- The first recommendation and I think the most important recommendation from the youth programs group
- is that either the city or a joint city county commission be established for youth. We believe that
- there are a number of important initiatives that can be identified and that can be implemented over
- time, but without some coordinating force.
- to really identify and become, if you will, a clearinghouse for information and identifying and highlighting
- things to the public that we won't get the progress that we need. Mayor Fernandez has, in principle,
- agreed to this request. I think some of the county commissioners are enthusiastic. We want to hear what
- everyone has to say later today, but this Youth Commission
- as you'll hear later, is really a centerpiece in what we're proposing because we believe that there
- must be a way to help coordinate all of these diverse efforts throughout the community. And you'll see
- here, again, outlined in writing, a great deal of the rationale and how we feel that might be done.
- The next recommendation is for
- the gathering centers for youth, really. Again, a number of really excellent things being done. Rhinos
- is a very good example of something that is probably the best gathering place at the moment in the community,
- at least in the evenings, doing a number of things with computers,
- also creating an atmosphere where there is some adult supervision but the children don't feel as though
- they're imposed upon something they want to do. One of the notions that needs to be discussed is whether
- there should be an attempt to identify one youth center that would be comprehensive in scope and that
- would be able to house a variety of different activities or whether there should be a variety of
- well, multiple youth centers throughout the community, with the notion there being that no one youth
- center is going to appeal to everyone, and we need to get all of the different elements and interest
- groups with the youth. We are recommending, well, the evident question here is funding. And the key
- impediment to funding is certainly going to be
- as part of this process in the paper which is in the appendix here, asking for input from the community
- and asking to identify any possible location or locations for such a youth center or centers. Nothing
- has been forthcoming yet, but if the Youth Commission is enacted, the hope is that we can identify some
- real estate so that this can be
- But again, the notion here is very imperative that there must be a place after school in the evenings
- for youth to congregate, if at all possible. The next recommendation here is mentoring program coordination
- forums. Actually, it looks to me like the next one here is the parenting resource.
- master list that doesn't correspond to this. The parenting resource information distribution really
- has two aspects. The first is identifying the resources in the community and the second is then disseminating
- that data. The best resource so far that we have seen is the Sunrise Parenting Place Guide. Sunrise
- spent over a year and
- with two different people doing a lot of research, identifying for each different type of activity,
- all of the providers in our community, their phone numbers, a list of the services and the costs. This
- is all set forth here. It's been, there's quite a prestigious committee that has been on this and reviewed
- it. It is actually this commitment from Sunrise, the result of
- what I'll call a clarion call from by Telly and Farrow to recognize that gangs do exist here in Bloomington,
- that there is a youth problem, we can't be complacent. So Sunrise has really focused on this. The other
- aspect of this guide is for each of the different notions, whether it's gang involvement, senior care,
- latchkey children, there are a series of questions that each parent should ask themselves.
- We're not saying what the answers are, but these are the questions. So that if a parent has this type
- of problem in the home, they'll know what to do and where to go to have the right information given
- to them. There's also, well, this is the information, the best we can do. This will be on the web. This
- will be updated annually. We want to solicit additions to this database. So this is your baseline.
- Then how to disseminate it. There are a variety of ideas, one of which is to create parenting programs
- with local employers. The Sunrise parenting program is the best example. There's a brown bag lunch almost
- weekly on either wellness or a parenting issue. We purchased a variety of professionally made videos
- on drug abuse, on youth violence prevention. All of this need the prevention.
- not intervention, which is a little too late in many cases. And we've really tried to encourage that.
- I was a keynote speaker at the Chamber of Commerce two weeks ago, and we're trying to really get a lot
- of businesses in the community involved at a grassroots level in making this kind of information available.
- There will certainly be other ways to do that. This could certainly be improved. But we need to do something.
- The notion that it takes a village to raise a child is
- a correct notion, we believe. And the question, therefore, is ways to disseminate this type of data
- to the people that need it. We'll look forward to looking at other recommendations in that regard. The
- mentoring program coordination forums, there are currently over 30 mentoring programs here in Bloomington.
- And one of the things we tried to do with the youth programs was really understand
- different types of youth that we need to address as a community. It may be easier in many cases to help
- people who want to help themselves, but what we will call the at-risk youth are a different and special
- type of problem. Many things that need to be done, but mentoring, among others, is probably the single
- biggest thing that can be done to help many of these at-risk youth.
- And you'll see here a program or a list of suggestions to bring together the community and family resources
- to the department. And again, representatives from all of the different mentoring groups to really enter
- into a coordinated program. Wherever there are mentoring groups that have someone to follow up a social worker
- can really work to see if there's an effective dialogue being created between the big brother and the
- little brother, if you will. These are the ones that are the most successful. This is what we'd like
- to try to work with. The support piece for that is a coordinated mentoring training program. Because
- there are certain principles of mentoring that we really got to understand.
- And if we have a coordinated process of working with a different mentoring, then we believe that many
- of the people who are going to act as mentors can come together, receive a certain amount of training,
- which will make the whole process much, much, much more effective. So we feel that this is a very important
- plank, if you will, in the platform here. And again, really the notion
- later as we open this up to each of these recommendations. That's something we clearly need to ask.
