Congratulations to DYS Educator Bill Laforme of the Kennedy School, who has had his Breakfree project chosen for October’s nationwide Breakfree competition. Bill was selected in 2023 for a Breakfree Fellowship. Fellows develop their own Breakfree content and this year joined other Fellows in Washington, DC where they collaborated on their projects.
Bill was one of only a few chosen to then participate in the nationwide Breakfree Competitions, where his project, “Unworldly” was selected. “Unworldly” will focus on outer space and the “potential benefits of its exploration.” Students will also “consider classic SciFi stories to understand creative world-building and will then practice journalism skills to create a newspaper from the perspective of future outer space settlers”.
BreakFree Education is a national organization that partners directly with juvenile justice agencies across the country, providing the resources, training, and networks to make school relevant and meaningful. The competitions sponsored by BreakFree provide engaging, project-based activities for youth, and teachers leverage these interdisciplinary resources to teach across content areas so that students can apply, reflect on and demonstrate their learning. The mission of BreakFree Education is to radically improve education in the juvenile and criminal justice systems by investing in the potential and dignity of all its students.
The Collaborative for Educational Services (CES) has been a partner to the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) since 2003, creating access to high-quality secondary and post-secondary education, career exploration, and workforce development opportunities for youth in the care and custody of DYS. CES is helping to equip an especially vulnerable population of young people with the tools they need to see their world, and themselves, in a new light.
