Charmaine Smith

Charmaine Smith Executive Director 314.221.7422 cell charmaine@discoveringoptions.org

That's part of the reason for Discovering Options, an after-school mentoring program based in St. Louis and now in its third year, said Charmaine Smith, executive director and founder of the program.

Research shows, she said, "kids are more likely to do risky things between the hours of 3 and 7, so that's a really critical time … parents are busy, they're not home yet, and they say, ‘Yeah, here's a key, go ahead and go home and do your homework.' Well, that's when things are going to go awry," she said.

With two separate tracks â€" one for fourth- and fifth-graders, the other for students in grades six, seven and eight â€" Discovering Options serves students in St. Louis Public Schools deemed "at risk" for behaviors such as drug use.Staff members from the program handpick students after suggestions from the school district based on risk factors that include family conflict, behavior problems, a lack of commitment to school and poverty â€" 98 percent of students in Discovering Options come from households living below the poverty line, Smith said.

"What we do is provide an intervention.In our case it's a prevention program to help kids with their decision-making skills, refusal skills and ultimately to increase their protective factors," Smith said.
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Research demonstrates that the longer students maintain a consistent connection with their mentors, the better the results, Smith said.Reducing aggression and minimizing stress are just two of the effects Smith has noticed in students who have participated in Discovering Options so far.

"It is not tutoring," Smith said.
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"We've always been about helping children and their families to thrive â€" that's what we do," Smith said.

"The one thing I don't want to do is make it sound like all of these families are hotbeds of social ills," Smith said."They're like everybody else."

Smith has worked in social services since the mid '80s and enjoys her work."I had an opportunity to start an agency that I could grow and really organically create something that serves young people in a way that matches my philosophical outlook of social services … that you meet people where they are, that you deliver strength-based programs and that you help people succeed," she said.
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Charmaine Smith, founder of Discovering Options

Brenda Fraser | Charmaine Smith
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"I liked the (Gala Force) model and thought it was a right fit for us as an agency," said Charmaine Smith, executive director of Discovering Options.

Charmaine Smith Executive Director charmaine@discoveringoptions.org