Jay Apicelli, community member and blues music director for WPCR, PSU’s own radio station, is leading an effort to teach local teens, ages fifteen to seventeen, how to run their own radio shows. This effort is part of a competency-based community service program.
“These kids need a positive mentoring experience,” Apicelli said, who has been a Juvenile Probation and Parole Officer in the area since the late 1980’s. “WPCR and mentoring [are] a perfect match.”
The participants are trained according to the actual process that each full WPCR member must complete in order to become a DJ. This process allows the teens to learn how to use the equipment in the studio and how to correctly log what music, station IDs, underwritten education grants (UEGs) and public service announcements (PSAs) are played during the show. The training process usually takes about four to five weeks.
“I train the kids to be DJs at the station and offer them a Sunday slot of two hours to do their own show under my supervision after they graduate,” Apicelli said. Students from CADY (Communities for Alcohol- and Drug-Free Youth), a local program that offers, among other things, drug-free activities to students, are involved in the program. However, the majority of the kids involved are students at Mount Prospect Academy which falls under the greater organization of Becket Family of Services: an Educational Environment for Youth and Family Development.
According to the school website at Becket.org, the school “specializes in difficult to treat and hard to place adolescents who have had difficulties finding success in alternative environments, including other residential treatment centers.” One of Becket’s main tenets is providing vocational and work-place experience for their students. Appicelli’s program falls neatly under this category.
Apicelli said that one of his goals for the program is to help the kids “enhance [their] reading and public speaking skills.”
“I’d eventually like to get the kids to produce Public Service Announcements and learn how to use the production equipment to enhance their computer and technology skills,” Apicelli added.
Some of the teens are involved with the Drug Court and making PSA warnings about the dangers of drug use, according to Appicelli. This will be a good way to provide tangible evidence to the judge that the teens are making good progress.
“Jay has been an amazing asset to our station and has willingly dedicatedhis time as a Plymouth community member and liason for many years,” Sara Noyes, General Manager of WPCR said, “Having a resource such as the radio station that is readily available to use not only for news and entertainment, but as a teaching tool is something WPCR is glad to put forth.”