"Real ones reaching the next ones."
Street Smarts is a Harlem-focused program designed for youth who schools, afterschool programs, and community centers have the toughest time engaging. The program is led by credible educators—people who grew up in Harlem, ran the streets, and later rebuilt their lives after spending years in prison. They’ve returned with a shared mission: to help Harlem youth avoid the same mistakes they made.
Trained in the Community Change Pedagogy, these credible educators work in collaboration with school and community staff to reach youth at the highest risk of being lost to the streets. Through project-based learning, academic encouragement, and interest-based activities, Street Smarts provides these youth with authentic, caring guidance from adults who understand their world and who are committed to saving them from the streets.
Street Smarts is designed for students in grades 5–12 and have the flexibility of focusing on any Community Change Pedagogy theme: careers, community, food, culture, financial literacy, 21st-century skills, or restorative practices, while engaging the students in endless interest-based activities. Through creative, project-based activities, students learn to control emotions, think through consequences, and strategies to help themselves, their peers, and their community.
Enhanced activities have included incentivized field trips to local and out of state colleges, Rikers Island, local police precincts, amusement parks, and movie outings—providing another realm of exposure to participants’ learning experiences.
Street Smarts‘ parent workshops and staff trainings offer strategies and resources for those who are raising or working with troubled youth.
Goal
To transform Harlem’s hardest-to-reach youth into powerful, positive forces for their community.
Skill Objectives
Students apply the three core skills of the Community Change Pedagogy to real-life challenges:
Critical Thinking – analyzing choices, pressure, and conflict to understand how decisions lead to consequences both in school and on the streets.
Research – investigating real-world issues—violence, justice, money, and opportunity—and identifying positive, realistic alternatives.
Executive Functioning – managing emotions, time, and goals; following through on commitments; and earning trust through consistent action.
Outcomes
Students who participate in Street Smarts demonstrate measurable progress in self-management, school engagement, and personal growth. They show reductions in fights, suspensions, and disciplinary referrals by learning to handle conflict constructively. Participants gain emotional control, confidence, and stronger decision-making skills that translate into improved behavior and attendance. By completing creative, community-based projects, students demonstrate accountability, teamwork, and emerging leadership that strengthens the school environment and their own sense of purpose.
Benefits
Research supports the effectiveness of combining credible mentorship, project-based learning, and restorative practices for high-need youth populations:
Improved behavior and self-control: Youth mentored by credible messengers—adults with lived experience and community respect—demonstrate stronger empathy, discipline, and reduced justice involvement (Urban Institute, 2022).
Higher student engagement: Project-based learning increases motivation, persistence, and academic focus among students with behavioral and attendance challenges (Edutopia, 2018; UCLA Center, n.d.).
Better school climate: Integrating social-emotional learning with restorative practices reduces suspensions and builds stronger student-staff relationships (CASEL, 2020).
Positive community connection: Lived-experience mentorship helps students view their community as a place for growth, belonging, and opportunity (National Mentoring Resource Center, 2024).
References
CASEL. (2020). Aligning SEL and restorative practices. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. https://schoolguide.
Edutopia. (2018). Boosting student engagement through project-based learning. George Lucas Educational Foundation. https://www.
National Mentoring Resource Center. (2024). Evidence review: Credible messenger and lived experience mentoring.https://
UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools. (n.d.). Project-based learning and student engagement.https://smhp.psych.
Urban Institute. (2022). New York City’s wounded healers: A cross-program, participatory action research study of credible messengers. https://www.urban.
