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Youth 411: Youth in the NewsVolume 1, Number 7, December 1-15, 2006 Contents STATE WATCH
ARTICLES NEW HAMPSHIRE The Makin' It Happen Violence Prevention Work Group is a group of service providers and organizations that looks at ways to prevent youth violence in the Manchester community. The class goal was to inform students that "violence is not cool" by designing a new logo, pledge posters, anti-violence school posters and bus posters, said Dr. Patricia Spirou, professor of advertising. The designs contain many messages regarding the cause and effects of violence. "The project promotes learning through active participation in service experiences," Spirou said. "It extends learning beyond the classroom and into the community."
They need work, said Chapel, a 17-year-old senior at Sacramento High School. But, for a variety of reasons, they often can't find it. Some of Chapel's friends don't know the right way to dress for an interview, or the appropriate way to speak to a potential employer. Some don't have many role models who make good money doing anything besides rapping or playing professional sports. And, as low-income teenagers in Oak Park, Chapel said, his peers face a lot of unfair assumptions by prospective employers. Chapel and other young people will join local officials and church leaders this evening to appeal to local businesses to start employing more teenagers from low-income neighborhoods. The initiative, sponsored by Sacramento Area Congregations Together, is part of the organization's effort to curb escalating youth violence in the region's poorest neighborhoods. Brian Heller De Leon, an organizer with the group, said the initial goal is to provide jobs for 150 young people ages 16 to 19 in Meadowview, Oak Park and Del Paso Heights. Churches in those communities will reach out to young people who traditionally have been unable to get jobs, connecting them with employers and community mentors. The group also is pressing local officials to use their contacts and resources to persuade employers to hire youth. Diane Hollins-Gunning, director of community outreach for All Nations Church in Oak Park, said the program also will offer young people the life skills necessary to hold down a job. That can mean anything from learning to write a résumé to choosing not to have a minute of rap music on their cell phone messages, she said. "They get discouraged because they never get hired," she said. Declining funding for youth employment programs is partially to blame for that, organizers said. In recent years, Christine Welsch has watched with concern as federal funding for teenage employment has dropped, and the incidence of youth violence has gone up. She said she believes the two are linked. Welsch, the work force development manager with the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency, said that in the late 1990s, her agency was able to help 1,200 young people find summer employment. Then, in 1998, the federal Workforce Investment Act eliminated subsidized summer employment, and the agency was able to serve far fewer youth. As federal funding has declined in subsequent years -- from nearly $3 million in 2000 to less than $2 million today -- Welsch said they are able to help even fewer young people find jobs. They currently serve about 400. Welsch said she embraces the initiative as a starting point. "We want to start small so we can do it right, get the employers on board, and make sure that we can find enough jobs for the young people that we're promising," she said. Nicole Asberry, a 17-year-old senior at Monterey Trail High School, said she'll be participating in today's meeting in part because she's been unable to find a job herself. But Asberry also worries about other young people she knows who've been caught up in the recent violence -- some have ended up in juvenile hall, others have dropped out of school. "I'm really hoping that this will be able to help somewhat reduce it, if not stop it," she said.
The Anchorage School District wants successful futures for its students, but poor choices can those futures short in big ways. Carol Comeau, the superintendent of ASD, said the five high school students arrested for their roles in an alleged gang-motivated home invasion are good examples of gang task force recommendations. The four 17-year-olds who are being treated as adults are also suspended from school and may have limited options for getting back into class. The youngest defendant, who is 16 years old and in detention at McLaughlin Youth Center, has better options. "We have a great education component here at McLaughlin Youth Center for those kids who get in a lot of trouble and end up here for rehabilitative services," said McLaughlin Youth Center superintendent Dean Williams. Meanwhile, kids who are suspended or expelled but are in less trouble are another story. "The problem and the gap is that we don't have anything in place to deal with those kids who are out of the regular school system but haven't gotten in so much trouble that they have ended up in a program here at McLaughlin Youth Center," Williams said. Last year, the school district expelled 46 seventh through 12th grade students. Fifteen failed out, while about 500 didn't show up. That adds up to a lot kids who, out of school, have borderline futures. "We should not have to have kids who do this kind of activity in our schools. But everybody agrees they shouldn't just be out on the street unsupervised," Comeau said. Policymakers say curbing gang and youth violence means intercepting that group of young people and turning their lives around. "The payoff is high if we can get even half of those kids back as functional kids and functional adults," Williams said. The solution, they say, is to get them the behavioral help they need and get them off the streets; then, get them back in school. At stake is not only their future, but community health as well. One challenge is many of the kids kicked out of school have needs beyond academics. They may have home, emotional or psychological problems that also require attention. The crucial gap is lack of a program that will intercept at-risk and out-of-school kids and address their full spectrum of needs. Currently, there are not any specific programs addressing these special needs for young people. McLaughlin Youth Center has 11 spaces for out-of-custody kids to attend classes at its facility; however, those spaces are often full and usually available on a referral basis only. The school district also has a continuation program for students suspended or expelled for drug or alcohol problems; however, that program is limited to non-violent offenders. That in-between group of students too violent for school but not criminals are getting left behind.
