Yount top2
Home

Yount Fireside


Suggested Content and Instructor Guide

NOTE: The purpose of the fireside is to clarify the need and build hope and enthusiasm for educational advancement. Priesthood leaders and family members should be invited in order to get an appreciation of the program. The fireside content should be adjusted to the educational advancement needs of the attendees. The following ideas might be used to generate interest. Materials from the website may be used as desired.

  1. Explain that the Yount Program for Educational Advancement is a pilot program operating under an Area 70 authority.
  2. The need for educational advancement among all members
  1. Review some of the relevant facts regarding today’s world and how that translates into the need for more educational advancement. (Slides on website)
  2. Read some Church leader quotes on the importance of education and invite them to raise their hand if the message has relevance to them. (quotes on website)
  3. Ask those in attendance to reflect upon the benefits of educational advancement to self, family, church, and community.
  4. Define the types of educational advancement, formal and informal and its availability.
  5. Talk about Patriarchal Blessings. Patriarchal blessings provide clues to the talents we developed in our pre-life as well as what we need to develop for our afterlife as well as this life. These can often be used to guide our schooling efforts.
  6. Discuss what is keeping people from further schooling.
    1. Read or hand out the “barriers” list. (seminar workbook, Part II) Read the barriers one at a time and have the audience raise their hands if they think each reason is a major impediment to educational advancement for others like themselves. If you can’t identify the top two or three by the raise of hands, you may have to have them re-vote and only raise their hands for the two most common barriers.
    2. Spend a little time on the top three or four items, explaining that the Yount Seminar is designed to help with them. Acknowledge that most people will have multiple barriers that will have to be overcome
    3. Explain that the top reasons from the group are not the most difficult to overcome.
  1. How the Yount Program for Educational Advancement is designed to help
  1. Review the four purposes of the Yount Program
  2. Review some of the benefits of the Yount Seminar
    1. Obtain a better understanding of themselves and confidence in their potential
    2. Translate “the real me” into a career field and determine the next step
    3. Overcome any impediments that are blocking educational advancement
    4. Learn and use the factors that drive educational success
    5. Prepare an educational plan including a financing plan
    6. Learn how to locate financial aid, scholarships and loan options
    7. Learn how to use a school support network
    8. How to learn by faith as well as by study
  3. Briefly explain the services offered by the Yount Program (as per the pamphlet). Explain the difference between Yount mini grants and Yount Loans and who is eligible for each. The Yount Seminar is required for a loan and recommended for those applying for a mini grant.

Fireside Options
The fireside may be held as a briefing or as an introduction to the First half of the Yount Seminar. In the latter case, launch into the Seminar at this point.
Hand out the Yount Seminar Participant Workbook to those who have registered for the seminar.
Review the contents of the Yount website and the helps that are available including for the self-help responsibilities following the first half of the seminar. Stress the importance of career validation on the website linkages.