On May 25, 2022, 6th grade students being promoted to middle school, their friends and family, and the Valley Horizon Elementary School learning community were treated to a special guest speaker, Rick Miller.
Rick is a professor of practice, clinical director and co-founder of Arizona State University’s Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of HOPE.
Rick Miller is also the founder of Kids at Hope, an international child, and youth development organization that studies family, school, and community cultures to better understand the dynamics of success and failure.He has spent 52 years in the field of child and youth development and social and organizational behavior as a practitioner, researcher, professor, public policy expert, and author. Included in Rick’s career is that he served as executive director of the City of Phoenix’s Violence Prevention Initiative. In that role Rick led and successfully raised over $100,000 establishing ASU’s first Violence Prevention Academy.
Rick’s research is revolutionizing the understanding of child and youth development and work cultures. His work has been introduced in 22 states, the District of Columbia and four countries. His work has been cited by the American Academy of Pediatrics in a book it published on youth resiliency and adopted by the Arizona Supreme Court to redefine the juvenile justice system from risk to HOPE.
He is the author of three books and two comic books including “Youth Development - from the trenches” and “The Soul, Science and Culture of HOPE.”
He has received Arizona State University’s Visionary Award; the City of Phoenix, Martin Luther King, Jr. Living the Dream Award; and the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge, George Washington Medal.
We thank him for providing our students with the wonderful opportunity to hear him speak on all the ways that being a Kid at Hope can help them succeed in the future.