- What else can we do for at-risk children? Community youth information boards. Again, the notion is many
- things are happening which are very, very positive. How do you disseminate that information? There are
- a number of recommendations here for the community youth information boards to act as one of the
- that particular information. We think that those can be used effectively at rhinos, malls, YMCA, city
- government, county government, school corporations, and selected downtown locations and of course involving
- the media. If we can make the youth aware in addition to the parents of all the resources that we have
- available here and what is happening, then we think we
- A youth exposition, same type of process. How do you disseminate information? How do you connect people?
- Last year we had the youth boozas and it was very successful. But the notion is to expand on this annual
- exposition and perhaps make it an even broader mission
- not only bring together all the crews that are involved with youth programs and facilitating youth issues,
- but you also bring together some of the prospective employers and make it a bit of a job spare. Again,
- the, for me, Perry Metz actually from IU here said something early on in this process that I thought
- was important. Many of the
- freshmen at Indiana University who don't follow through their freshman year or who ultimately drop out,
- do so probably because they haven't found some support group, some identity that helps them to really
- center themselves with the winds that buff a youth today. And I think those same issues need to be addressed
- for the high school youth as well, youth at all levels here.
- The attempt to disseminate a lot of this information, whether it's the youth centers, the expositions,
- or the bulletin boards, is a way to allow the youth to stimulate their imagination to see what else
- is happening here in the community and to try to connect in a meaningful way with others who have similar
- types of interests.
- Indiana University student group volunteer guide is again a way to try to connect the town down,
- if you will, to recognize that there are many resources at the university that can be tapped. This really
- exists. It's just a way of better focusing it and bringing it together.
- begin looking to inform them of the guide and the fact that there are resources at the university that
- need to be tapped. Here again a question of finding ways to better coordinate existing programs.
- A coordinated school volunteer program, there's really a wealth of resources available in our community
- of retired
- semi-retired adults who could provide a wealth of information and help to the schools. I think that
- Steve Blanchak-Rock mentioned something that struck home the other day, and that is that many of the
- things we're talking about are important not to be lost sight of, but the main
- Therefore, how can we promote a better dialogue between parents and the school? How can we make the
- school a more child-friendly and parent-print-friendly environment? The same notion was brought up in
- terms of precisely some of the at-risk children whose parents may not be in the best situation to deal
- with the school corporation, don't know how to get into
- know how to address it. They feel disenfranchised. How do we promote that? And the notion there is really
- to look at different ways in which we can make the school corporation or suggest that they become more
- user friendly. And that goes both to a volunteer program, which we give in different faces. And then
- I believe the next recommendation, which is to create some videos
- pages so that there could be more information disseminated about the school corporation, about its message,
- its mission, putting in the face of some of the administrators there, putting together guides that would
- be given out to the school children so that if there is a problem, at least the parents would have a
- variety of options in terms of trying to get
- rest I think is this the report and on me yeah the rest is the appendix which includes information about
- the youth survey that the committee conducted with 520 youth in the middle school and in the high schools
- in Bloomington as well as the Harmony school and also some of our research into youth commissions in
- other cities the let's see the editorial that Mike wrote and then some information about the Sunrise
- parenting guide
- we can give people a little bit of time to look over some of this data. Again, I wanted to go through
- very quickly an overview of the highlights of what we think are action plan items for more or less short
- or intermediate term implementation. I should also stress that we have in our notes probably at least
- 20 other ideas that we think
- have merit. But our recognition here is that without some social coordinating body and without some
- community support and in fact probably some charismatic leaders stepping forward who are interested
- in this type of function that many of these other ideas won't really come to the light of day. And so we
- go back again to the Youth Commission, the notion being that this would be something that could always
- celebrate success, encourage further improvement, as we look into other ideas that even go beyond the
- scope of what's here. So this scratches the surface a lot more to come. I think what we'd like to do
- next, then, is ask the question, and you can phrase it a couple of different ways, that Chuck Bonds
- are asked,
- Have we hit, well, have we made a mistake? Is there, first of all, I guess, is there anything on here
- that we feel shouldn't be on here? Have we missed the mark with any of these recommendations? Let's
- phrase the question all the way first. Do any of these seem like they would be problematic? No. The
- answer's no.
- I think the next question, the next two questions for me would be what have we missed that would be
- important to add? And what are the comments about each of these in terms of ranking them as priorities?
- Which would you prefer to go on first, Kathy? Maybe what we missed to start with. Let's start with what
- we've missed because we've
- How do you take the whole time reviewing these particular ideas? I'm not sure that we've missed it because
- I haven't read the entire report. But one of the things that we noticed in June's report is that the
- peer group is so influential. And how we deal with shaping or changing or redirection of the group
- or assisting a child, or saying to a child, get rid of all of your friends or pick new friends, which
- is sort of unrealistic, is very much of a challenge. So as we do this, I hope we will look at that factor,
- which as we know is a very important one. Maybe there are some activities where you could involve the
- group. And I just wanted to throw that in,
- Well, it seems, when I was looking at, and I think the survey is wonderful, I haven't had a chance to
- look at it, the survey of youth, because it's important to know what children think they need. And I
- noticed that one of the activities, and the one that has the charts on it, I don't know the page, I'm
- getting close to it. Page 39. I'm sorry? The charts, 39 and page 40. I noticed that sports ranks very high.
- And that's not only important because as a nation we seem to be so interested in sports, but it gives
- the young people an opportunity to demonstrate that they can excel in something and feel good about
- themselves. But it also can combine role modeling and mentoring if we take it very carefully because
- there's an awful lot that can be done, not just using sports, it's whatever the activities are. And
- generally speaking, the whole group of friends
- interested or could be interested in that same activity. So that's one way I think that we could approach
- it is trying to arrange activities around people's interests. It's sort of like getting people to read
- if they don't like to read and find out what they're interested in and give them a book about it and
- I'll have their reading skills improved. One statistic here that really floors me is that City Parks,
- that you only have nine people that use the City Parks.
