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Youth 411: Youth in the NewsVolume 1, No. 4, October 15-31, 2006 Contents STATE WATCH
RESEARCH
GOVERNMENT
ARTICLES MICHIGAN Michigan's CCC camps have disappeared, but sites can occasionally be found, some marked only by a rough wooden DNR sign and cement sidewalks such as at the former Camp Wolverine east of Petoskey, another by a museum and bronze statue such as one near Higgins Lake. Part of their presentation revolved around the concept that “nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come again.”
MERRILL LYNCH Merrill Lynch, one of America's biggest financial management and advisory organizations, announced Wednesday that it is allocating a total of $4.2 million in grants to 20 non-profit organizations that are "leading the way to brighter futures for youth in California." Nine northern California organizations received $2.1 million, including a UC Berkeley SAGE group that works with students from diverse and low-income backgrounds to help them develop their professional and leadership skills low. Merrill Lynch's grants program is an "important opportunity to generate positive returns for our community," said Riley Etheridge, regional managing director of Merrill Lynch in northern California. "The investment and the development of young people is our hope that it leads to great returns both for them and the community" in which they live and produce. One of the main issues Merrill Lynch is concerned with, representatives who attended the announcement said, is the average citizen's ignorance in financial planning. "One area that requires increasing involvement of all of us is the area of financial education," Etheridge said in a press conference in the San Francisco city hall, where he announced the grants. "Our children know very well how to spend money, but they don't know how to manage an investment." The UC Berkeley program, SAGE, runs a program to teach financial literacy to high school students and "help them plan their financial life," said Azucena Flores, 21, a graduate student at UC Berkeley. It is important to have knowledge in how to manage money issues because "it is like a domino effect," Flores said, "if more students learned about it, that means more people going back home and teaching parents. They all benefit at the end." Surveys showed that 45% of college students already have credit card debt by the time they graduate, said Etheridge, the regional managing director from Merrill Lynch. In California, the program has resulted in nearly $1 billion in grants, loans, and investments in California over the last two years, he said. Representatives of the nine northern California non-profit organizations that received the grants were among the attendees, including Greenlining Institute and BUILD. Greenlining Institute, a statewide organization, said that it will manage a seven-day High School Summer Camp in which participants will learn "valuable skills in problem solving, teamwork, and critical thinking, and apply hose skills to helping their community." The grant "will help the community to make available more opportunities to everybody," said Anthony Delgadillo-Diaz, 15, a member of the organization and Berkley High student. "They teach us how to manage our time and thoughts." In his address to the audience, he told the story of learning at Greenlining summer camp that one hospital bed costs up to $1 million. "I was like ‘wow. $1 million can buy two houses.' " Summer programs and financial education are increasingly becoming popular among the youth, many said Wednesday. One is Cindy Oseguera, a 17-year-old from Palo Alto. A senior at Menlo-Atherton High School, she already has a business to run. Oseguera joined the San Francisco based Business United in Investing, Lending and Development or BUILD, which also received a grant Wednesday, because she "was always interested in business. I started knowing nothing about it and I am leaving it knowing everything." Three years ago, Oseguera and three other friends began a project that developed WOW, a company that produces and sells Lip balm. BUILD has "helped me and other students to know what we want to do after school," said Oseguera, "it helped us to have a plan for the future. It is just as an advisor." It is part of a "broader Merrill Lynch efforts to motive the economic development in the state," Etheridge said, and by educating the youth in financial manners, they will be "the business leaders and entrepreneurs [and] help drive the California economy in the future."