Such as: Will there be a youth prison in Swannanoa at all? A state report calls for an adult women’s prison to move onto the campus of the Swannanoa Valley Youth Development Center within months, and fully take over the campus by 2010. State juvenile-justice officials say they don’t know whether they will ask to save a corner of the campus for construction of a proposed new $7.4 million, 32-bed facility for juvenile criminals, or propose to build it elsewhere in Western North Carolina. Legislators disagree on the issue. They also line up on different sides of whether the new facility would need a police presence. Designs for the other 32-bed units being built across the state do not include police, but juvenile-justice Deputy Secretary Dwayne Patterson said it’s too soon to say whether the western center will follow suit. Swannanoa’s youth development center is the only one in the state with a police presence. Even there, the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention allowed the security force to lapse until a series of attacks by inmates on staff led legislators to step in. It also led to an ongoing probe by State Bureau of Investigation agents. The report they produce — which Sen. Ellie Kinnaird expects to come before the end of the year — could influence the answers to the questions that worry prison employees. Police needed? Some lawmakers are worried that the security renewed after this year’s attacks will be short-lived. Discussions with the juvenile department alarmed Hendersonville Republican Rep. Carolyn Justus and Sen. Tom Apodaca. “They said, ‘We don’t have guards in the new plan,’ Justus said. “And I said ‘Why?’ And they said, ‘Because this is therapeutic.’” The department is moving to a therapeutic model of juvenile imprisonment that seeks to rehabilitate the youthful offenders and to provide positive reinforcement instead of punishment for acting out. Rep. Phil Haire, D-Sylva, said police shouldn’t be needed in the proposed facility that, unlike the current one, would be loaded with security measures. It would have surveillance cameras, personal safety alarms for staff, sally-port entrances and electronic door locks, Patterson said. Juveniles would be separated into four wings, each with an isolation area. But those are no substitute for guards, said the wife of the teacher hurt in the most serious attack this year. “There is no way that a cottage tech or a court counselor or an instructor can handle every situation that arises with a juvenile in that facility. That’s ridiculous,” said Carolyn Donohue, whose husband Tom continues to recover at home from the beating that left him with brain damage. “They don’t want trained security people in there that are not under the department of juvenile justice,” she said, “because they cannot control them. And this department is about control.” Will juveniles move? Donohue suspects the department wants to move out of its troubled Swannanoa location and leave behind some of the employees who have questioned its security problems and leaked information to the media. Otherwise, she said, why would moving even be considered? “Why move them?” Donohue asked. “Why would this facility be moved to a different area of Western North Carolina when they already own this property, and buildings are there, and jobs are needed?” Haire, though, expects the prison to move. It needs a new area that lends itself to a therapeutic environment, he said. Either way, that decision may be years away. The women’s prison will begin moving onto the campus next year as the juvenile center retreats behind a security wall slated to start going up in January. The two prisons will share the land at first. Another unanswered question is what kind of young convicts will remain in the mountains once the transition is complete. The department wants the most aggressive students and those with the greatest mental-health concerns placed in separate units elsewhere in the state, Patterson said. That could reduce the danger in Swannanoa, since officials maintain a few juveniles are responsible for most of the attacks on staff. But the new philosophy of the department aims to arrange most prisoners not by the severity of their crimes, but by proximity to their homes. Apodaca is concerned that violent criminals and killers will continue to mix with boys who have committed less severe offenses. “They claim their ultimate goal is to keep them in their communities, in their areas,” he said. “Well, many times we don’t need these children in their areas.”