- So when you think about the calendar purchasing plan recently, thinking about purchasing land for a
- park, and the city's parks, and the budgets that we have in those areas, and just to have nine kids
- who say they're using this. It's remarkable. They have to look at who was asked, and that's pretty much
- the older kids.
- Well, this was middle school and high school cross-sectional. But I mean, high school doesn't tend to
- do that. That's what I'm saying on middle school. That's what I'm saying. But what I think, and I have
- to probably go to something else in a minute. One of the things that has struck me very much,
- and unfortunately, we don't have it. We had five middle schools. We finally created an intramural between
- the five middle schools, grade four, five, six, grade four, five, six.
- positive because the kids could stay in our community, participate around, and whether it was, you know,
- baseball or soccer, I don't know, it doesn't matter what. And if sports is something they like, the
- high elementary ages and the middle schools is the most important place to get that started. And we're
- not doing much of that. Most of the kids who are participating are going somewhere, are on a team
- One of the big dilemmas that we had in this, and one of the issues if there's a youth commission, is
- precisely the extent to which you second-guess the MCCSC. Because there's a whole list of things that
- we talked about that could be implemented at the MCCSC level. Or it can be done with all three parks.
- You said you had to leave? Yes, I did. With this commission for youth that Michael's been talking about,
- one of the things, I'm not sure if it's actually written in the recommendations or not, some of the
- meetings was having it be somehow a combined county-city commission. It needs to be universal. We're
- going to be able to attract just MCCSE and Harmony Kids, but also originally being awesome. One of the
- questions is that dilute the power? We would like this commission to have status like planning commission, like
- missions that have some teeth and if it becomes a city-county thing does that dilute the potential?
- I mean, since it is from the youth committee's recommendation, it really is from the youth committee's
- recommendation. It would be nice to have an office for youth, and then have a commission that goes with
- that, and where that should be is something we can talk about, and if that is county-wide. But I think,
- for instance, an office for youth makes probably a budget attached to all that. A commission for youth
- doesn't need a budget, I mean, we're wide open.
- I don't know maybe at some point, but what we're trying to do right now is not have a bogged down with
- funding questions or legal and jangling questions. We want to get it established as soon as possible.
- The question is what steps we need to take to do that. We're better off just working with the city or
- we should look at the county.
- I think that there are a couple of them. I think your question needs a little bit of research because
- one of the things that the city and the county do together that I don't actually know any commissions
- that are city-county commissions. So what I would do,
- I think that from the point of view, just speaking for the youth programs group, that we'd like to see
- this, as Fox said, be the highest priority. And I know that Tom Fernandez is prepared
- important issue because this report and the report that was just given, the county report, the study
- on youth, all talk about coordination and cooperation and if we do not at somehow address working with
- the city and the county the concerns of the young people in Monroe County we have missed a golden opportunity.
- So however we structure it, I don't know the answer, but this is an opportunity that's going to slip
- through our hands and probably won't have again for quite some time. We do not somehow rather develop
- a program that is comprehensive enough to deal with children who come from Ellisville, who come from
- Steinsville, I think that's wherever it is, Gossport, that park in Monroe County, in the city or wherever,
- because we deal with
- These are all actuals. Well, I don't think that we can, I'm not prepared to make specifics, but I think
- the general question is how do we move forward in what type of timeline to put together a commission.
- And again, speaking with John in some meetings, he's very happy to make it a point.
- Well, I'm sorry, but it has to be county-wide, because if you're going to do something for the kids,
- you can't just do it for the city kids. Absolutely. Well, the city kids are county kids. Exactly.
- I mean, you can't separate them. He had the idea to get this started, and it was wonderful, and we wouldn't
- be sitting here today if Mayor Fernandez hadn't done it. But in any event, I think moving forward, I
- would guess,
- probably in different ways, a lot of different appropriations that just need to be reallocated and retained
- available. Because he's prepared to do something with the family and what's your department called?
- Community and family resources. Community and family resources. And that would have an office for it
- in that kind of setting. One of the comments that
- in the coordination with MCCSC and as an outsider just coming in and told it just strikes me as a really
- key part of this whole deal is from a taxpayer's point of view a large part of my money goes to Monroe
- County School Corporation and they have a huge amount of resources in terms of physical resources we're
- talking about finding a building for sports and your mural all of that stuff they have the
- me that getting them on this program on this commission is essential. Right. To avoid duplicating building
- another building. We've already built all these buildings. Well, the first step is probably as simple
- as getting the commissioners together, but then figuring out the role and the relationship there. The
- commission would establish a really incredible bully pulpit. And again, one of the notions being
- not just to follow through on certain ideas that we have, but to celebrate the successes that are there.
- And I think that's a message that we have to keep coming back to because there are a lot of successes.
- And making that public and making this in the forefront of everyone's mind, we see as an equal plank,
- if you will, of this commission.
