out to a lot of different students.

So you just start with this small group and their, their impact is huge. 

That's true. I also want to add to that that we initially we thought about why don't you train them to help other kids, but we found that it was more powerful and transformative and the their capacity exponentially increased when we said to them, we want you to learn this for yourself, mastering for yourself.

Because when they knew it, then, I mean, they would help anybody. The comfort level increased, the confidence increased, and they were able to share way more than what was asked. So yes, by offering this program, we are actually, Really changing lives of students in very meaningful ways. Their, their confidence level increases their awareness of potential careers based on what they did, what they like.

Oh, I really like this. I'm really good at this. I think I might want to find a career in this. Yeah. Oh, it's very transformative. 

Yeah. And they just, they take away so much from it. That is going to continually help them just presenting in public speaking, all these things that aren't officially part of your agenda or your training, but they just can't help but get out of it.

It's, it's, there's always a hidden agenda, you know, and, and that is like, you're all going to, and it's not necessarily a hidden agenda, but there are all these things that skills that they're going to get out of it, that you're not. Necessarily explicitly saying, and you will walk away with public speaking skills, but they have to get that with their organization skills, with their time management skills, because they're putting all this together.

So immense help for them when 

they get to college. Absolutely. And those are the secondary gains, you know and they're invaluable. You know, what we see and what the literature speaks about is the transformation that takes place in the mentor. They're helping kids, they're helping their peers, but there's a transformation that's taking place in them that you just articulated their sense of self.

Their sense of their own efficacy, you know, an agency, their sense of their own personal mastery and management, emotional management. Because, you know, I, my favorite thing to talk about with the kids is when I read their reports and their reports, they have to write, what did you learn about yourself?

What did you observe? And they would say, well, I learned that I needed to be more patient because I can't tell you how many, but there's, you know, or they said, I, I grew in patience because I had to listen more. I mean, it's just profound. So the secondary gain is What, what we don't talk about, we talk about helping the mentees as a primary game, but the secondary game is equally powerful and life changing.

Yeah. 

Yeah. And, and it is life changing and it, I love that you say that it's transformational because so often I think we get into a more of a transactional. Nature where it's like, I'm going to dispense this knowledge to you, and then you go out and you dispense this knowledge. And then hopefully they, they get it and they go, but having the students get free reign to create something that they're passionate about, as you said, a passion project, they're going to delve more deeply into it.

And it's probably a lot more, isn't there a psychological psychology phrase, like sticky, like it's going to stick to them and they're going to really remember this and all the details. And then their passion is going to show when they're teaching it out. So it's just, it's such a beautiful cycle, 

it really is a beautiful cycle and everybody wins.

Yes, right, everybody wins, the high school wins, the students win. Tell me, do you do any assessment, you talked about a report that the mentors do, do you do any kind of assessment like at the high school level about the students who participate going on to post secondary education after they've learned some of these things?

I think that's the next level for the work because it's almost like that's really having an evaluation and we do not have the funds for that, but I think that would be the perfect thing because we can say this is what our students did. We can actually say, you know, these are the, the Ways in which we've seen change or self reported anecdotal transformations and growth, but we, and this is what they've done with their peers, but I don't know that we could fully capture it just in like an interview with the kids.

It's all anecdotal, but I think it's. The program is ready to be evaluated, and we would love to see that happen, which of course means cha ching. Yeah, 

unless if you're out there and you're thinking, what can I do for my PhD or EDD thesis? That's great idea. Yes, yes. So, I'm just putting that into the universe.

Anyone who's listening might want to, might want to contact you and see how they Yes, 

that's great. And you would meet amazing 

kids. Yes. Right. Which is, which is also a byproduct of just meeting some incredible students. And then you can hook them up with your admissions team and they'll go to your university and the world will be their oyster because of, because of what you did.

So I love this. I love this. I always like to close by asking what advice you have, because we know. As a listener, you want to hear from the people who are right, hands in, right, experiencing the work with the students. So, what advice might you give to other high school folks who are listening, who are working with your population, and maybe think like, oh, I want to do something like that.