Known as "The Positive Place for Kids," the Clubs provide guidance- oriented character development programs on a daily basis for children, conducted by a full-time professional staff. Key Boys & Girls Club programs emphasize character and leadership development, education and career development, health and life skills, the arts, sports, fitness and recreation. "Boys & Girls Clubs, like this new one in Houston, offer hope and opportunity to millions of young people who would otherwise never have a chance to graduate high school, get a job, or be successful in life," says Roxanne Spillett, president, Boys & Girls Clubs of America. "Many Boys & Girls Club alumni credit the organization with literally saving their lives." The positive impact Boys & Girls Clubs make on the young people they serve focuses on providing a safe positive environment, where they can have fun while interacting with caring concerned adults - affording them meaningful opportunities to excel, and most importantly recognizing them for their achievement. In the last 10 years, BGCA has experienced phenomenal growth. With the opening of the 4000th Club, BGCA now serves some five million at-risk youth ages 6 - 18. Over the last 100 years, BGCA has helped more than 30 million at-risk youth realize their potential. The 4000th Club is one of two Youth Education Town Clubs (YET) in Houston built through a partnership between BGCA and the National Football League (NFL). The mission of the YET movement is to positively enhance educational opportunities for at-risk children. The NFL accomplishes this goal by providing funds and assistance to establish or supplement existing after- school facilities and services, including tutoring, mentoring, career training, computer education and access to sports programs. Many of today's NFL stars are former Boys & Girls Clubs members, including Steve Young, whose Forever Young Foundation funded the state-of-the-art technology center at this new Club. The Gap Between Hope and Opportunity BGCA has used its Centennial to review the state of America's young people and address their needs. The organization challenged teen members to survey their peers to determine their opinions about timely topics, including teen violence, the escalating dropout rate and racism. The result, The Youth Report to America (YRTA), sponsored by AMEX, is one of the largest surveys of teens by teens (46,000). The basic consensus: there is a growing gap between hope and opportunity among America's young people.
Innovative Programs Guide BGCA into the Next Century From its birth in 1906, BGCA has always changed with the times, adding new and relevant programs. That commitment means the creation of new and innovative programs that reflect changes in society. Earlier this year, Newsweek magazine presented BGCA with one of only 15 Giving Back Awards -- recognizing the organization for staying relevant by addressing the changing needs of at-risk youth. "Boys & Girls Clubs of America is committed to meeting the needs of at- risk youth ... not just today but for the next 100 years," says Spillett. New programs include technology initiatives that educate kids how to be safe online from sexual predators, diversity education efforts that teach the importance of tolerance in our multi-racial society, financial literacy training and career exploration programs. As the U.S. tops 300 million people, with a huge projected growth in the Latino population, BGCA has created new programs in response. The organization's Latino Outreach Initiative is providing new services specifically for Latino members and families. "We are so honored to serve as the hosting site for the 4000th Club grand opening. It gives us another great opportunity to serve and impact more youth," said John Havard, president & CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston. Alumni Success Stories Many famous Americans got their start at a Boys & Girls Clubs and credit it with giving their lives direction and purpose. Alumni include Denzel Washington, CNN's Bernie Shaw, Michael Jordan, Olympian Brooke Bennett, President Bill Clinton, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Ruben Studdard, American Idol, Martin Sheen, Neil Diamond, Jennifer Lopez, John Antioco, Chairman/CEO of Blockbuster, Kerri Washington, actress and many others. By the Numbers
