President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize For Starting the Dialogue

Bill Wilson Center encourages youth to get involved in the community and to learn the art of “dialogue.”  The hardest part for many of the kids to learn is that  a dialogue also includes listening.  They often are so enthusiastic about a subject that they want to jump in to express their view.  On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult to get teens to talk about anything to adults!  Go figure.

It appears that everyone, including President Obama was surprised that he has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize so early in his presidency.  Perhaps it is a strong endorsement of the process of dialogue and inclusion — we don’t all agree but at least we can sit down and discuss matters of importance in a civil way.

According to  the Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

“He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts,” ElBaradei said.

I am struck by how difficult it has been recently to have civil dialogues — whether on health care reform or passing a state budget — no one wants to compromise.  I am working with a group of concerned leaders from the Silicon Valley American Leadership Forum to create opportunities for participative dialogue.  The Collaborative for the Common Good invites everyone from Silicon Valley to join in.

10 and 11 Year Old Kids Do Not Belong in Juvenile Hall

This past weekend a friend of mine was cleaning out her garage and came across an article written by J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, from the January 1955 edition of The American Magazine.  “You Can Help Stop Juvenile Crime”  urged readers to help stop the juvenile crime wave by returning to family values and religion.  He reported that one out of 18 youth between the ages of 15 and 17 were delinquent and if the trend continued there would be a huge population of delinquents in the 1960s.   I guess we all know what happened to those youth from the 60s!  I found the article interesting because the examples he gave of the delinquents were kids who were 13, 10 and even 9-years-old – very young kids.  He blamed the crime wave on the media for “debunking moral codes and standards of adult conduct.”

Yesterday I met with leaders from the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency and the Probation Department to discuss where very young offenders (under age 13) could be sent when home wasn’t an option and Juvenile Hall wasn’t appropriate.  The meeting was in response to a San Jose Mercury News  article that uncovered that a 10 year old was put in juvenile hall with his 11 and 12 year old siblings in February 2009 for 4 days for allegedly molesting a younger sibling.  The charges were later dropped but members of the County Board of Supervisors requested an alternative be put in place to prevent very young children being jailed with older offenders.  Bill Wilson Center works with young offenders and youth out of control (status offenders) so I volunteered to accept young offenders into our shelter and temporary foster homes.  Our goal is to reunite kids with their families and to provided needed services to prevent future delinquency.

Although juvenile crime rates are down substantially from the mid 90s there is much discussion lately that kids are committing more serious crimes at a younger age.  The Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention tracks the numbers of crimes and has studied this issue.  The crimes younger kids are committing follows the same crimes older kids are involved with so there is no unusual trend.  In fact, juvenile crime for all ages have decreased since 1995.

Bill Wilson Center’s philosophy is to treat kids in the least restrictive setting.  Our foster homes and shelter provide services in a home-like setting where kids get the family, individual and group counseling they need to make the successful transition back home.   Most kids do not need to be locked up in Juvenile Hall and would be better served in community programs that will involve the family and provide treatment.  Placing 10-year-old kids who commit crimes they don’t fully understand in an institution designed for holding youth who are a danger to society can only make matters worse.  92% of the youth graduating from our residential program do not commit new offenses.  We will continue to speak out for the kids who don’t have anywhere to turn to for help.

Good Kids Also Need Support From A Caring Adult

Yesterday I was sitting with a group of kids over at the Bill Wilson Center shelter filming some background shots for a short film about our services. Because we protect the identity of our shelter kids, we asked for volunteers to bring in their own kids to stand in for our clients. We were having a great time talking and shooting pool…I think I was winning, when too soon the group background filming was over. The last filming was to be a shot of me sitting and talking with one of the kids. To make the scene appear believable, I asked the girl how she was getting along with her mom these days. Suddenly I was listening to her story of how she wished she received more attention from her parents, who seemed to focus most of their time on her younger brother who was always in trouble.

At that moment, I realized how little time it takes to ask a young person how she is feeling, and then to just sit and listen. She wasn’t really expecting any answers from me – she just wanted someone to hear what she was saying. She was feeling invisible because she was the good kid who did not cause problems. At the end of the filming we got up and I gave her a hug and wished her luck.