And then I'll ask you another question about what advice would you give to college folks like me, who might be able to help programs 

like this. I love that. So what I would say to people who are in high schools, I would say this is a win win. You never lose. Start small. You don't have to start with 120 kids.

Maybe if you have five kids, start small and learn from that experience. Set yourself up for success. Here's how you do that. You get kids who you know will do well as mentors, but you don't pair them with kids who are all failing as mentees. Have a continuum. Have, give them a positive experience. Help to match them with kids who have needs but who may not be so out of control that your mentors have a horrible experience.

You always want to create success. a successful experience for the mentors and for the mentees. Some of the kids may not be appropriate for mentors because things are so wild and out of control for them. And so do not pair those kids with mentors, get them more specialized help. Another thing I think that our colleagues could do is encourage the kids more and if it's okay with you, Jen, I'd like to tell a quick story.

Please do two experiences. The first and most transformative experience for me happened when I worked in the elementary schools. So, I had this student, kindergartner, kicking teachers, biting, biting kids, sent to me as a social worker, I met with him and his mother, we had a plan, and we, I said, this is a plan.

He said, yes. Next day, the teacher came screaming, he take him, so I take him and I said, and I'm so mad. And he says. I'm, he says, I'm not talking to you. I said, what? You're not talking to me. Why aren't you talking to me? He says, you don't even see I'm trying at the end of it. That's the most important lesson I've learned to look for effort and incremental successes.

And so the next story is. I was sending out encouraging notes to the kids in emails every week and I felt corny. I'm like, this is so corny. I'm gonna stop this. So I happened to have meetings with the kids. This was during COVID. We are online. I said, Tell me what is it I need to continue to do and what I need to stop doing.

What do you need more of for me in terms of support? The resounding response from school to school. Please keep sending those encouraging notes to us. We look forward to those emails because we sometimes we're so overwhelmed and when we get your email we know it's going to say something encouraging.

Can you believe this? Yes, I can. devaluing what was most important to the kids. So I say, even if it feels corny, Encourage them, maybe get a kid who's doing well to find some gifts for you, you know, motivating quotes and stuff and send them out to the kids every week. And I also think that there's a way to encourage that's Pushes kids forward.

So basically I have this approach that I encourage and I push. I empathize, but I empower you. You cannot come to me and just expect to be empathized with. And guess who does that? The Brace Cadets. 

Yes, exactly. Can you believe this? Yeah, I'm so hearing what you're talking about like growth mindset that that lesson that you you learn from that student back in elementary school and and encouraging effort and appreciate trying and and nudging, you know, I we call it challenge and support every time.

Every time you want a student to go to a new level, you have to support them up to that level, but then you give them a new challenge and you support them again. And it just, it reflects in the whole program that you've built that there's that challenge and support for the mentors and then for the mentors to bring that to the mentees.

Yeah, yeah, I love this. I love this. That's 

the amazing thing when you hear them say I'm so sorry that that's. That, you know, that's really, really hard and I experienced that too, but I think that you could do this. I think this is, you know, so it's never like, Oh, you're, I'm so sorry. It's the end of the world.

It's like empathize and power, empathize and power. 

Yeah, so two good phrases so far the the beg, pray and curtsy and empathy and empower like amidst all this other words of wisdom that you're sharing. And yeah, I totally agree with encouragement, I think, and we were talking about this a little beforehand that sometimes we forget.

All of the obstacles or the negativity that surrounds our students and how many people are ready to, to pull them down. And, and if we can just keep up with that encouragement all the time and not the false positivity, but the, like you said, appreciating the trying. Yeah. And then again, lifting them up.

I just, I really do think that makes a big difference to our students. You heard it from your students. I've heard it from my students, you 

know, let's remember that first gen student. Well, two things. One, let's remember that adolescents are one of the harshest critics. Of themselves. Yes. They are unforgiving.

They're harsh. They're unforgiving. And if we're not, that's part of what I tell them. I said, you know what? You need to forgive yourself. You need to let it go and speak kindly to yourself because I have to do it. I didn't just start this way. I have to say kind things to myself and I say to them, you're too harsh.