- I think that the status, if you will, I hate to use that, of having a recognized commission, that something
- that can approach people with credibility and say, we would like for you to be involved. When I ask
- people in my neighborhood, go over to Highland Park and talk to the principal and ask if you could volunteer,
- they won't take that admission. But I really think that there was some way to touch the lives
- a tremendous need here. I don't want to belabor this, but your point about, and I don't know exactly
- how you said it, but there's an element of parents, I hate to say it, parents from dysfunctional families
- perhaps, who are intimidated by school. They won't even run in the front door. They won't walk in because
- they think they're too far removed from them. And it's up to
- dysfunctional family but I see the potential of a little boy and that's what it takes the closer you
- can get one-on-one small groups I think that's fine if I can get two or three kids together hard and
- work with fine but the closer you can get one-on-one again I'll be later
- week after week, I'm too stupid, I'm so stupid, and I said, don't just say that anymore, then he would
- slip and he broke himself for saying I'm stupid. And I went into that school once, I worked with him
- and I had done something, I said, boy, I'm really stupid, he said, you're not stupid.
- closer we can get to one-on-one. We agree. We got a chance. Couldn't agree more. Do you think involving
- seniors is an area that we've missed in these recommendations? Well, I know. It's actually one of the
- recommendations. I just know what my experience is with my neighbor. And it's like pulling teeth. And
- people retire, and they think, I'm not retired, but people think it's time for me now to enjoy life.
- And I try to, we're in a whole different
- We're not living in times like we were 30 years. Times have changed, and it's time for adults, I think,
- to get more involved in the lives of children. And we have that opportunity. When I was first matched
- up with this little boy, boy, I was really uncertain about this. But he and I are, I mean, we're really
- close, and that's what I want. Do you think that the notion then of a coordinated school volunteer program
- in particular
- I think there's a lot of wonderful things there. I mean, I think when I first sat down, I thought, well,
- the Youth Commission has, and so I heard discussion about, and saw the courts pulling this stuff together
- and giving it some pronounced credibility. So you're back to reinforcing the notion of the commission.
- I'm anxious to get down to parenting resources and things like that. I was on the school registering
- committee. When I hear people say, put those kids on the bus
- Presmont's in the university school. Personally, I think that's the worst possible thing you could do
- if you expect their parents to be involved in the school. The worst thing those parents would see on
- that school is university because they're just too far removed from it. Now, I'm not going to get in
- a big argument about it. Good choice. For 14 months, we beat our heads.
- But I think if we can reach, and we're going to have more and more low income people. We're going to
- have more and more disenfranchised parents and their children if we don't reach out and help them. And
- it's going to take people more sophisticated and educated to reach out to them if we care about them.
- Because they're too many of these people in public housing
- They're afraid of the official system. They're suspicious of activities of government or the school
- system or whatever. They don't know how to, they don't have the sophistication to do even some of the
- elementary things and maintaining. And we really, and this is difficult. I don't know quite how to impact
- my students' parents. But I really think I've made, got my foot in the door. Thank you.
- what you're seeing now of course it's a lot of our notion. Hi I'm Liz Isaacs and like Jim I wasn't on
- a committee a friend of mine told me about this and I've worked with adverse populations before. To
- touch on what Jim said do you think it would be a good idea to
- to also target some of the at-risk areas, whether it's Crestmont, Highland Park, or other areas to build
- that trust. I was involved with the Tenants Association up at Crestmont and the Family Center up there.
- And then it takes a long time to build trust
- And unfortunately, I was able to do that with some. But a lot of them, of the people of the Tenants
- Association, really, they want to see a change. And then they do care about their children. They may
- not know how to ask the questions or whatever. And maybe that's a way of doing it.
- do county-wide and all that. As Kathy summarized that right, targeting at-risk areas for mentoring or?
- Yeah, mentoring or parenting. I think it makes good sense to target with the volunteer programs in the
- schools, too, obviously. Right. You know what's important about what we've just heard?
- They talked about real people. The programs that we talk about are wonderful, but the people who are
- actually served, this is what is most important. If you don't mind, I'd like to share just one thing
- with you. I had a lady in juvenile court and we'd spent quite a bit of money trying to do something
- with her son who submitted a number of delinquent acts. And after about two years of trying to help
- her son, she came in and looked at me and said,
- The system has failed me. The system has failed me. And when I came down about 15 minutes later, I was
- absolutely livid. We'd done everything we could do. And then after I thought about it, she wasn't talking
- about the court. She wasn't talking just about the court. She was talking about her frustration with
- trying to deal with government official schools. And I'm sure she was talking about those things. So
- as we do this,
- As we talk about these programs, it's nice to put a face in there. I agree. Yeah, and talking to these
- people, regardless of their education or socioeconomic level, they'll tell you what's going on. And
- it's very important.
- You know, to listen. If we're going to be their voice or their ears or whatever. Yeah. Let's go back
- to the question we were on. What else have we missed? Anything else? I see several things here that
- are of use, good ideas. Anything else? Well, this isn't an idea, but then I
- I appreciate her remarks about the sports element, but also to reach children who are not, they're not
- in sports, and they feel the pressure of being left out. And I know this is very complicated because
- all emphasis is on sports. No, I know that, but no, no, but I'm saying, I saw this letter a few days ago from
- four or five little girls in Hyden Park talking about the Hyden Park Riding Club, the Hyden Park Riding
- Club. I think I know that school inside out, but I know I had a riding club. That's after school for
- children, I guess. And you know, we have to find some way to lift up children who aren't athletes also.
- They also have a right to lead. While we don't have it listed here, there are a variety of different ideas.
