How We Work: 
While taking the time to familiarize yourself with the different programs we offer at the Gulf Coast Trades Center, you will gain an insight about our method for equiping young people. It is a multi-faceted system of teaching the skills needed to confront negative situations as well as providing opportunities for positive growth. Our young people leave us with the first-class training that employers are looking for and a renewed personal image that desires to be successful.
Positive Peer Culture:
Positive Peer Culture (PPC) is a treatment modality that teaches students to assume responsibility for helping one another. Too often the peer group has been viewed only as a liability rather than a resource. Just as the peer influence can foster problems, so also can the peer process be used to solve problems.
Youth in PPC groups learn how to identify problems and how to work toward their resolution. The goal is to fully involve youth in the helping process. As youth gives and becomes of value to others, he/she increases their own feelings of worthiness and builds positive self-concept. Youth at Gulf Coast Trades Center participate in five (5) PPC groups per week under the supervision of a trained PPC group leader.
Strength Based Program:
Under the Gulf Coast Trades Center strength-based philosophy, youth are viewed as being blessed with unique strengths, talents and abilities, and the potential for positive change. This concept creates ways of empowering youth to utilize and develop their strengths, rather than focusing on weaknesses, to achieve success and a sense of self-worth.
It is important to emphasize that being strength based does not mean simply focusing on positives and ignoring concerns or fabricating strengths that do not exist. Rather, it means figuring out ways to recognize and utilize genuine strengths and build upon them while effectively addressing areas of concern.