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Don Hellison is a
professor in the School of Kinesiology at UIC, directs The Urban Youth
Leader Project for underserved children and youth in Chicago. This role
involves program development, delivery, and evaluation as well as the
professional preparation of pre-service teachers and youth workers who
work in these programs. These programs use taking responsibility as a
framework for teaching physical activities before and after school (in-school
programs are also provided on occasion). Three broad goals that go beyond
the purposes of traditional sport and exercise programs provide direction
for all programs: self-responsibility for one's effort and self-direction,
social responsibility for respecting the rights and feelings of others
and for being sensitive and responsive to the needs of others, and group
responsibility for teamwork and group betterment. Several strategies --
including conflict resolution, required cooperation built into the activities,
peer and cross-age coaching, group meetings to evaluate and improve the
program, and self-reflection journals at the end of each lesson -- are
employed to help participants take personal, social, and group responsibility.
Processes and outcomes are disseminated in publications, presentations,
and teacher and youth worker workshops, most recently in New Zealand,
England, and Spain.
Don spent 16 years doing this work on the west coast and has been at the University of Illinois at Chicago for the past 15 years. He was awarded the International Olympic Committee President's Prize in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1995 and has received five national awards since that time in recognition of this work. His latest book, with the National Youth Leader Partnership he formed several years ago, is Hellison & Cutforth et al., "Youth Development and Physical Activity: Linking Universities and Communities," published in 2000 by Human Kinetics.
Don can be contacted by telephone at 312-996-4888, by e-mail at hellison@uic.edu, or by fax at 312-413-3699.