After three public hearings on a proposed youth curfew that would keep kids under 18 inside after 10 p.m., an aldermanic committee of the whole met Wednesday to deliberate on how to proceed. They tabled the curfew, and focused on concrete ways to improve youth programming and parental involvement. Roman, a JROTC cadette and Hillhouse High School senior, said in just three lunch waves, he got half the student body to sign a petition against a proposal they say misses the true causes of youth violence: Parental involvement, lack of role models, and lack of youth programming. He and the JROTC gave a list of suggestions: Improve block watches, “help us find better role models,” and open empty buildings that could hold teen centers. “Whether or not we are for or against the curfew, it is clear to all of us that many, many interventions need to take place” to respond to youth’s needs amid a spike in teen gun violence, said co-chair Alderwoman Bitsie Clark, calling the meeting to order at a round table teeming with aldermanic colleagues. “It did create an atmosphere for a dialogue that has not happened in a while,” agreed Hill Alderman Jorge Perez. The group proceeded to work on a to-do list drafted by Clark and Beaver Hills Alderman Carl Goldfield, and weaving in the Black and Hispanic Caucus’s Year of the Youth proposal unveiled Monday. Suggestions included:
Shah suggested the city stop giving money to “top-heavy” non-profits and get a timeline for a comprehensive strategy. Clark responded the youth initiative had spurred expansion of the Youth @ Work program, as well as the summer’s open schools. Components of Perez’ comprehensive plan were welcomed at the meeting. Both sides came on board with a plan to take a field trip to visit model youth programs in NYC. Alderwoman Jackie James said the caucus plans to take a busload of 55 youth and adults at the end of January. Aldermen agreed to allocate parts of its to-do list, including a parental training component, to the board's committees. Then the committee of the whole would meet again next year to deliberate further action. Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks chimed in that an alternate form of the proposal could work, such as the one proposed by the junior police commission: To enforce the curfew through truancy officers, not beat cops. The curfew’s main proponent, Dwight Alderwoman Joyce Chen, could not attend the meeting because of a law school exam. She wrote in a letter: “Even though we may have differing ideas of how to tackle the problem, I think we all agree that something has to be done.” After the meeting, cadettes Manuel Roman and Denzel Jean were awarded student government pins for their involvement in the curfew debates.
CAR DEPENDENT NEIGHBORHOODS Children ages 12 to 17 in disconnected, spread-out neighborhoods -- where cars have virtually eliminated the need for walking -- weighed more than those who lived in dense neighborhoods with destinations nearby, according to research led by Reid Ewing, an associate professor at the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth. "This novel finding, that where you live can affect your weight, has been challenged, tested, and generally validated (in adults), but never for kids," Ewing said. The study, published online Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is the first national study of youth obesity and the built environment. Investigators tested the link between youth obesity and sprawling counties both longitudinally -- over a period of time -- and cross-sectionally, or at one point in time. The study builds on Ewing's original, and some say landmark, 2003 research, which showed that adults who lived in sprawling counties were more likely to be obese. Ewing and colleagues determine obesity through a measure of body mass index, or BMI, a common measure of body fat based on weight and height. For instance, in that study, Ewing and colleagues found an average adult in Geauga County in Ohio would likely weigh around 6 pounds more than a similar person in Manhattan. When the 2003 study came out, "one of the first questions I was asked was, 'How about kids?'" Ewing told United Press International. As the emphasis shifted from adult obesity to kids, this question became more compelling, he said. The rate of overweight adolescents 12 to 19 more than tripled since 1980, rising from 5 percent to about 17 percent. It's believed regional rates, especially in the South, are even higher. The popularity of computers, video games and a profusion of television programs have contributed to the rise. In Ewing and colleagues' study, the amount of time spent watching TV was a more robust predictor of overweight than anything else. Regardless of whether adolescents lived in a downtown city or in a distant suburb, they were heavier. Not surprisingly, he said, frequent exercisers weighed less. To investigate the association between sprawl and youth obesity, Ewing took data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a federal, ongoing effort to track the habits and lifestyles of young adults. The cross-sectional analysis showed adolescents were more than twice as likely to be overweight if they lived in a sprawling county as compared to a compact county. For instance, a 16-year-old male in Jackson County, Kan., had 2.8 times the odds of being obese than a comparable youth in