Dance Mentorship at Juvenile Detention

Flex!
It's a Creative Dance Mentorship Program that encourages kids to share their stories and troubles with non-verbal expression through movement. It's a community-sourced freestyle expressive dance form that kids engage as an alternative to violence.

For any kid, finding a mentor can be a life-shaping experience. A mentor can can relate through stories, share in life's ups and downs, and be a source of strength when family is inconsistent. Flex helps to build relationships based in authentic expression when words might be too hard.

For kids locked up in juvenile detention, entangled in a penal system that sets them up for a life of recapitulated traumas and violence, the importance of a mentor can be even greater. This project, run by Psychology PhD Students (at the New School for Social Research, in NYC) will bring Flex to NYC Juvenile Detention Centers!

We are researching the factors of the mentorship relationships in Flex which are most important to the kid's success in life, so we will be asking the kids to complete some weekly surveys and this campaign will help us to thank the participants of our surveys with a gift card!