- we have that we think that you could follow along. No, I saw you. You had written, I think, sports-wise,
- other actions. But, I mean, a good example of that's Wonder Labs. I mean, we've spoken with them. We're
- trying to encourage a whole variety of programs at a multi-dimensional basis. Well, and then, doesn't
- the Arts Center offer a lot of diverse, like, arts programs for you?
- Exactly, Liz. I mean, what we said at the beginning, you've got all of these hundreds and thousands,
- in fact, of resources. It's getting the awareness out and trying to encourage involvement. It's also
- very low on the schedule. It's building more and more parks. Right. And I would also encourage people
- to look at the Mitigating At-Risk Situations Committee's report, because they focused a lot of their
- recommendations on youth. And they were specifically targeted to at-risk youth
- both elementary school and middle school youth. So there's a lot of overlap between these committees.
- And I think, you know, we can implement a lot of these recommendations together. Something that we might
- have missed was transportation problems that the kids have. Isn't it true that there's no city bus to
- Batchelor? And so this means students can't participate in campus school programs unless they have rides
- from their home? You're right. And also the city bus system shuts down.
- at an early time in the evening, so evening activities. I don't know where they're going. Kids are straining
- to write us all the time. OK. But to be realistic, they can get where they want to go. But I think we
- could increase. Yes, we can increase them to get where they maybe should be going. Exactly. But they
- can get there, believe me. And again, I wouldn't. Yes.
- Again, I would encourage you to look at the mitigating at risk situations, because we know this is a
- huge issue. And they did have one recommendation where they recommended looking at an alternative
- transportation network. That's a specific one. Yeah. That's the value of having a youth commission,
- because the little boy that I work with, he would not have been able to play
- automobile and we just left that off same thing redistricting people think people can run all over the
- community you can't if you don't have way to get there. Carl Salsman did mail this one on the head and
- there is a whole report in as Captain said in that one and this was one of his meetings. You're about
- to set that second name in the group's report. Anything else?
- Shall we then go back over the different ideas that we spoke about and talk about priorities, implementation,
- pluses and minuses of each of those? And we've got some people here. I wish he hadn't actually,
- but I mean, do we want to spend more time talking about the idea of the commission, Joyce? I mean, is
- this a proper forum to do that in, or should we just postpone that and let you
- John and others do that behind closed doors. I don't want to- We don't do anything behind closed doors.
- Well, I could say without the television cameras on, you're quite like that. No. I think everyone's
- interested in seeing that happen. I think we get so many commissions in the community that one thing
- we have to stay focused on is our goals and have some short-term goals so we can accomplish so that
- everyone feels like
- from my point of view just reiterate what I consider to be the bullets that stimulated this idea
- Unless we can raise community awareness, nothing happens. And the best way to do that is to celebrate
- success in a very, very prominent way and then correspondingly identify those problem areas which are
- susceptible to improved coordination, communication, and then action. And absent a way to effectively do that
- The notion is that all of these ideas may be great, but it's a moment in time, and they're lost. And
- the reality is that the commission is therefore a way to perpetuate a momentum. And without it, I will
- go on record, at least, since I don't have anything to lose, saying that we will have missed a golden
- opportunity, and we will fail at the community to achieve whatever level we could have otherwise achieved
- in terms of making the whole village support it to you. It's just my strong opinion.
- it was for this group and you'd mentioned earlier to come out with an actual timetable for this to make
- as part of our recommendation what the date is that we want this Youth Commission for Youth established
- by. That's where you're talking about these goals and if you don't set up those timelines and goals
- it's very easy all of a sudden three months are gone. I agree. I think that's exactly my choice. It's
- a choice that's been taken because I've been on enough
- committees throughout the years, that they have nothing against the ideas of the people involved, that
- they have these wonderful ideas about doing this new program, but they really don't think things out.
- They look at the whole picture instead of the short-term goals. If we're going to be realistic for this
- to work, we want to get it done in a timely manner, but we also wouldn't need to be realistic and thorough
- about it. Tony's point was a good one, when you really stop and think about this strip fair,
- Well, I think what we're hearing is the notion is, yes, we need it. I like the idea of establishing
- a timeline for any specific recommendations. Is the notion that it should be joint city-county? And
- is that a fair? I think it is. And what I hear in this group, and I just say it is because the city
- took leave. But we do have two townships and another school district, and they must be a part
- We agree. I mean, the only caveat with that would be if it delays the establishment of it, or if it
- dilutes the power of it. Well, fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. But let's assume that if there's a strong
- recommendation in the push that the powers that we can get together and solve that, because it should
- enhance it, not diminish it. What's a realistic time date, do you think? Do you have something like
- this? We can get a resolution.
- Well, then what we could ask for would be a resolution to implement it and then within a certain amount
- of time to determine the real mission because you're not going to be able to determine and agree on
- the mission within that period of time realistically.
- How about a resolution for the school system? What kind of time do you have? I mean, realistically,
- won't it take a couple of months even if it gets established in principle to determine the mission and
- the composition? Because it needs to be multidimensional. I was speaking of June and July 1st to have
- these resolutions so we know you can have it.
- I think June took a revolution to do it in principle, yes. And three months later to have a framework
- done. At least by September 1, it seems to me it's doable. And secondly, we've made a lot of movements
- toward city-county cooperation anyway. Right. In fact, it's very good. So remember that city and county
- budgets happened in the summer.
- Do we want to actually delegate any tasks? Well, I mean, I think I'm not sure what you have in mind.
- Well, I for one, along with Dr. Pizzo, I'm sure would be happy to put in some research on a cooperative
- youth commission between the city and county. So I'll say I'll work on that. I will research what we
- can do. We'll get started.