You know, you're too harsh with yourself. And I think they appreciate that external voice. Like we're a mirror saying and a credible voice saying, no, you are too harsh. It's yes. You want to push yourself when you make a mistake, but at the same time you have to forgive yourself and move on and say kinder things to yourself.

And then when you think about first gens, the absence of confidence, Traveling a path that they are so unfamiliar with that they are constantly second guessing themselves by doing the right thing. And so that voice needs to be silenced or quieted and it gets quieted with our encouragement. You know, I really like the way that you completed this application.

I think this is a strategy you can use moving forward. So there is this, a lane, that anxiety and pushing forward again. Yeah. Yeah, 

absolutely. Giving themselves grace. Yes. I, I think is really important. I, yeah, I, I like to tell them sometimes when they come in and they're just sitting in my office talking about just they're beating themselves up basically.

I just, I say, would you talk to your friend like that? And they're like, no, I wouldn't. I'm like, well, like, then why are you talking to yourself like that? You deserve much better than that. I agree. Like, so what can, what can we learn from this? And then how could we move you forward? And remember, you're awesome.

Yeah, I think of it as sometimes like just reminding them how awesome they are. 

And I want to also add that some people think, oh, that's babying. No, that is not babying. And like you said, Jen, This isn't just positive, blank, blank, positive cotton candy. This is very intentional. We are intentional. We are intentional about silencing that critical voice.

We are intentional about allaying that anxiety and reassuring. So this is not like cotton candy, you know. Anything. 

Yeah, it's letting their, letting their true and best selves come 

forward, giving them permission for that. 

Yeah, giving them permission to let you know, let your, let your light shine, I think is really important.

Now what advice would you give to those of us in college about how we might be able to sort of help and build or support programs like yours. 

Well, to be honest, we have had some of the best partners with our local public colleges and our private colleges, they will come out and they will do sessions with their kids on their application process, what they're looking for.

And here's the thing. We always tell the kids at the training, if there's a speaker. who you see that you want to speak at your school for your project, you go make your own relationship with them. And so the kids, it's hysterical. You will see long lines, you know, they're waiting to ask questions and get contact.

And they do follow up because sometimes they say, Miss Green, can you tell me if this letter is okay that I'm sending to invite this person? And, you know, so duh. Availability to give information and be generous with it. Right. Be very generous with it. Give them some insider tips. I have to give a shout out to our public institution of Broad College.

They provide space for the meetings. Sometimes they will provide the meals. They provide you know, gifts for the kids. So the kids come and here they get a gift bag, you know, and they feel good. And I think access, we cannot overstate the importance of access to university partners. Having people who they can talk to.

You know, this is not the Brace Cadets. But in another project that our district did, we partnered with our local universities to go to schools where we knew kids were not prepared to graduate. And we asked them, do not, don't come to recruit kids, come to help kids. And do you know that's what our partners did?

Love that. One of them, at the risk of sounding partial, FAU sent a team to do, talk to kids about admissions, want to work on scholarships. and want to talk with the kids, no, help the kids to complete FASFA. So if you can imagine that for the kids there's this chasm between you and them and the more you break that down and get Make yourself accessible, not irresponsibly so, but make yourself accessible to the kids.

Hear what they want to know and offer them guidance or resources. And you know what? Every, every college should, a university should find some way to get into the school, to have conversations with the kids, even if you're not recruiting. 

Right. That isn't just come to our school. 

Yeah, right. Because a lot of them, especially the first gens, they just want to know, am I on the right track?

Did I do this right? Waiting to hear from this person, what should I do? You know, I think just, and especially with their consortiums, of universities, I think that that's where the power is. And I would love to talk more about that with them. 

Yeah. I mean, I love going to do talks like that to high schools about to, to the high school staff about how you can help.

You know, your student in the admissions process and get ready for college, but also meeting with auditoriums full of students and talking about like, what is an essay like, and why do we even ask for that? You know, or why is it important to put your job in an activities list? You know, who, who cares about that?

