How can we prepare teachers and youth workers to better reach and engage youth? How can we connect the disconnected? What must be done to help young people connect to workforce and educational programs? With 5.5 million disconnected youth in the United States and millions more just struggling to hang on, Edward DeJesus, one of the country's brightest minds in youth development paints a picture of what must be done to connect millions of youth to opportunities beyond the streets. In 290 pages DeJesus reveals the secrets to youth engagement that every organization and professional must master.

The Disconnected Man tracks the journey of one man's surprise discovery of his own disconnectedness and his desire to help other men, and the women who love them, before it is too late. Disconnected men hide out in plain view: in our churches, in our families and in our communities. They are competent, capable men who quietly 'do their duty' and attract little attention. They are fairly happy guys, relatively unemotional and capable of carrying heavy loads of responsibility, but are very difficult to get to know beyond superficial friendship. A closer examination inside their marriages reveals a desert strewn with emotionally emaciated spouses. While their competence may build the church, organize a group, or run a company, they haven't the slightest notion how to connect intimately with those they love. Their wives suffer, usually in silence, while the church and culture press past this couple secretly falling apart. Jim Turner was that disconnected man going about his life, happily fulfilling his duty within his own self-protective bubble, until God suddenly burst it in a most horrific way. His story starts when that devastation left him clinging precariously to the remaining shreds of his broken marriage. Jim longs to share with other disconnected men what he learned through that ordeal, to help them understand their disobedience and show how they can achieve real connection with those they love.

In the age of technology we have become disconnected at a cellular level. The time to reconnect to ourselves and each other is now! Consciously Connecting is a step-by-step guide that will enlighten and give you the ability to further connect to your inner self. Learn to enrich your relationships with others, take action, and connect within the world around youand most importantly, with yourself. Develop healthy emotional habits, and decrease stress and anxiety with your connectivity, which will give you the inspiration to lead a more productive and creative life. This adventure will be fun, and the exercises are easy. Engage in a weekly plan of action as you commit to be cognizant and walk away from lifes disconnect and distractions. Unlock the secrets to Consciously Connecting as you choose to achieve your goals, embrace your strengths, and define your journey. Give yourself the gift of joy and happiness through connection and watch the possibilities happen.

This book is filled with practical, proven strategies, effective tools, and inspiring stories designed to help adults shape and improve connections with kids.

Written by experts on the Microsoft® .NET programming platform, ADO.NET in a Nutshell delivers everything .NET programmers will need to get a jump-start on ADO.NET technology or to sharpen their skills even further. In the tradition of O'Reilly's In a Nutshell Series, ADO.NET in a Nutshell is the most complete and concise source of ADO.NET information available.ADO.NET is the suite of data access technologies in the .NET Framework that developers use to build applications services accessing relational data and XML. Connecting to databases is a fundamental part of most applications, whether they are web, Windows®, distributed, client/server, XML Web Services, or something entirely different. But ADO.NET is substantially different from Microsoft's previous data access technologies--including the previous version of ADO--so even experienced developers need to understand the basics of the new disconnected model before they start programming with it.Current with the .NET Framework 1.1, ADO.NET in a Nutshell offers one place to look when you need help with anything related to this essential technology, including a reference to the ADO.NET namespaces and object model. In addition to being a valuable reference, this book provides a concise foundation for programming with ADO.NET and covers a variety of issues that programmers face when developing web applications or Web Services that rely on database access. Using C#, this book presents real world, practical examples that will help you put ADO.NET to work immediately.Topics covered in the book include: An Introduction to ADO.NET Connections, Commands and DataReaders Disconnected Data Advanced DataSets Transactions DataViews and Data Binding XML and the DataSet Included with the book is a Visual Studio .NET add-in that integrates the entire reference directly into your help files. When combining ADO.NET in a Nutshell with other books from O'Reilly's .NET In a Nutshell series, you'll have a comprehensive, detailed and independent reference collection that will help you become more productive.

Connecting with Disconnected Youth - A Practical Guide to Positive Teen Engagement In Connecting with Disconnected Youth, Titus Lee provides practical strategies on how to effectively engage teenagers. Drawing on his many years of youth work experience he shows you how to gain access to hard-to-reach and marginalized teens that may be in your home and community. Whether you are a parent, educator, pastor or youth worker you will be equipped to excel in your efforts meaningful connections with the teenagers around you. Get ready to go to the next level of positive teen engagement with each enlightening principle, story and strategy that is provided in this book. Here are some of the cutting-edge insights that you will learn as you read: How to recognize various types of teen disconnection. Practical steps to bridging the gap with detached and dejected teens. Why some teens avoid interacting with authority-figures. How to convert your pain into passion that makes a difference. Five practical ways to win teens in your home, organization and community. Plus - You receive a positive youth engagement guide to use right away!

In Everyday Ambassador Kate Otto brings people together even as our digital networks pull us further apart. In a world of limitless technology, we are more connected than ever before but our hyper-connected lifestyles threaten our ability to know ourselves and interact with each other. By focusing on the four core values that allow us to become truly “connected” in tech-centric societies—empathy, patience, focus, and humility—Otto demonstrates that the power of technology is not in the tool, but in the intention of the person using it. Everyday Ambassador offers a unique solution to those who aspire to truly make a difference in the twenty-first century—revealing the secrets of how to unite people, even when technology keeps us at a distance from others—emotionally and physically. Otto helps us lift our heads up from our cell phones and tablets and take a look at the people standing right in front of us. In a time when good citizenship is the new currency of cool, Everyday Ambassador gives us the tactics to connect in our disconnected world.