Pro Social Clubs

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Prosocial clubs are made up of students with a common interest, are advised by a faculty member and meet regularly. These co-curricular groups can be any club, organization or activity that provides an opportunity for youth to engage in positive activities outside the classroom. Included under this definition are academic clubs, the arts, prevention based clubs, humanities, leadership and athletic organizations.

Broward County Schools advocates prosocial clubs because they benefit the student and the community through building self-esteem, civic engagement and student’s connection to school and others with similar interests. These factors protect against the development of conduct problems, school misbehavior, truancy, and drug abuse. Prosocial clubs benefit the students and the community by building self-esteem, civic engagement, and human connection. Below are a few of the clubs we support.

Why Pro Social Clubs?

Research has shown that students who participate in prosocial clubs:

Report at least 95% profoundly benefited from the experience.
Produce a 2% increase in standardized test scores with scores continuing to climb with an increase in student participation.
Increase volunteerism and voting as well as connection to community and county.
Decrease their drop-out-rate, substance abuse, sexual activity, suicide, and other risky behaviors.

The Best Clubs Use Positive Community & Social Norms

Social norms marketing is based on the theory that people’s behavior is influenced by their perceptions of how they think others are “normally” or “typically” behaving. The social norms approach is defined by H. Wesley Perkins, PhD (2003) as a proactive prevention program that communicates "the truth about peer norms in terms of what the majority of students actually think and do, all on the basis of credible data drawn from the student population”. Research shows that people’s behavior follows what they think the majority of others are doing. Marketing positive social norms informs students that the majority of their peers behave in health ways and do NOT smoke, drink alcohol, drink and drive. This marketing of accurate healthy norms increases the healthy behaviors.

Positive Community Norms (PCN) is the natural next step to social norms; it’s an approach to improving health and safety in our communities. PCN is an evidence-based approach that promotes protective factors, increases healthy norms, and changes community cultures on issues including substance use, traffic safety, child maltreatment, youth suicide, and more.

BCPS uses PCN to design and implement powerful communications campaigns targeting our entire population to shift perceptions, attitudes, and in turn, increase healthy positive behaviors. Our campaigns increase accurate information amongst students, parents, and teachers using posters, flyers, and public service announcements. The campaigns share data and highlight solutions, magnifying wellness by focusing on the majority who do the ‘right’ thing and how they chose to do so. Our pro-social clubs also use PCN to share peer data in many areas of prevention such as smoking tobacco, vaping, alcohol ( see Project Brain tab below ), driving and texting, sexual activity, drug use, violence, and bullying. Examples of BCPS Customer Survey data a PCN campaign might share could be:

Did you know although only 20% of students believe 80% of students don’t drink, in reality 94% of students didn’t drink alcohol last 30 days?
8 out of 10 students believe drinking alcohol is bad for your brain, and most know their brain isn’t fully developed until 25 years of age.
96% of students haven’t used an electronic vapor product during the past 30 days

For more information on PCN or social norms, please go to The Montana Institute or see more information below.

More Information

For more information on PCN or social norms, view the documents below or go to the below websites:

An Introduction to Positive Community Norms
Reducing Alcohol Use through Positive Community Norms
Promoting Positive Community Norms CDC
Positive Community Norms Fact Sheet
Defining Community Norms
The Montana Institute helps communities and organizations apply the Positive Community Norms approach to prevention, manage change and foster transformation, and grow healthy norms and positive protective factors.
The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse: A Handbook for Educators, Counselors, and Clinicians by Wesley Perkins (Jossey-Bass 2003)
Montana State University, The Positive Culture Framework.

Clubs

Project Brain

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Project Brain is a social norms campaign facilitated in numerous Broward County public schools, grades 6-12. The Project Brain health campaign empowers youth to prevent or reduce alcohol consumption. Through the use of the research based social norms approach, a change in perception toward alcohol is created resulting in a change in behavior.

How is this accomplished? Social Norms marketing is based on the theory that people’s behavior is influenced by their perceptions of how they think others are behaving “normally” or “typically.” Research has shown that people’s behavior follows what we think the majority of others are doing. Using social norms marketing to inform people that the majority of their peers do NOT smoke, drink alcohol, drink and drive helps to reduce the likelihood that they will. Research shows over 80% of Broward County Students choose not to Drink. Marketing this information reduces the likelihood that students will begin to drink alcohol and can reduce use if they have already begun using this drug. What are you feeding YOUR brain? Find out what other Broward County students are in these videos.

POSITIVE COMMUNITY & SOCIAL NORMS MARKETING

Do you know an evidence-based approach to use your data to promote protective factors, increase healthy norms, and improve healthy community behaviors?

How Do You Feed Your Brain?

Project Brain Tools

Project Brain Street Teams

Project BRAIN is a Broward County student-driven brain health campaign empowering students to reduce their consumption of alcohol by using the social norms approach in specific schools. Within each of these schools, there is a “Street Team” of students.

These students promote brain health to by displaying cool posters, screensavers, educating their fellow student peers with presentations, providing fun brain manuals called “Human Brain: Operator’s Manual”, and creating then posting amusing one-sided page journals in the bathroom stalls called “The Stall Seat Journal.” The Street Teams' mission is to prevent under-age drinking by raising awareness and empowering students to make healthy positive choices.

Above the Influence March

(SAVE) Promise

Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) Promise Clubs is a student leadership initiative by the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation that aims to cultivate and bolster student leaders to take an active role in increasing school safety and preventing different forms of violence in schools and communities. Every school in the District has been offered the opportunity to have a SAVE Promise Club, so their students can show their creativity and passion for protecting their friends, schools, and communities from violence BEFORE it happens.

View this brochure to learn more or contact us at 754-321-1655 if you are interested in having a Save Promise Club at your Broward County School.

HRC

The School Board of Broward County established Human Relation Councils in October 1999. They are based in secondary schools and centers. Broward is one of the most diverse counties in the nation. The HRC’s have become key mechanisms for the training of students and staff in diversity sensitivity, cultural competence and affording students an opportunity to foster greater intercultural relations and understanding.

(GSA) Clubs

Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) Clubs are student clubs that allow students with a common interest to get together and have events or discussions about that interest. GSA clubs are made up of students of any sexual orientation; in fact many GSA members are straight-identifying youth. In these clubs, students can talk and learn about issues that surround sexual orientation and gender identity.