Manhattan. Researchers relied on the same sprawl index as in 2003, which is based on factors such as the density of houses and connectivity of streets. When the adolescents were surveyed five years later, as young adults ranging from 18 to 23, the association remained. In order to make sure all the data were equal, the researchers corrected for age, gender, race, parental education and income. In fact, the relationship between higher BMI and sprawl in U.S. youth was stronger than the 2003 adult data. Even so, the level of significance -- or how valid the results were -- was smaller than in the 2003 study. That difference is due to the number of kids surveyed -- 9,000 -- versus 200,000 adults. When the researchers delved deeper into the 1997 youth data, they focused on how moving from sprawl to compact areas, and vice versa, might impact a child's weight. Here, Ewing and colleagues found no connection -- a "wrinkle in the results." But when Ewing scoured the data even further, he discovered adolescents who moved from sprawl into compact communities lost weight, and kids who went from compact areas into sprawl saw no change. Likewise, an association did not emerge in the longitudinal analysis. Ewing speculates the effects of living in sprawl might take longer to set in, and the researchers may not have captured them in year-to-year data. Such differences between data sets suggests researchers should follow people over time to get more nuanced and meaningful findings, said Dr. James Hill, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. Ewing and colleagues' research did "show some tantalizing data" of how the built environment impacts child obesity, said Hill, who also co-founded America on the Move, a national weight-gain-prevention initiative. The burgeoning focus on the built environment "is a ray of hope in an otherwise depressing situation," Hill said, and should stimulate more researchers to follow suit. Indeed, with the long-term burden of childhood obesity on public health, Ewing and colleagues agreed "there is a pressing need" for more research. Psychologist Jim Sallis, director of the Active Living Research Program at San Diego State University, said the explosion of research in the built-environment arena is "more than an interest, but almost a desperation to find ways of improving the obesity situation. People are really looking for data that would guide us to answers we could implement on a wide scale." Many experts feel drugs and surgery won't provide a long-lasting solution to the obesity quagmire -- rather, researchers need to investigate its core causes, such as neighborhood design. If U.S. cities and neighborhoods are preventing people from walking and biking for transportation, this has "tremendous relevance for society," said Sallis, whose Active Living program, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, tries to find creative solutions to re-integrate physical activity back into American life. Ewing and colleagues' study, as with all the research on obesity and community design, is still observational and unproven. Some of those doubtful of the link claim self-selection is at play -- that people choose what kind of neighborhood they want to live in. Does the desire to be physically fit, or conversely, the desire to be sedentary, drive housing decisions? "We've become fixated with the idea of self selection," Ewing said. "I don't buy the idea ... that heavy people self-select to live in sprawl." But he can believe the reverse -- that people who are fitter would opt for a compact environment, where they can walk and take public transit. In this sense, there's nothing wrong with self-selection: It encourages physical activity. Ewing also believes the United States is moving in the direction of more walkable environments. Lower crime rates in cities, an influx of immigrants and aging baby boomers wanting convenient access to shops and services are all pushing Americans downtown. There's even a change in the cultural value of cities, Ewing points out -- in many areas, urban is in, and suburban is out. Yet a disconnect still remains between the small supply of walkable, urban and dense communities, and those clamoring to live in such places. Eventually, housing developers will catch up to this demand, Ewing said. In the meantime, the tried-and-true technique for building more walkable neighborhoods is zoning for high-density and mixed-use areas. Other tools include putting urban-growth boundaries in place and raising the minimum level of density required for a development. Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told UPI a non-walkable society could have damaging repercussions down the road for the nation's health. "The built environment is an enormous public health opportunity," he said in May. "We don't know enough, but what we do know is enough to act."