ALASKA The social dynamics also have changed. Where before teenagers might have dated widely and explored different personalities, some teenagers are getting more serious, forming intense relationships that can be sweet and harmless — or dangerous and unhealthy. Sometimes partners can become controlling and abusive. Jealousy can turn from insecurity to anger. The behavior can lead to partner violence, even sexual assault. Young people new to dating may not know how to set limits or how to get help when a relationship goes bad. Some youth even see date rape as a rite of passage. “Nobody has the high road on this. Anybody can be in a relationship when someone takes the power and control away,” said Jill Lush, an advocate at South Peninsula Haven House. Under a grant from the Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Haven House has hired Lush to help youth educate other youth about these issues. Just as technology has changed dating behavior, the project will use new tools, with the end result being a DVD video written, acted, filmed and edited by youth. The Homer Foundation has provided a grant for video equipment. “It’s education delivered through adults facilitating, but what winds up happening is youth teach each other … coming up with a script — where they want to take it, however they want to train each other,” Lush said. Lush, 24, was born in Bethel, lived in Anchorage and grew up mostly in Colorado. She has a bachelor of social work degree from Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She worked as a provider at Community Mental Health before starting as an advocate at Haven House, first working one day a week and now full time. Part of Lush’s inspiration is “Let’s Talk About It,” a video made by Teens Acting Against Violence, a group of Bethel youth working to raise awareness about domestic violence, abuse and unhealthy relationships. Lush’s grant also looks at safety for Homer’s homeless and disenfranchised youth. Through programs like the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s Students in Transition program or the Child Advocacy Coalition of Homer, the community has become more aware of young people who don’t have permanent homes. Jennifer Reinhart, the district’s homeless-student liaison for the lower Kenai Peninsula, said about 10 children are in the Students in Transition program. That number only includes homeless youth enrolled in school and who have chosen to be in the program, she noted. Reinhart estimated about 20 to 25 young people ages 14 to 22 on the lower peninsula don’t have regular homes. They get off the streets by “couch surfing,” or staying with friends. That group can be particularly vulnerable, Lush said. In talking with homeless youth, advocates at Haven House hear stories they identify as sexual assault, but that the victims don’t see as inappropriate sexual behavior, such as getting drunk and having unwanted sex. Sometimes in return for a place to stay, youth are expected to submit to sex, she said. Reinhart said homeless youth get taken advantage of in other ways, such as giving up their permanent fund dividend payments or running drugs. “It puts kids in a compromised position,” she said. The Haven House grant will educate students in transition about domestic violence and sexual assault, and give them resources and refer them to agencies providing help. “Youth are an exposed, vulnerable population when there are no adults around,” Lush said. “Our goal is to say, ‘If this is the situation, how can you be safe?’” Lush also would like to have homeless youth involved in peer-to-peer education and making the education video. “That’s going to be so awesome, and so empowering, too,” Reinhart said. “That’s who the kids are going to listen to. They’ll listen to each other.” However, the video develops, it will be driven by the youth involved. “I can pull on their strength, and the outcome will be pretty cool,” Lush said. Other programs under the grant include putting on four community based educational programs on intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Lush will train at least 10 youth as peer leaders. Lush has been getting help from others on things like video producing. “The more I talk about this around town — adults one-by-one are saying, ‘I have a film background.’ It’s crazy how artistic this town is,” she said.
CALIFORNIA On Monday, Unity Place Apartments opens with great expectations in San Jose, the first 24 units in Santa Clara County dedicated exclusively to young adults like Bell, 19, who have "aged out'' of foster care. It is a hidden population with abysmal statistics: Up to 40 percent statewide are homeless; 20 percent are incarcerated; 51 percent are unemployed. As Andre Chapman, executive director of Unity Care Group, likes to say of the state's broken foster care system: "We give them a `Get-into-Jail-Free' card when they walk out our door.'' Unity Care works with at-risk youth to provide everything from one-on-one therapy to job training skills. The non-profit agency acquired and renovated the apartments with city and county funds and a small bank loan. The total project cost $2 million, with $1.6 million from the city. "Without housing, they don't have that sense of stability where they can begin to get a job or go to school,'' Chapman said. "Without a roof over their head