Like we do. But I mean, one of the best things I used to do is I'd go to a high school and I'd be there all day. And I just have 20 minutes, 20 minute appointments with first gen students to look, to look through their applications. and answer any questions that they had, or, and it didn't even, I was working at the University of Washington at the time, so it wouldn't even have to be a University of Washington application, it could be any.

And I could give some advice and, and read over their essay and maybe give them some tips on how they could, you know, make themselves like really shine through. And I just, I met so many amazing students. I just want to run through the high school and say like, you're all so incredible. Like, keep going.

Like you can do this. I didn't of course, cause you know, that would not be good, but yeah. 

But what you did was amazing. Isn't there any way that we could elevate this as a best practice? 

You know, I think there is, I think there is, we'll have to think of some of the organizations out there where, where maybe, you know, you can you, maybe you and f A U can share your partnership, like in presentations, maybe the N P E A, national Partnerships for Educational Access, or N C A N, national College Attainment Network.

You know, those would be some places that I think would love to hear. We've spoken at . Yeah. I would, I think would be all over that. And so if you're listening out there and you wanna hear more, You know, you can, you can reach out to Yvonne. So I I've loved this conversation and I love your, your tips to the, to those of us working in high schools and those of us working in college about, about how we can help cause I think there can be some really good bridges built there as you just exactly, as you've said, you know, to, to help the students beyond recruiting, but to let them know you're on the right track, you got this.

You're going places and whether that's a two year or four year. A certificate, a trade, a trade school. It's all there for them and there's so many people ready to help them, especially you doing the work that you do in the high 

schools. I love working. And you, Jen, I, I mean, I feel it that you would go and make appointments and kids could just come and discuss their application or Yeah.

I mean, that's like price, that's like winning the lottery for those kids. 

Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, it's, it's a, it's a pleasure and a privilege to do work like that, I think. 

I think 

so too. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how can they find you? And I'll put anything you tell me in the show notes. So people know where, where to, where to reach you.

All right. So you can, I am with Broward County public schools, but we are on break. So you can reach me at Yvonne dot green at Broward schools. com and I'll send this to you as well. And you can, if you want to reach out to me directly, you can reach me at four game changing woman at gmail. com. I'll send that to you.

I'm also on LinkedIn. And it's Yvonne Green, Change Agent 12. Love it. I also do have a couple of things I'd love to share with your audience. Goodie bags, I came with a goodie bag. So, one of the things I really like to do is, I like for my work to be exciting, and if I feel I'm getting not so excited, I find a way to make it exciting.

So, last year, I decided that I wanted to create a documentary, a mini documentary. I wasn't totally successful, but I was half successful. The content of this We Are You... Brace Cadets documentary is about our Brace Cadets telling how they prepared for top tier colleges and how they got it. And it's a tool that anybody could use to inspire the students.

And we are in the process of editing the second one, which

is where I have some of our students who applied what we told them. Applied for all these scholarships and now not only are they going debt free, but they have some money in their pockets and also you could follow us on Instagram, our social media cadets who use social media to promote college and career readiness.

It's. At Brace Cadets, B R A C E, C A D E T S, and that's on Instagram. 

And you're you're going to send me all of 

these links. I am putting them in the chat right now. Let me just put that and send this to you. I love 

it. And then I will. And 

then I'll put my 

contact. I love this. And that the documentaries sound amazing.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Yvonne. You will be able to find Yvonne at all of the links that she shared and learn more about the Brace Cadets Program. And you can always find me if you want to email me at jen, that's j e n at firstjen, g e n f m dot com, or you can find me at the website, which is firstjenfm.

com. I would love to have you visit the website and take a look around. I would love to have you contact me if you want to be on the podcast so I can hear all the amazing things that you are doing. And last but not least, please give me a rating and a review, hopefully a five star rating and a great review so that other people can find our podcast.

Thank you so much, Yvonne. And thank you all for listening. And I will be with you again next week. 

Thank you for having me. It was fun. Thank you. It was.