In the study, 46 percent of teens with a mentor reported a high sense of self versus 25 percent of teens who did not identify a natural mentor in their life. Additionally, teens with mentors reported that they are significantly more likely than teens without mentors to challenge themselves by taking positive risks (38 percent versus 28 percent), such as joining an athletic team or volunteering to perform community service. Notably, more than half of teens (56 percent) say the absence of a mentor would negatively affect them. Natural mentoring occurs outside of a formal mentoring program that may match teens with a dedicated mentor. Natural mentors can include family members (such as parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents), other adults (such as teachers, guidance counselors, coaches, neighbors, clergy) and peers -- people who may have opportunities for interaction with some frequency. In one of the first concentrated studies on natural mentoring, more than 3,300 middle school and high school teens across the country were surveyed. The study also reveals that the breadth and depth of mentoring -- the number of mentors teens have or the range of topics teens can discuss with a mentor -- significantly influences decisions teens make around drinking, drug use, and sex. "This new research demonstrates that there are a whole host of opportunities for adults to influence teenagers outside of formal or planned mentoring programs," said Stephen Wallace, the chairman and chief executive officer of the national SADD organization who also has broad experience as a school psychologist and adolescent counselor. "We see this research as a call to action to adults who interact with teenagers -- either in their professions or in their daily routines. This research shows that adults who make extra efforts to connect with teenagers can have a profound impact in guiding our nation's youth." Teens' Sense of Self Higher With Mentor According to the study, 35 percent of teens with no mentor have a low sense of self (versus 12 percent of mentored teens). Teens Today research identifies sense of self as teens' self-evaluation on their progress in three key developmental areas: identity formation, independence, and peer relationships. High sense-of-self teens feel more positive about their own identity, growing independence, and relationships with peers than do teens with a low sense of self. They are also more likely to avoid alcohol and drug use. Teens struggling with those developmental areas, on the other hand, are more likely to drink, to use drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine, and to cite boredom and depression as reasons to have sex. They also note a greater susceptibility to peer pressure when making choices. Additionally, teens with mentors are significantly more likely than those without mentors to also report frequently feeling happy (94 percent versus 86 percent) and less likely to report regularly feeling depressed (24 percent versus 31 percent) or bored (66 percent versus 75 percent). Mentoring Influences Positive Risk-Taking Behavior The study reports that teens with no mentors are significantly more likely to shy away from positive risk-taking than are their mentored peers (51 percent versus 31 percent). Earlier Teens Today data reveals that teens who take positive risks (Risk Seekers) in their lives, their schools, and their communities are 20 percent more likely than teens who do not take positive risks (Risk Avoiders) to avoid alcohol and other drugs and 42 percent more likely to avoid drinking because of concerns about academic performance. Many of these teens are also more inclined to delay intimate sexual behavior. Breadth and Depth of Mentoring Has Bearing on Teen Decisions Around Drinking, Drugs and Sex The breadth and depth of the mentoring a young person receives also correlates strongly with decision-making. For example, teens who report high levels of mentoring -- those who can talk with a variety of people about a wide range of topics -- are significantly less likely than those who report low levels of mentoring to have driven a car under the influence of alcohol (13 percent versus 26 percent). And, among those teens who have reported using alcohol or marijuana, those with high levels of mentoring said initiation of such behavior was significantly later than did teens with no or low levels of mentoring. Additionally, those with a high level of mentoring took more positive risks (48 percent versus 29 percent), reported a higher sense of self (59 percent versus 36 percent), and reported lower levels of depression (21 percent versus 26 percent). Whom Do Teens Look to as Mentors? The Teens Today report reveals that teens rank family members, friends, teachers, counselors, and coaches among the most influential people in their lives. The characteristics young people tend to ascribe to them include trustworthy, caring, understanding, respectful, helpful, dependable, fun, compassionate, and responsible. Being a good listener and offering good advice were also seen as key skills of successful mentors. Tips for Parents to Facilitate Mentoring While parents clearly play the most influential mentoring role in the lives of their children, it is also clear that peers and other "significant" adults can, and do, affect important developmental outcomes. SADD and Liberty Mutual provide the following tips for parents to facilitate mentoring.
Study Methodology The Teens Today 2006 Study involved both qualitative and quantitative phases. The study was initiated with a series of 12 focus groups held in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and St. Louis conducted on successive evenings March 13- 15, 2006. The study also included a series of in-depth interviews (IDIs) with teens in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and St. Louis. The results of the focus groups were used to instruct development of the quantitative research, a self-administered survey conducted at 40 schools across the nation. The study involved a weighted total of 3,312 students overall to reflect a proportionate distribution of high school and middle school teens. The survey was administered in May and June 2006.
