Ideation Summary

Our Ideation Summary focuses on 3 potential ideas for not only providing safe transportation to the Boys and Girls Club, but also providing services to make the teen program more attractive and increase the overall attendance of the teen program.

 

Idea 1: Use ND student volunteers to aid with transportation to the club from local high schools.

Rather than try and work with the public school transportation system, we came up with the idea to try and use volunteers with vehicles to help transport the user to the club safely. This could be an effective transportation method that has very little to no expense.

Entice: Make current users of the teen program aware of the available systems through the clubs social media accounts and other marketing vehicles.

Enter: Gather enough trained volunteers with vehicles to at least cover the high schools that have students who are current users. This will hopefully attract 3 to 4 more students from each school to become users of the club now that there is a way to get there.

Engage: With available transportation, new users can now engage themselves in what the teen program has to offer. Whether it be sports, socializing with peers, or doing homework the hope is that the new users will enjoy the club and want to stay a user.

Exit: The user will exit the service once they find an alternative mode of transportation (possibly have their own car), or when they are too old to attend the program itself.

Extend: The availability of transportation to the club will hopefully benefit a larger number of local teens by giving them access to a safe place to be after school where they can exercise, socialize, and work on school work.

Idea 2: Create a 3 on 3 basketball teen tournament challenge

To think of new ideas to attract potential users to the club, we thought that a 3 on 3 tournament would be a way to utilize their up to date basketball gym as to create some excitement around the club and potentially attract users from local schools.

Entice: Offer an opportunity for local teens to be competitive with their peers. During our interviews, a big draw for the current users was the ability to play sports with friends after school in a nice facility. This will hopefully get more bodies through the door and potentially more members for the teen program moving forward.

Enter: Their can be a tournament registration online or on the Clubs social media pages.

Engage: The tournament will allow the teens to use the facilities and potentially get to know and befriend some of the current users of the program and potentially become users themselves.

Exit: The participants leave the tournament more comfortable with the club and having met new friends.

Extend: The hope is that a enjoyable time at the tournament will convert some of the participants into users of the teen program.

Idea 3: College prep tutoring given by ND volunteers.

Not only is it important to attract the teen users, but it is also important to raise awareness of the program to the parents of the local South Bend teens. We think an effective way to grab the attention of the parents is through an established College Prep course.

Entice: Attract new potential users through club social media platforms. Social Media could also be an affective way to reach out to the parents of the teens. A good prep course could possibly entice parents to spend the money for the program.

Enter: Their can be sign up sheets and schedules posted on the clubs social media platforms.

Engage: With ND volunteer students, the users can effectively engage in quality college prep. This could be a way to attract more users to the club if they know that the prep courses are quality and worth while.

Exit: The users leave the program with a prep course and will hopefully use what they have learned to pursue a college education.

Extend: The former users obtain college degrees which allow them to get jobs and establish careers.

 

Mark Harrell-Ethnography Summary For the Boys and Girls Club of South Bend

Expert Interview: Rachael

I really enjoyed my interview with Rachael as she provided good insight to many of the issues with the teen program. Perhaps the biggest insight I gained was the issues with transportation and getting teenage users to the club itself. Beyond some of the middle schools in the area, there is no available transportation to the club from the high schools and as a result the attendance has dropped. The teen club is comprised of approximately 20-25 members.

Expert Interviews: Camille

My interview with Camille was very insightful given her experience and amount of time spent at the club (She’s been a part of the club since 1998). She too addressed the issue of transportation and provided stories of the dangers of some of the kids walking to the club from home or school. She also sighted that when the transportation was available from the high schools, the attendance was over 100 members for the teen program alone. Camille also went into some of the details regarding the Friday night pizza and “teen night” at the club that could potentially be a valuable tool when trying to attract teens in the future.

 

User Interviews:

Speaking with a wide variety of users during my time at the club gave me a better insight into how the users got to the club, and how difficult it truly was for some of the users to get to the club. Many also felt that they would have more of their peers attend if transportation was available from their high schools. Many also felt that if teen night on Fridays was brought back that their friends would be more interested in attending.

 

Immersion:

Spending time at the club allowed me to observe how the users interacted and what their day was like at the club. What I mostly saw was kids being active in the impressive gym facility that the club has. I personally believe that this gym can be utilized and an attractive asset to attract more users.