- [Narrator] We live in a very unique city.
We have our challenges here in Chicago with gun violence,
poverty, and so many other things.
These young men have seen friends get shot,
family members get shot, domestic abuse,
they've been abused.
Trauma is real.
And we absolutely need to think differently about the
way to create spaces for our young people
and young men in particular to heal, to be well.
We hear from our school leaders all the time
'I don't know what y'all are doing
in those circles in that room,
but it is transforming my school building'.
(transcending music)
(phone dialing)
Michael is that you?
How was the West Chicago meeting?
I'm AJ Watson.
I serve as a national director for
Youth Guidance's Becoming a Man program.
BAM is a male to male counseling and
mentoring program that works in schools
full-time meeting once a week during
the school day.
Working in schools is so critical for us.
We get access in youth in real-time.
We want our young people to feel like
they can come here, be themselves,
be vulnerable, and authentic.
We hire BAM counselors.
Guys with massive social work psychology
counseling for dynamic and their ability
to engage youth.
And we're looking for High Coolness Efficiency.
It's a term we made up.
Young people might call it 'swag'.
Excuse me, how do I look as far as clothing wise?
Oh, great, that's a great looking guy.
I always come in as myself.
I'm always myself, always.
Despite losing my mom at a young age to domestic violence,
my grandparents gave me a very good life.
I do recognize what hurt is, what sadness, what joy is.
And I lead from that place.
The BAM circle is a safe haven.
It's a piece of stability for them.
If I don't meet them where they are at,
there's no opportunity to pull them
to where they should be.
You gotta constantly remind them,
this is your safe space, now let's do the work.
When I first heard about BAM,
it was a chance for me to get out of class.
I've always known I had anger issues.
As I kept going to BAM,
the change I noticed in myself was more self control.
(bell rings)
I was walking in the hallway one time,
and someone bumped into me.
I started to feel myself getting real angry,
like I wanted to react.
I wanted to tell him about himself, smack him.
Then I just thought about it.
He probably aint mean to do it on purpose.
It was an accident.
So I took a deep breath, calm down.
I just walked to class.
In those real high-stakes moments,
the ability to stop and reflect,
the more space you can put between the
stimulus and response, that's where agency lives.
I am in awe every time I get to sit
in this circle with you all.
Having a positive mindset.
You go in a room, you change the temperature.
That's what you bring, you are powerful.
They will call each other out in groups.
And it's been times where my Sophomores told
the Juniors 'Y'all need to grow up.
We in BAM group, we in circle'.
I'm thinking in the back of my head,
I gotta make I got my stuff together.
Because if I don't, they gonna be calling me out.
When you see a BAM shirt.
BAM, on the back it says 'Becoming a Man'.
It doesn't say 'I'm in therapy'.
That's what we're doing.
It's so de-stigmatizing.
The idea that you could get mental health support,
that can be packaged in a way that
you can relate to, that you can feel great about,
to me, is probably our biggest victory.
The University of Chicago found
that youth participating in BAM had a
19 percent improvement in on-time graduation rates.
There is no other program implemented in the
natural setting of the school with
the risk criteria that we're working with,
that's been proven to have a 50 percent reduction
in violent crime arrests.
It blew us away.
It inspired us to say 'Let's do more of that'.
We're currently serving just over
7,000 young men in Chicago.
We're now expanding to Boston, Massachusetts.
We're in our second year now,
and we started with 150 students the first year,
and now we've doubled.
Our job is just to hold space, to be consistent,
walk along side them, and give them support
they need on their journey of becoming a man.
It's helping that individual become a better person.
Just being who you're supposed to be,
your most identic self.
It is power in being able to name what is wrong.
When you know what's wrong,
you have an opportunity to fix it.
And for anybody that think that becoming a man
is lame, you need to grow up.
♪ Change ♪
(electronic music)
Hey thanks for watching this video
in the Youth Guidance: Becoming a Man program.
Youth Guidance is a national organization
helping students succeed in school and life.
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