they can call home, they have no ability to transition to independence.'' Community groups like Unity Care are finally starting to get meaningful state support. This year, California legislators more than tripled the budget for affordable housing and supportive services for homeless former foster youth, from $1.3 million to $4.8 million. Proposition 1C on the November ballot would provide $50 million for programs for foster youth left homeless. Also, counties and cities are allocating millions of dollars for agencies to acquire properties to house emancipating youth on a permanent basis. The city of Santa Clara gave the Bill Wilson Center $3.5 million to purchase a 28-unit complex, and San Mateo County is working out the details with the city of South San Francisco to secure an apartment building. 80,000 in the system California has more than 80,000 youths in foster care with about 4,000 turning 18 each year. That's when the state stops payments to foster families and to agencies that have served as surrogate parents. At 18, kids become adults overnight and are cut loose from the system. "The transition can be very stark,'' said Amy Lemley, policy director for the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes. "We put all their belongings in a big black garbage bag and wish them well. It's not even good economic policy.'' One widely cited statistic puts as many as 50 percent of former foster youth becoming homeless within the first 18 months of emancipation. Bell was living that statistic. "It was a nightmare,'' he said. "I'm a person that likes to be clean, but I couldn't. I had nowhere to take a shower.'' Born in East Palo Alto to a drug-addicted mother, Bell and his older brother were taken in by Jennie and Edward White, a retired couple who lived in Seaside, near Monterey. "They raised me my whole life. I love them with my whole heart,'' Bell said. "They taught me so well, I never even put a cigarette to my mouth.'' But then, at 17, he got his girlfriend pregnant. "I was young,'' Bell said. "People make mistakes in life.'' The Whites asked him to move out. "I couldn't raise a father,'' Jennie White, 66, said. "He had just grown into manhood and I wasn't ready to deal with that. It's hard to tell a grown person what to do or what not to do when he was already a father.'' Bell moved into a group home in San Francisco. When he turned 18 in April of 2005, he stopped being a ward of the state. What followed was a period of "couch-surfing,'' from sofa to sofa in different friends' homes. Time of transition Eventually, Bell landed in San Jose with Unity Care this spring. Because he was homeless, he was eligible to stay at one of its transitional group homes, sharing a three-bedroom house with four other young men. A requirement was that he find work, which he did as a basketball coach at Luther Burbank School in San Jose. He pays $326 of his income toward rent. He attends community college. Now Bell is eager for an apartment of his own. Unity's transitional homes have a maximum two-year-stay restriction, while Unity's new apartments -- and those being developed in San Mateo County and Santa Clara -- are meant to be more permanent, which isn't to say forever. "We help them get on their feet, get more education and a higher paying job,'' said Monalisa DiAngelo of Unity Care. The whole goal is to "move them out and bring in other kids.'' At Unity Place, Bell will pay rent on a sliding scale, from $250 to $500 a month. He will continue to meet with the counselors who have been mentoring him. "They're like older brothers to me,'' Bell said. "Every day I mess up; every day they give me a little speech to motivate me.'' Eventually, Bell would like to live in a place that can accommodate his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter, whom they named Desteny Nicole Bell.
CHAPEL HILL Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will study middle school students to determine if changes in schools can lower risk factors for type 2 diabetes. The HEALTHY study will enroll thousands of sixth graders in 42 middle schools throughout the United States, six of which are in N.C. Participating schools will be randomly assigned two groups: one that implements more physical activity, offers healthier foods and teaches students about healthy behaviors, and one that offers food choices and activity programs typical of U.S. middle schools. While there are no national data on the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in youth, clinics around the country are reporting that more young people, especially from minority groups, are developing the disease. After 2½ years, students from all groups will be tested for diabetes risk factors such as blood levels of glucose, insulin and lipids (cholesterol). Their fitness level, blood pressure, height, weight and waist circumference will also be recorded. In a pilot study, about half of eighth graders in 12 schools were overweight or at risk for overweight. Few had diabetes, but about 41 percent had abnormally high readings of fasting blood glucose, pointing to a much higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study is also being conducted by researchers at the Baylor University College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the University of California and George Washington University.