SCHOOL VIOLENCE The rate of serious violent crime –– rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault –– at the nation's schools fell from six victimizations per 1,000 students in 2003 to four per 1,000 in 2004, according to a new report by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. From July 1, 2004, through June 30, 2005, preliminary reports show there were 21 homicides at school. During the previous year, 19 homicides occurred at school, according to preliminary data. In the most recent school year for which overall homicide data were available (2003 to 2004), homicides of school age children were about 50 times more likely to occur away from school than at school. Serious violent victimization rates were lower at school than away from school for each survey year from 1992 through 2004. During the same time the violent crime rate at school dropped by 54 percent and thefts at school dropped by 65 percent. The violent crime rate went from 48 victimizations per 1,000 students 12 to 18 years old to 22 per 1,000 students. The theft rate dropped from 95 per 1,000 students in the same age group to 33 per 1,000. During 2004, younger students (those from 12 to 14 years old) were more likely than older students (15 to 18 years old) to be crime victims at school, whereas older students were more likely than younger students to be victims of crimes away from school. In 2005, 28 percent of students 12 to 18 years old reported being bullied at school during the six months prior to the survey. Of those students who reported being bullied, 24 percent reported that they had sustained an injury as a result of the incident. Among students in grades 9 through 12, 43 percent reported they drank alcohol at school or elsewhere and 4 percent reported drinking on school property during the 30 days prior to the 2005 survey. There were no measurable differences by grade levels of drinking alcohol on school property, but students in higher grades were more likely than students in lower grades to report drinking anywhere. While the rate of violent victimization continues to fall, other aspects of safety in schools have not shown short-term improvement. During 2005, 24 percent of students reported that there were gangs at their schools, a 3 percent increase from 2003 (21 percent). Other school behavior measures, such as fighting at school, carrying a weapon and drinking remain at their 2003 levels. Some indicators show student safety has improved over the past decade. Between 1995 and 2005, the percentage of students who reported avoiding one or more places in school declined from 9 percent to 4 percent. Fourteen percent of students surveyed in 2005 reported having been involved in a physical fight on school property during the past 12 months, compared with 16 percent in 1993. Between 1993 and 2005, the percentage of students in grades 9 through 12 who reported carrying a weapon to school in the preceding 30 days declined from 12 percent to 6 percent. The report, Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2006 (NCJ 214262), was written by BJS statistician Katrina Baum; Rachel Dinkes and Grace Kena, of the Education Statistics Services Institute in the American Institutes for Research; and Emily Forrest Cataldi, of MPR Associates, Inc. Following publication, the report can be found at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/iscs06.htm For additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics statistical reports programs, please visit the BJS Web site at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs.
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO There's good news for children growing up in bad neighborhoods in a comprehensive study led by nationally renowned University of Colorado at Boulder sociology Professor Delbert Elliott. The 8-year effort analyzing the successful development of children in different kinds of neighborhoods in Denver and Chicago found that children growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods were doing much better than expected. The rate of successful development for children from the best neighborhoods was 63 percent while the success rate for children living in high-poverty, disadvantaged neighborhoods was 52 percent. "There's an 11-point difference between our worst neighborhoods and our best neighborhoods," said Elliott, director of the CU-Boulder Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. "That's very surprising." "The idea that living in high-poverty, disorganized, disadvantaged neighborhoods is kind of a death sentence for kids is clearly not the case," he said. "We're getting kids coming out of those neighborhoods that are doing quite well." The examination of neighborhoods was one of four integrated studies launched by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Network on Successful Adolescent Development. The portion of the study conducted by Elliott and his colleagues looked at neighborhoods, while three other teams focused on family and school influences on development, and youth development in rural farming areas. The results were published this fall in "Goods Kids From Bad Neighborhoods" by Cambridge University Press. The study was co-authored by Scott Menard, Amanda Elliott and David Huizinga of the CU-Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science, William Julius Wilson of Harvard University and Bruce Rankin of Koc University in Turkey. The researchers used U.S. census data, personal interviews and focus groups to study 662 families and 820 youths age 10 to 18 from 33 neighborhoods in Denver, and 545 families and 830 youths from 40 neighborhoods in Chicago. Names of all neighborhoods in the study were changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants. Relatively little is known about how adolescents from disadvantaged neighborhoods overcome adversity, according to Elliott. While most other studies focus on crime, drugs and the dysfunctional behavior of youth in poor neighborhoods, this study focused on success: the factors that helped adolescents develop into healthy, productive, contributing citizens. In examining the combined effects of neighborhood, family, school and peer group, the researchers were surprised to find that "success in any one of those seemed to be able to buffer the kids from the negative effects of living in a bad neighborhood," Elliott said. This finding is "very