Our Approach
The AMIkids Personal Growth Model is a proven success, tying together education and workforce development, treatment, and behavior and skills training.
Our research-driven approach helps young people unlock their true potential.
There is potential born into every child. AMIkids is dedicated to empowering young people to believe in themselves and believe success is possible. They don’t give up, so we don’t give up. We stick with them. We foster relationships, care, and a sense of family. And we provide structure. Our Personal Growth Model is a proven success: tying together education and workforce development, treatment, and behavior and skills training.
Personal Growth Model
At AMIkids, our commitment to serving young people is centered around putting kids first. Our innovative Personal Growth Model (PGM) is the cornerstone of our approach, drawing on decades of research in Positive Youth Development and Trauma-Responsive methodologies. First introduced in 2009, the PGM is meticulously designed to address and diminish risk factors that perpetuate negative behavior and hinder academic success.
Our goal is clear: to maximize protective factors that enhance program completion rates and foster academic achievement. By prioritizing the individual needs of each young person, our Personal Growth Model provides a framework that paves the way for success.
Education and Workforce Development
The education component relies on three primary methods to enhance learning: experiential education, project-based learning, and service learning. Students attend classes in an academic setting, and teachers use a rigorous curriculum designed to address the students’ individualized needs and diverse learning styles. What helps set AMIkids apart are four annual experiential learning Challenge events as well as opportunities to participate in Legislative Day and the floating classroom. Two of these events, provide rewards for top performers with once-in-a-lifetime experiences like scuba diving and rappelling or white water rafting. The other two events focus on tournaments, challenging our youth both athletically and academically. The highly qualified teachers implementing educational components are certified by state, local, and AMIkids requirements.
In addition to our education program, we also offer workforce development opportunities. When students start with AMIkids, they will choose an industry path and create ideal career goals and outcomes. Throughout the process, students are provided with employability skills training, mock interview, job shadow opportunities, work readiness skills, job clubs, and industry-specific mentors to help them become motivated, work-ready young adults.
Treatment
The treatment component is individualized on the basis of each youth’s assessments, and research-based mental health and/or substance abuse interventions (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, Functional Family Therapy, Motivational Interviewing) are provided to youth, as well as their families. Young people may receive group therapy, individual therapy, and family therapy at a schedule determined by the youth’s treatment plan. Staff members implementing this component are licensed mental health professionals or therapists/counselors who are supervised by a licensed mental health professional.
Behavior and Skills Training
The behavior and skills training component is designed to develop or strengthen prosocial behaviors through three techniques using positive reinforcement: a point card system, a token economy, and a rank system.
Kids First, Safety and Family
Three foundational principles of service delivery underlie everything we do at AMIkids. By putting the young person in the center of the program (Kids First), providing a secure, predictable, inclusive, and identity-rich environment for learning (Safety), and espousing a strengths-based family systems approach (Family), AMIkids provides the support system that prepares our youth for the future.