AMERICAN YOUTH POLICY FORUM College matters. Going to college, earning a degree, even taking college-level classes and earning college credits can make a large difference in family and societal outcomes. Fortunately, opportunities for high school students to access college-level courses are growing. The American Youth Policy Forum's (AYPF) latest publication "The College Ladder: Linking Secondary and Postsecondary Education for Success for All Students" profiles 22 different programs, schools, and policies that allow high schools to enroll in college-level courses and demonstrate that students who participate in these programs have better outcomes in terms of high school graduation and success in college. Secondary-Postsecondary Learning Options (SPLOs), AYPF's term to describe the diversity of these programs, include Advanced Placement (AP), dual enrollment, Tech Prep, middle and early college high schools, and partnerships between K-12 and higher education. The College Ladder focuses on SPLOs that serve first generation, low-income, and low-performing students and underrepresented minorities. Research demonstrates positive outcomes for SPLO participants, including increased high school test scores and high school graduation rates, more students attending postsecondary education following high school graduation, and decreased need for remedial coursework among student participants upon matriculation to higher education. In addition to providing profiles of exemplary SPLOs and their most effective practices, The College Ladder addresses a number of important policy questions such as credit transferability, funding for these school-college partnerships, and equitable access to programs, particularly for low-income and low-achieving students. While SPLOs are part of the solution to making high schools more relevant and rigorous and increasing college-going rates, there are still many questions regarding their effectiveness and governance. The College Ladder not only calls for more research of these programs, but also provides lessons learned from effective programs in the field. ABOUT AYPF The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization based in Washington, DC, provides learning opportunities for policy leaders, practitioners, and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels. "The College Ladder: Linking Secondary and Postsecondary Education for Success for All Students" was funded by Lumina Foundation for Education. A copy of the report is available at: http://www.aypf.org/publications
ALASKA In the ongoing effort to curb youth violence and gang activity in Anchorage, Mayor Mark Begich outlined a series of steps to fight the crimes, ranging from ankle bracelets for known gang members to improving data sharing between the Alaska Court System and the Anchorage Police Department.
CONNECTICUT
A pilot program intended to help at-risk youths is being given a trial run in the local probate judge's office. The committee is expected to present its recommendations in time for the 2007 legislative session. He called her selection "an excellent choice for this task force," and said that "her breadth of knowledge and experience will benefit the group's work from the beginning."
PENNSYLVANIA Officials from businesses, nonprofits and government agencies yesterday pledged to join in the effort to keep students in school and help those who have dropped out get into educational and training programs they need. The pledges came at the launch of a dropout-prevention campaign called Project U-Turn at the Liacouras Center and the release of a study showing 30,000 students left school between 2000 and 2005. The findings are a "call to action," said Paul Vallas, chief executive of the city's schools. Many in the audience, including mayoral candidate Michael A. Nutter and U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa), a potential candidate, signed a large poster pledging support for the Project U-Turn campaign. "This is not a time to point fingers," Tracee Hunt, vice president for human resources at the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and chair of the Philadelphia Youth Council, told community leaders, dropouts and their parents. "It's a time to take action. We're all in this together." David Fair, vice president of community impact at the United Way Southeastern Pennsylvania, said his agency hoped to make it possible for donors to target their charitable giving to programs that help youth, including efforts that help at-risk students in key transition years, including eighth grade. Julia Danzy, the city director of social services, said the city would join with the district and others "to change the tragedy that is happening to our youth." And State Rep. James Roebuck (D., Phila.) later said he had been working with the district to develop a legislative package of programs that could reduce the dropout rate statewide. "This is not an event," promised Laura Shubilla, president of the Philadelphia Youth Network, lead agency in the consortium that organized the campaign. "This is the beginning of a citywide movement that will grow and gain momentum." Called the Philadelphia Youth Collaborative, the consortium includes the school district, local organizations, and city agencies. Yesterday it released reports describing the city's dropout problem and recommendations for solving it. The collaborative also held a daylong expo that provided counseling and information about educational and training programs for dropouts. Melissa Orner, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Youth Network, said young men and women had lined up outside the Liacouras Center before the doors opened. By 5:30 p.m., she said, 200 had attended and some signed up for diploma and high school equivalency programs with vacancies. The dropout report, prepared by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, tracked individual district students from 2000 to 2005 using school and social service data collected by the University of Pennsylvania to paint an unprecedented portrait of dropouts. Among other things, they found that between 48 and 54 percent of students who began ninth grade between 2000 and 2005 graduated on time. The rates improved to between 61 percent and 63 percent after six years. The rest dropped out without earning diplomas. In all, 30,000 students dropped out of the city's public schools between 2000 and 2005, they said. The researchers also found warning signs indicating that a student could become a dropout. For example, they said eighth graders who attend school less than 80 percent of the time and fail either English or math have a 75 percent probability of dropping out of high school. Intervening at that time, they said, could keep those students on track. Vallas said the district had already begun to pilot promising alternative education programs. Next month it will open a small alternative program for at-risk eighth graders that will focus on boosting their math and English skills. But he said the district would need broad support to obtain city, state and federal money to expand the programs to serve all the students who need them. He did not specify an amount. "There is an emergency here," he said. "What we need to do is take this report and move forward with an action plan."
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