encouraging" because it means that the conditions in all four contexts don't have to improve at once in order to make a difference in children's lives, he said. It also was somewhat surprising that the impact of each of these social contexts was fairly similar, although not identical, Elliott said. For positive youth development, the family and the school are the two most critical contexts. But for issues of delinquent behavior, drug use and early sexual activity, the critical context is the peer group. As expected, the family has a strong influence on the behavior of younger children but this influence wanes starting at about age 15 when the school and peer group gain in importance. The good news from this finding is that good family-based interventions are available for parents of younger children, he said. "We know that we can teach parents how to do a better job of parenting," Elliott said. "That's an intervention in disadvantaged, high-poverty neighborhoods that potentially can have a dramatic effect on youth development. The earlier we can do that the better, given this age effect that we see. You can't wait until kids are 16, 17, 18." Another key finding was that parents in disadvantaged neighborhoods are doing a pretty good job of parenting. The researchers didn't find that the quality of parenting was strongly related to the type of neighborhood. The tendency for poor parenting, bad schools and antisocial peer groups to cluster in bad neighborhoods was quite weak. When the difference in financial resources between poorer and wealthier neighborhoods was taken into account, "The quality of parenting was just as good and in some cases better than in more advantaged neighborhoods," Elliott said. The nature of the parenting was different, however. In disadvantaged neighborhoods, a lot of the parenting dealt with teaching children how to deal with the dangers in their neighborhoods -- the exposure to drugs, delinquency, crime and the dysfunctional behavior of some of the adults and teens who live there, he said. "A large part of the parenting practice issues for those parents had to do with ensuring the safety of their children," he said. One of the findings in the companion MacArthur study on families showed that trying to confine kids to the house in a dangerous neighborhood doesn't appear to be a good strategy because teenagers are too apt to sneak out to be with their peers. "There's such a need on the part of adolescents to be with their friends that if you don't provide positive social contexts for that to happen, it's going to happen anyway, and it's going to happen in some sort of context where you don't have good monitoring and supervision, and then you get some pretty negative outcomes," he said. A more effective strategy was for parents to get their children involved in after-school programs, church-related activities or athletics where there is adult monitoring and supervision. This strategy looked like it was "very, very effective," he said.
WISCONSIN Homeless kids living in motels, shelters, cars or tents have been a sad reality in the Baraboo School District for years, but with a new policy in place the School Board hopes to better identify — and serve — children and families in need of a home. The board had a first reading of their "Children and Youth in Transition" policy Monday night, a reflection of the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which identifies a homeless child by where he spends his nights and puts the burden on the school district to provide stability for the student ease access to education. "Right now we've probably identified 20 to 25 homeless kids already this year and we're just getting this thing in place," said Dave Ament, Director of Special Ed and Pupil Services and the new homeless liaison for the district. "It's a pretty big issue." The policy lays out obligations the district has been fulfilling for a number of years — providing free hot lunches to homeless kids and enrolling them even if they don't have medical records or transcripts — but it also states how the district will track its incidence of homelessness, an important step Ament said will bring awareness to the issue. "We think of homelessness as being a big city problem. It's not," he said. "I've served kids who lived at Devil's Lake in a tent for two months, people who lived in cars for the better part of a year… There's a lot more than we ever imagined, I think, as a community." Under the new policy, teachers or administrators who suspect a student is homeless will report it to Ament, who in turn serves as a liaison between the family and other agencies and ensures the child has all of his rights met under the law. At the end of the school year the district turns its numbers in to the Department of Public Instruction for a statewide report. The board will also post the policy at places where families in transition receive services, such as shelters, soup kitchens, motels, campgrounds and social service agencies. School Board member Patty Spragg, who chairs the Policy Committee that drafted the new rules, said putting it down in black and white validates the issue and makes clear what steps the district will take. "I don't think it's a huge problem, but we do have kids in transition," she said. "It's a policy that has a lot of implications." One of those implications is the transportation clause of McKinney-Vento, which states that if a child is now homeless in a new community, he has the right to receive transportation back to his "home school" — even if it's miles away and not on a bus route. This year the district is providing a cab ride to school for at least one student who is now considered homeless in another town, Spragg said. The law states that even if the family finds permanent housing in another district, the home district must continue providing transportation through the end of the academic year. "Basically it's all designed to get education to a kid without a lot of delay," Ament said. Having an official district policy may prevent delay on the part of staff as well, he said. "Everybody's busy, but when it's a board policy, it kind of moves up the list."
CALIFORNIA Heeding the pleas of teenagers to help curb underage drinking, California authorities Wednesday moved to raise taxes on sugary alcohol beverages and remove them from convenience stores.
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