Lifetime Partners with Big Brothers Big Sisters on New Reality Series TEEN TROUBLE, 12/28

The all-new gritty unscripted series, Teen Trouble, premiers December 28 on Lifetime, with a national campaign to support Big Brothers Big Sisters, a program proven to change the odds for youth who face adversity. Behavior specialist and Teen Trouble host Josh Shipp is a former "Little Brother" who credits his mentor, Gary, for helping him through his troubled teen years, which were scarred by childhood abandonment, addiction, abuse and depression.

The gripping hour-long series, which premiers Friday, December 28, at 10 PM ET/PT, follows Shipp as he embeds himself into the hidden lives of teens on dangerous, self-destructive paths -- drug and alcohol abuse, stealing from their families, and breaking the law. He helps desperate parents while confronting their out-of-control teens with what their future holds if they don't change -jail time, sleeping in a morgue and on the street with prostitutes, and stories just like their own that end in death. Shipp delivers positively reinforcing action plans and introduces troubled teens and their parents to others who've successfully overcome similar challenges.

A Lifetime Twitter promotion will encourage fans to become Big Brothers Big Sisters donors. For every @BBBSA RT of @LifetimeTV #TeenTrouble premieres 12/28, Lifetime will donate $1 (up to $15,000) to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Lifetime has also produced public service announcements (PSAs) featuring Shipp that aim to help Big Brothers Big Sisters raise funds to carefully make and maintain meaningful mentoring matches; recruit more mentors, and encourage program alumni like Shipp to reconnect with the organization to help kids avoid teen trouble. The PSAs will run on Lifetime through the series run.

"Every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story," Shipp said.

On January 22 in Washington, DC, Lifetime will sponsor a VIP pre-event reception for Big Brothers Big Sisters' first national Juvenile Justice Forum (January 23), Mentoring Partners in Action: Successful Children and Safer Communities. Honoring program alumni, the reception will feature an exclusive announcement from special guest Grammy Award Winning artist EVE, and debut her soon-to-be released single, "Make it Out this Town." The overcoming-the-odds anthem will become part of Eve's fundraising efforts to support Big Brothers Big Sisters' work.

During the VIP event, Miss America 2012 Laura Kaeppeler, whose platform is Mentoring Children of Incarcerated Parents, and another former Little Brother, two-time Super Bowl Champion Darrin Smith , MBA, will preview the forum, where they will serve as hosts. Big Brothers Big Sisters' Mentoring Partners in Action: Successful Children and Safer Communities forum comes on the eve of MENTOR's national two-day 2012 summit, Mentoring Works: Inspire Achieve Advocate. This first-time National Juvenile Justice Mentoring forum will focus on how mentoring can help children like those featured in Teen Trouble -- youth who are at high-risk of delinquency because they have been incarcerated, are in foster care, or are truant/chronically absent.

To post a comment, you must register and login.