- with Dan Sherman and see if we can work up the resolution in the next couple weeks. I think that one
- of the things that we might do today is identify what we think is competition in that commission. I
- mean if there are any ideas this is a moment for community input because it does need
- I would also be a model commission that was in the appendix. And having a larger community of us, almost,
- is very good. Yeah, I would encourage everybody to look at the appendix. Karen Lanning, who's a graduate
- student in journalism, did a lot of research into different youth commissions around the country. And
- just kind of what membership they had, how they got their funding. And that's in, I think, the second
- appendix. So that's the starting point.
- 20,000. 20,000. Can we actually make a recommendation in terms of composition? It says on page eight,
- we're talking about commission 10 of 12 members with at least two to four places
- But we also would welcome any more input. We kept it pretty general. Well clearly the city and the county
- each need to appoint some members. I would recommend that someone from the juvenile justice area be
- appointed. I mean that's just my
- school systems obviously school systems gotta have some you know the city and the county you know with
- the county's youth services bureau and the city it within parks and recreation and their youth program
- bureau probably already have a process that we can work for the people who are dealing with youth directly
- I guess my main concern about this commission is that the people on the commission are
- deal with youth directly and that there are a large number of youth from areas of the city and county.
- Not just, you know, we go to Ellisville and we actively recruit, you know, we go into the schools and
- actively recruit kids and people from these different, you know, we're talking about at risk and at
- risk areas of town. Folks, every kid in this town is at risk. And every area of town is at risk.
- I see kids in trouble from every socioeconomic level and every geographic area here in town. If we're
- seriously going to get the community involved in this, we need to be able to get a nice comprehensive
- commission of everyone involved. Some of the children end up in the juvenile system and others do not. Exactly.
- I don't have a real strong feeling about this strength. I do have a strong feeling about the
- Youth Commission. My question is this. Would this commission be concerned with the recommendations?
- That's what I want to know. Which recommendations? The other recommendations we have. I know that one
- of the recommendations is to establish a Youth Commission and the others are programs
- So what would be the concern, in other words, what would be the concerns of the Youth Commission? And
- your research, what have they generally focused on? That's a really good question. This one seems to
- be really using youth and incorporating youth. An example I can think of is the city's art commission,
- which may have some artists on it and it may not. I'm not saying that I'm taking a position that it
- should be heavily populated with youth or not, but I think that really needs to be discussed.
- I think my feeling is that there's a minimum baseline and then for what the Commission would want to
- achieve and then after that there are a variety of things that would be optional depending on those
- actual grants of authority and funding because they go and you can't but I mean well I mean minimum to me is
- is to act as this coordinator of information, and then a disseminator of this bully pulpit. Does it
- sound like it's 50-50 years? I don't see it as 50-50 years. We're not suggesting. That's what this model
- is. We're not suggesting that at all. I think two to three is probably better than four, personally.
- I mean, that's just my opinion, although two to four was the consensus of the committee.
- out of 10 to 12. But I think if it's going to be 10, it needs to be two. If it's going to be 12,
- maybe four. But with almost every one of the things that we've talked about here, the Youth Commission
- could play a major role. Because they can be the ones that bring together the trainers for the mentoring.
- I mean, that training program really should be under the auspices, for example, of this Youth Commission.
- Yeah, and I think the Youth Commission is actually in the implementation plan of quite a bit of our
- recommendations, especially something like community youth information boards. If this is a clearinghouse
- for information, the Youth Commission should be a major force behind helping get this started. Michael,
- a lot of this also sounds like administrative work and data gathering and sorting, but it seems to me
- that if such a commission is really to establish its legitimacy and prominence in the community, it
- also needs to think about actually sponsoring programming.
- vision that is a role for it or not. For example, I could see the Youth Commission sponsoring the youth
- exposition that you described. Absolutely. And having a role in the identification, maybe even in the
- governance of some of these gathering places that you talk about. It needs to be, you know, posters,
- you know, with a big event sponsored by the City-County Commission on Youth. If you look at the details
- within each of the bullet points, you'll see that the Commission, as Kathy said, touches almost every one of
- The information boards, I mean, who's going to do it? I mean, if it's going to be done, it really needs
- to be done at that type of level. I think one of the reasons we have this community is having too many
- people. For instance, you have the Youth Services Bureau. You have all these things in place. And that
- deletes because you have so many different missions. One of the problems needs to be to sort out who's doing
- This umbrella fix. Yeah. We call that eliminating redundancy. And we couldn't agree more. Because I
- think the problem though, what amazed me as an outsider coming into this was the fact that there are
- so many different vested interests. And any time you suggest a bringing together or a consolidation,
- it rumbles feathers.
- And you know that much better than I. But what did I get burned a couple of times? So we'll just have
- to see what that means. But coordinating it, certainly, wherever you can eliminate redundancies, there
- are just so many ways. But one comprehensive training program for mentors, we think, is a very good
- way to eliminate lots of redundancies and establish a minimum criteria for mentoring.
- Is there someone from this commission who's going to the Phoenix project meeting this week? I don't
- know if we're aware of the Phoenix project. This is exactly what they're trying to do as well. In the
- five years that I've worked with youth in this community, I've seen maybe 10 of these kind of commissions
- or ad hoc committees trying to get together to coordinate. And then the minute someone talks about sharing
- resources or, God forbid, sharing funding, it breaks apart again. Right. John?
