When Gary Heusel says it would be "remarkable" to find someone involved with 4-H in Nebraska who is not familiar with CHARACTER COUNTS!, he’s not kidding. Dr. Heusel, a professor of education at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and a CC! Advisory Council member, has used his position as director of the statewide 4-H to make sure CC! has a presence in each of the state’s 93 counties. Now the goal is to make that presence pervasive; a three-day conference in February 2000 brought together legislators and business groups to spur new developments in the state’s character-education efforts. Members of the legislature are now proposing a resolution to support the use of CC! throughout the state. They have a strong base to build on already:

• About 2,000 youth and adults have been trained to teach the CHARACTER COUNTS! approach.
• CHARACTER COUNTS! programs have reached more than 31,000 youth, each of whom have been exposed to at least 15 program hours.
• 128,000 youth have been through other programs using CHARACTER COUNTS!, including day camps, one-on-one contact with Kiwanis members, Family Community Education clubs, religious school classes, employees participating in workforce training programs.
• Media information about character education has reached an estimated 700,000 youth.

More importantly, being exposed to CHARACTER COUNTS! appears to be changing the way young people behave. In a recent survey, 85 percent of Nebraska teachers and facilitators who are using the program reported an overall positive difference in the children they teach, 73 percent reported students using the language of the Six Pillars and 75 percent reported changing their own behavior as a result of teaching CHARACTER COUNTS!. Sixty-one percent reported increased frequency of seeing students help each other; fifty-five percent reported seeing few instances of students blaming others; and 50 percent reported seeing more instances of students being truthful. The teachers noted that they now had a greater awareness of themselves as models for desirable behavior and that CHARACTER COUNTS! had enabled them to focus more on students’ positive behavior.