AFF's 1998/99 International
  Student Journalist Contest

Contest
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CONTEST RESOURCES

Journalism & Writers

Study Resources

AFF's 1998/99
Student Journalist Contest
aims to:

• promote preventive education on cult-related issues
  

encourage journalistic writing

support the teaching of critical thinking

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$3,000 Awards

Awards to students and schools

Student winners receive scholarship money for outstanding journalistic writing.

Schools of winning students will receive preventive education resources in acknowledgement of the teaching of critical thinking.

Awards to students

First Place (one winning entry)
$250 fellowship/scholarship award 

Second Place (two winning entries) $100 fellowship/scholarship award

Third Place (five winning entries)
$50 fellowship/scholarship awards

In addition, all winning entries receive a one-year subscription to the Cult Observer, and a copy of Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse.

Awards to schools (eight winning schools)

Award to the schools of the winning students is a $224 collection of preventive education resources, including:

Books

Cults and Mind Control.
A booklet written for journalists and others seeking succinct answers to some commonly asked questions (e.g., "What is a cult?" "Why do people join cults?").

• Cults on Campus.
  Edited by founding ICEP director, Marcia Rudin, this recently revised and expanded edition addresses the practical problems posed by cultic groups on college and university campuses. The book contains advice for campus administrators and campus counselors, chaplains, law-enforcement officials, and others.
• 
  Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse.
  Edited by AFF director, Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., this book is for helping professionals and for ex-cultists and families. How cultic groups harm members and cause a variety of post-cult problems, including depression, dissociative disturbances, and dependency. Chapters explore issues such as the nature of mind control, post-cult legal problems, children in cults, teen Satanism.  It also provides practical guidelines for psychotherapists, psychiatric hospitals, families, ex-members, and those conducting or interested in forming support groups.

Lesson Plan

• Too Good to Be True: Resisting Cults and Psychological Manipulation.
  A  lesson plan including student text, teacher’s guide, handouts.

Periodicals Subscriptions (one year)

• Cult Observer.
  A bimonthly newsletter which reviews press stories and publishes special reports and guest columns.

• AFF News.
• A bimonthly newsletter which focuses on recovery issues.

• Cultic Studies Journal (CSJ).
• A semiannual multidisciplinary journal addressing issues of psychological manipulation of interest to scholars and readers of all types.
•  

Reports

• Cults, a special report of the Congressional Quarterly Researcher.
  This report is a thorough and balanced popular presentation of the issue.

Video Tapes

• After the Cult: Recovering Together.
  In this 25-minute video, ten ex-cult members share their moving and dramatic personal stories, tell how they have moved on with their lives, and suggest strategies for facing the future.

• Cults Saying No Under Pressure.
• A 29-minute preventive education video hosted and narrated by Charlton Heston, this video was co-developed by ICEP and the InService Video Network of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.