HOUSTON -- A local author and educator is helping students develop socially, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.

Kelly Litvak caught up with students from Paul Revere Middle School who completed her Tools 4 Teens classroom program last year.

Tools 4 Teens is an eight-week program for children ages 13-18. Each session focuses on empowering children to make the right choices with issues like cyber bullying, healthy relationships and peer pressure.

Litvak said, "Every child wants to succeed, and if only they have the right person planting those seeds of hope to build that self esteem, they can redirect their life."

Throughout the program, a photographer snaps pictures of the children. Those photos are complied with words of wisdom from Litvak and journal entries from the teens themselves into a personalized, leather-bound handbook for life.

The senior director of the nonprofit organization Making It Better, Jacque Daughtry, encouraged Litvak to come to Paul Revere to work with selected students who needed a little extra attention.

Daughtry said that just before the holidays, the children received their personalized handbooks and "several of the kids carefully unwrapped them so they could re-wrap them and give them to their parents as a Christmas gift, so that was really sweet."

Eighth-grader Domonique Lewis said of the program, "It helps you a lot. Having someone to talk to was very nice to give you a different perspective on things."

She said she takes the tools with her every day.

Domonique explained, "(I) try to remember all the things that we talked about, to have focused in your mind what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do. Different things that we just talked about to help you remember and keep your mind focused."

Shaunta Brisco, 13, said the program taught him a much-needed lesson on responsibility.

Shaunta added, "If nobody guides you in your life, you just drift. When I first came (to the program), I was bad. I was hanging around, getting in trouble, like fights and stuff, but when I got there I was like, this is nice. I'm going to be good. I do good in school (now). I'm not the perfect student, but I try to be an A and B student."

Litvak said "I believe that science, math, history are all very important part of our education, but those life skills and character development is what is going to take us all the way through life."

Litvak has shared her Tools 4 Life books with schools, church groups and youth organizations. They are also available for individual sale as well.