- You stepped in, so why don't we throw out the quicksand. One of the ideas that has come up again is
- the Youth Commission, which we've obviously discussed. And there's actually a recommendation that will
- come out that both the city and the county, by June, establish a joint resolution in principle to do
- it. And by September, with some of the frameworks involved, and I took the liberty of saying that you
- supported the idea in principle.
- we're in favor of either city but preferably City County. I think we could do a supporting resolution
- certainly by June July and then you know work together with the county over the summer to refine the
- mission statement administrative system is in the whole nine yards. I think that it's important that
- it is a City County initiative
- My only concern is making sure that wherever it's home is, is that it has the adequate resources to
- administer the initiative so that it doesn't fall by the wayside. And I'd certainly be willing to make
- sure that happens. If we can get the resolution in place prior to July as we go into our fiscal 98 budget
- process with the city council,
- we can make sure that the resources are there if it's going to be at the city. The only other comment
- though is I picked up on the end of Steve's comments about programming. I think sponsorship is different
- than program implementation and I'd be nervous about program implementation.
- because then the commission gets in a position where it's competing for limited resources with all the
- different service agencies. And that's something that the city, my administration is trying to get out
- of that process. We went through the whole evolution of our human resources division that started out
- as a coordinating group, a policy analysis group, a catalyst group, then sort of went off
- into the direction of direct program service implementation. And now we're trying to rein it back in
- so that we focus more on what Brad's talking about is pushing forward, you know, real from a policy
- side, trying to eliminate redundancy, trying to build capacity throughout the service provider network,
- but to help them and not compete with them. And I think the commission could really be helpful
- in benchmarking things, making sure that
- gaps are filled in helping agencies coordinate but not compete with them for resources. And that was
- something we definitely discussed in our committee and I think we came to the same conclusion that it
- would be good to sponsor programs but not provide programs because there's a lot of great programs already
- out there and there's no need to compete. How would this fit? Maybe I missed this discussion and you've
- already talked about applying them.
- with the recommendation last week on the juvenile justice group. It's almost exactly the same. Can this
- come together? Yes, very much so. I mean, there's the whole juvenile probation recommendations of last
- week's meeting that I think we probably would not want this group to get too heavily involved in. But
- it seems like there's potential synergy here that the missions might come together fairly closely. They do.
- The recommendation on the provision of programming during after schools is one that definitely addresses
- that in our report. That's the juvenile justice task force report. Parenting is recommended. They call
- it professional parenting, I believe. Coordination of mentoring services wasn't mentioned, but they
- do talk about that need that children have. Also, the report on the juvenile task force
- truancy program, which fits perfectly with the increase in adult participation and community support
- for the school. There was also the recommendation for a group, a group similar to the Youth Commission,
- it's not titled that way, but really to raise the consciousness level of the community. And in my view,
- what that group would be doing, and I think the Youth Commission could too, is not sponsor a particular
- program for people to do or not do something, but to
- sponsors, speakers, and workshops to address issues that young people have, drugs, alcohol, peer groups,
- whatever. I think it's a wonderful opportunity that came alive for us. And I don't see that much difference
- between those two groups. As we move forward then, in terms of refining mission and administration and
- all those kinds of items,
- the councils, city and county councils, the commissioners, mayor and the judges and the folks working
- on that juvenile justice project. We all get together and figure out the best way to do this so that
- it's supportive and synergistic and not do a lot of duplication. I think you're right and certainly
- I think that your leadership in getting this set up was really
- to undertake our project from the Criminal Justice Institute, we were able to get $20,000 from our council.
- And we're studying the same group of children. And we're talking about the same issues and problems.
- And it was just interesting that there was no coordination between the group that did our study and
- the committee that came out with this and how the recommendations are so similar. So I think we could
- really, the community,
- Listening to all of this and one of the questions we were focusing on John was composition. I'm going
- to make a proposal that would change the recommendation here. And if the committee would have,
- let's say, 10 or 12 members, what I would recommend to get broader participation of youth is a youth
- advisory board for the commission.
- and only one person who's selected by that youth advisory board sit on the commission. So you had one
- youth that represented a broad diversity of youth opinion so that they would, that the function of the
- youth representative being to communicate and then build an opinion and then represent that. Otherwise,
- I think you do a disservice to getting a broad cross section of youth involvement. It's just a notion.
- but it speaks to what we're trying to do. What it was like, I know, was last year or two years ago,
- where they had the youth summit. A couple of years ago, in response to the stuff at People's Park and
- other issues that youth were related, they were, from parents of youth that were involved,
- the feedback that I got that it was a very positive experience, regardless of the outcome or whatever,
- because they got a chance to speak. So I think it's a very idea to get, you know, to have a youth advisory
- board. With one representative? Yeah, yeah. Any other way, Ms. Linder, one that you're cross-sectioning
- to? Right. And like perhaps inverted?
- some of the other aspects of the commission. So. Well, maybe two. Just because it's hard to talk when
- you're young. It's just hard to talk in a group. If there's one young person in this group, it would
- be very hard for them to speak up. That's true. And so it's a little kinder to have two. Kind word.
- As far as some of the other composition of the commission,
- sense to make sure that it includes, and here I'm unfamiliar with what programs exist, but for example
- use services board. Wouldn't it make sense for that person to be on the Commission rather than people
- spend even more time hearing the reports from the Commission and then having to answer back and to really
- actually get the people who are already involved in providing the services and involved to make this,
- get them on the Commission to start with.
