Project FLEX has secured a five-year, $2.55 million grant from the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ) to continue and expand its work providing positive interventions with youth who are in secure custody of the state. The NIU Department of Kinesiology and
Read moreMore to life? Project FLEX participants discuss how NIU program changed them
Different situations. Different backgrounds. Different races. Different traumas. Different struggles. Yet the four young men facing the audience in the Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center do share one reality – and, for many, it’s potentially insurmountable. Prison. Two already have
Read moreProject FLEX participants to tell stories of how sport offered healing behind bars
Project FLEX somehow continues to surprise Jenn Jacobs and Zach Wahl-Alexander. More than four years have passed since the associate professors in the NIU Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education launched their initiative to deliver structured physical activity and positive life lessons
Read moreProject FLEX continues to inspire youth behind bars: ‘I don’t want to be in a cell’
Nelson Mandela’s recorded voice affirms the message of the short video: Sport has the power to change the world. As students in KNPE 393: Sociology of Sport watch and consider that declaration April 14, associate professor Jenn Jacobs asks a question: “Are
Read moreProject FLEX culminates in campus visit for young men who glimpse opportunity
They seem like any other college students. Young. Comfortably dressed. High school graduates. Eager to participate. Curious about GPAs and friends, part-time jobs and time management. Interested in earning college degrees to pursue careers in coaching, law enforcement and music. But these
Read moreIllinois Youth Center speaker to discuss ‘Flexing Behind Bars’ of juvenile detention
In the six months since Project FLEX began delivering physical education and leadership training to young men incarcerated in the Illinois Youth Center of St. Charles, many eyes have been opened. Jenn Jacobs and Zach Wahl-Alexander, professors in the NIU Department of
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