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In this issue:
Letter from the President and CEO
Partnering for Youth Violence Prevention
Donate to After-school Programs on Your DC Tax Return!
Now That the Snow is Gone, Summer is Just Around the Corner!
Lights, Camera, Action – The Trust Featured on New TV Show “School’s Out!”
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Letter from the President and CEO
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Ellen
London and Thandor Miller |
Everyone at the Trust is welcoming
the spring with great enthusiasm – not just putting the
blizzards behind us, but continuing to spread the word
about youth development as we get ready for summer
programs! We hosted the Citywide Summer Strategy
Session, launched an original show called “School’s
Out!” on DCTV, and brought a new focus to violence
prevention through an innovative community/police
partnership.
As always, the Trust staff is leading the way for this
work with innovation and dedication. Let me introduce
you to a long-time staff member at the Trust: Thandor
Miller. You might call him the “gang whisperer.” Thandor
understands urban youth the way heart surgeons
understand the beating heart. Thandor trains the adults
in DC who work directly with young people: teachers,
after-school providers, police officers, counselors and
juvenile justice officers, among others. Almost four
years ago, he began offering his class “Navigating Youth
Culture” to help bridge an understanding about the young
people joining crews and gangs. Since then, he has
taught hundreds of youth workers to unlock the mysteries
of urban youth behavior. He teaches the adults in the
teenagers’ lives to be understanding, undaunted, caring
and never condescending. The end result: Youth who feel
respected in turn respect adults – and rules. Even those
in gangs. Recently, The Washington Post profiled
Thandor and his work.
To read the story, click
here.
For more information about our DC BEST training, click
here.
We are busily planning for a
great summer with our agency partners, and are so
pleased to welcome Kathy Lally as the new Director of
Out-of-School Time at DCPS! Thank you for your continued
interest in our work.
Sincerely,
Ellen London, Interim President and CEO
Partnering for Youth Violence Prevention
Last year the Trust funded the work of the Citywide
Coordinating Council for Youth Violence Prevention (CCCYVP)
by granting $1 million from the District to support
three nonprofit organizations: the Columbia Heights
Shaw Family Support Collaborative, East of the River
Clergy, Police, Community Partnership and
Peaceoholics. The community-based organizations
worked together to identify the various gangs and
crews in DC neighborhoods and their members –
enabling agencies and youth workers to determine
both likely aggressors and victims.
This year, the Trust is more directly managing the
District’s $1 million investment in the initaitive after
determining that an outside group could better support
the CCCYVP. “The partners still drive this council,”
says Ram Uppuluri, the Trust’s new vice-president of
partnerships and policy. “But now we manage the funds
for the partnership, distributing them appropriately and
accountably to serve the objectives that the partners
themselves agree to.”
The Trust assists the council by funding a CCCYVP
coordinator, who drew up separate grant agreements for
the three partners. “We make sure the work plans are
clear, and that we’re meeting the needs of the
grantees,” Uppuluri says. The CCCYVP’s ultimate goal,
championed early on by City Councilmember Jim Graham, is
to reduce youth violence not by punitive measures, but
by reaching young people where they are and intervening
in their lives in a positive way.
The model involves three steps: targeted outreach,
engagement and case management.“If someone is shot, for
instance,” Uppuluri says, “you intervene right away,
aggressively, engaging the kids that you know to be
at-risk of committing a subsequent violent act. We
assess their needs and then refer them to appropriate
case management services.” Many times what is needed is
simply “stability,” he says, or mental health or
substance abuse counseling.
“There’s a real positive movement in this country away
from a punitive juvenile justice system to a system
based on rehabilitation,” Uppuluri says. “When you can
identify the most at-risk youth, and you have
partnerships with credible youth organizations who can
work with them, then you can connect those young people
and their needs in a way that is really appropriate to
the individual.”
In 2009, CCCYVP’s second year in existence, Uppuluri
says the District saw a 30-percent drop in youth
homicides, a year in which homicides generally declined
citywide. “We’re driving hard to keep pushing those
numbers down in 2010,” says Uppuluri.
Donate to After-school Programs on your DC Tax Return!
It's tax
season! Please help high-quality after-school
programs by making a contribution on your DC tax
return. Your contribution will help the Trust
provide quality services, supports and opportunities
for young people in DC.
Simply fill out line 9a on your D-40EZ or Schedule
U, Part II, line 2 on your D-40 with the amount you
would like to contribute to Public Fund for Drug
Prevention and Children at Risk. Help young people
make positive choices that lead to better outcomes.
For more information, contact Erica Toliver at
etoliver@cyitc.org or 202-939-1388.
Now That the Snow is Gone, Summer Is Just Around the Corner!
 Last
month, the Trust hosted the 2010 Citywide Summer
Strategy Session to brainstorm and coordinate summer
programming with the senior leadership of the DC Public
Schools, the Department of Parks and Recreation, DC
Public Library, the District Department of the
Environment, the Department of Employment Services, the
Metropolitan Police Department and about 30
community-based organizations. More than 100 people
spent the day discussing ways to keep DC youth engaged
and flourishing during the summer months. Participants
shared their expertise on a range of topics, including
engaging disconnected youth, nutrition and fitness,
older youth and employment and coordinating between
summer and after-school programs. The Trust and city
agencies are committed to pooling resources to create a
fun, productive summer for DC young people. Among the
new highlights for this summer: the District Department
of the Environment is expanding its program, with young
people helping older people with their front yards, and
the DC Public Library also is beginning a new
intergenerational program in which teenagers are
employed to read to younger children. Even the simplest
ideas had great support – plant a small vegetable garden
in June and kids will be engaged all summer with
delicious, healthy results!
Lights, Camera, Action – The Trust Featured on New TV Show “School’s Out!”
 The
Trust has launched a new partnership with the Public
Access Corporation of the District of Columbia (DCTV) to
showcase the best in after-school and summer programs.
The new show is called “School’s Out!” and airs on
Comcast 96, RCN 11 and Verizon Fios 28. Some of the
episodes showcase the youth developmental outcomes that
the Trust and its grantees want young people to acquire
– the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors that we want
young people to achieve to be healthy, caring and
responsible youth and adults. The first two shows
tackled two of those outcomes: “membership and
belonging” and “safety and structure.” There is also a
series of shows that provides support for providers as
they design and deliver out-of-school time (OST)
programming, such as infusing learning standards into
OST and ways to combat summer learning loss. Upcoming
topics include recruitment/retention strategies,
conflict resolution skills and community engagement.
Each show includes discussions with local providers,
highlighting the wonderful work being done in
neighborhoods across the District.
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