- I just wanted to say one other thing about the school thing. This is going way back.
- I certainly agree that the school should be really, really involved. But in terms of their facilities
- for activities, I know that their gymnasiums are overbooked now. So we really can't look at that as
- a place for activities, because there's so many, you know. Well, that's the point, though. That's the
- exact point. There's so much overbooking. There's so much overlap. Nobody's taking control of that and
- trying to coordinate that. So if the schools were actually very involved with this commission and say,
- OK, we're going to have this much program, and we're going to do this on the other,
- I'm only talking in terms of space. Don't look there for space. Because their gyms are highly utilized.
- What are you talking about for gyms? The rest of the space is very, very underutilized. What schools
- are you speaking of? According to Parks and Rec, they say that they can have fun because they come to us
- Are we assuming that the schools are permitting people to use their facilities? Oh, yeah. We are. Yes.
- Yes. Well, the Boys Club, Girls Club, Parks and Rec, definitely. Boys Club, Parks and Rec, definitely.
- I remain unconvinced. I was simply addressing space needs. I understand. Well, I think an interesting
- point is kind of coming in all this, is that we really need the support and cooperation of the school systems.
- Not just lip service to it. So many of the issues in here as far as parenting skills and daycare and
- so much of society is looking to the school as daycare and all these other things that we don't have.
- Our parenting skills have diminished and we look to schools more and more to fill a role that they aren't
- designed to fill. What I'd really like to say
- table or set aside the Youth Commission. Any other comments on any of the other ideas? Can I make one
- more about the Youth Commission? Just one more? I don't think that we've really decided that it's just
- City County. I think that we really need to decide whether it's going to be school systems too.
- As far as... Right. Well maybe they should be asked to pass a resolution. If they don't. If they're
- unwilling. If the school board are. Yeah. And maybe they won't.
- Well, again, my experience has been that there are a lot of turf wars going on, and I suspect that there
- will be one between the MCC and Syrian Commission. I think you can expect it. Who's driving the car?
- What's the say on that? I'm not going to argue, but I'm just saying it's kind of the point now that
- the school board needs to take an actor's role. I think the school administrator, I think the superintendent,
- by his participation, what I've seen is he deserves that. It's going to take the school board, and you're
- right. It is going to take that. It will be. Because to a certain extent, if someone's looking in an
- official capacity, it creates a watchdog. And you're going to second guess. Now they have to accept
- that proposition.
- one way or the other, if it's to exist, it seems to me. It's just to address the issue, and I think
- you make a good idea. I request a companion resolution from the MCCSA here. Can I have a comment about,
- very spunky, and I agree that the schools are probably have the right, not the right, but I agree that
- they probably express to you that it's not their job
- We all take these children as they come to us. And if children in our society have certain problems,
- then the institutions that serve those children will have to get busy about addressing those problems
- or asking for help. So it's time for us to stop merely mouthing about what we can't do because
- of dysfunctional families, because the children don't have this and don't have that. They are what they
- are. And they're here, and we must do something about it.
- recognize that we can't go back and teach the way we did in the 30s. I agree. And I think back to Rock's
- point, all the rest of this is fine, but the schools have the majority of the impact on the children.
- They have the facilities. They're there. The community needs to be able to reach in there and underutilize
- the solar system. And in the not too distant future, they will be parents of children. That's right.
- Right. And hopefully, the school system will be done as a resource. Let's not anticipate problems. Your
- watchdog thing.
- I think there's a certain concern about that, as a parent of an eighth grader. But hopefully they will
- see this as a resource. I think they will. But it's inevitable that the commission, if you're looking
- at youth, community youth issues, will want some of their resources. And there'll be a dialogue.
- I'm sorry, Perry. One thing that we did not discuss in our group
- think about it because of the survey. On page 41, if you look at the question six about participating
- in organized activities, 21% report that they go to church-related activity. And we did not talk about
- how to involve the churches in the community in this kind of effort. And I wonder if people think that
- there is some potential there for people who may not have been involved
- to try this avenue. Oh, yes. I think they're really important, and they ought to be involved. I met
- with the minister this week to talk about how we could do some of these things. His group is real interested
- in the whole disability initiatives as well as youth issues. But I think they're a very important part
- of the community structure. And we try to invite many of the churches
- through the Interfaith Council to participate in this process. We have participation on sort of off-again,
- on-again basis, but as we get into implementation, I think they're a very relevant part of the community
- to have master participants. And also, there's so many church schools these days. More and more parents
- are putting their children into private schools.
- Do we know how many people are homeschooled in Monroe County? No, we don't. And we not only do not know
- how many. Well, I shouldn't say that. I don't know the answer. We certainly do not know what kind of
- homeschooling they're getting. Well, one of the things acknowledged even by people who are
- fans of homeschooling is that the children tend to lose two things no matter how good it is.
- the socialization and laboratories because you can't have that at home. I wonder if we shouldn't also
- include under the religious aspect offering something for people who are homeschooling their children.
- And some do a great job too. Some do a very good job. You're right. That's a very big issue. But tied
- to homeschooling for some parents is truancy.
- Some parents withdraw their children from school when their children are short. So whatever we're talking
- about here, we have to talk about truancy. It is the greatest problem that we have in this community.
- Other than drugs. Any other comments on any of the other initiatives? Sorry to keep harking back to
- that. I think our time is up.
- I think our time is up. I think we really hit the highlights and there's some very good ideas here.
- Thank you all.