The Search Institute has developed 40 assets that it believes all children need to thrive. Connecting to a caring adult other than a family member is one of the identified assets. Youth organizations and schools throughout the country have embraced the concept of kids needing protective “assets” to grow. This is one of Bill Wilson Center’s core values to connect all young people to the community so they can become productive adults.

Preventing Poverty While We Are Ending Poverty

Bill Wilson Center’s long-range vision is to prevent poverty.   Yesterday I was part of a discussion with other homeless housing providers on how we can end poverty in Santa Clara County.   Catholic Charities is launching an effort to reduce poverty in Santa Clara County by 50% by the year 2020.  Bill Wilson Center is part of this movement.  City of San Jose officials through the Destination: Home Program have committed to end chronic homelessness by funneling more resources to that population.  Both have joined forces to help end one of the more vexing problems in San Jose and Santa Clara County: getting the chronic homeless population into housing.

Bill Wilson Center provides supportive and housing services to homeless youth and youth aging out of foster care and other institutions.  By federal definition, this population does not fit the “chronic homeless” category.  Neither do seniors living on a fixed income at the poverty level, or women who are victims of domestic violence living in emergency shelters.  While nonprofit agencies serving these groups applaud the effort to end chronic homelessness they are concerned that limited resources may be redirected away from their services.  How do we assure that we prevent poverty by serving youth, seniors, and victims of domestic violence and at the same time end poverty by housing the chronic homeless?

I believe we can do both, however, we need representation from various groups to be at the leadership level on Destination: Home when funding and policy decisions are being made.  Up to now, the Blue Ribbon Commission to End Chronic Homelessness and Destination: Home have only representation from public officials, foundations, United Way, and private corporations.   The nonprofit representation has been only at the coalition level.

The argument for not including individual nonprofit representation on the leadership groups has been that one nonprofit cannot represent another.  This is the same argument that occurs throughout the United States from the city to the state level.   If one city can represent all cities on the leadership or executive level why can’t the same occur for a nonprofit agency?  If we are to end poverty we need to start including the agencies that are on the ground floor doing the work.  In the nonprofit field we have been choosing leaders to represent our issues on numerous collaborations for many years.

A second common argument for not including nonprofit representation is that funding decisions may be made by the leadership group and an agency may steer funds their way.  Policies and procedures can be put in place to assure no “self-dealing” takes place.

Housing providers serving the chronic homeless and nonprofits working with homeless youth, victims of domestic violence, or other “non-chronic homeless” populations need to be represented at all decision-making levels  to prevent poverty while we are ending it.    Bill Wilson Center will continue advocating for connecting all young people to the community with the necessary resources to prevent poverty.  That includes speaking out for more inclusive public policy.

A Kid Shouldn’t Need a Mental Health Diagnosis to Get Help

It seems like we spend a lot of time these days diagnosing our kids. We know teenagers can be frustrating and difficult, but does every rowdy boy really have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)? If a young person is in foster care or juvenile hall the system scrutinizes them for a variety of disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Bi-Polar, Depression, and on and on. I would be depressed, too, if I were locked up in juvenile hall! And, unfortunately, funding for mental health services often adds to the problem – if you want counseling and have Medi-Cal you need a mental health diagnosis.

In the 1970s, many kids ended up in mental hospitals or secure facilities because they were out of their parents’ control and the parents paid for a mental illness diagnosis. As a young advocate, I joined others in changing the federal and state laws so that kids were not placed in detention solely for being a runaway or truant. However, parents often skirted the law by getting their kid diagnosed with a mental illness and having them committed to a mental institution where a young person under 18 had no rights to a fitness or competency hearing like adults had. The parents were often desperate but the kids were powerless. As a different, more “kinder” approach, runaway youth centers such as Bill Wilson House sprang up across the nation and the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act became the law in 1974. These programs brought kids and parents together to work out their problems and teach them the skills to prevent future crises.  This is an example of Bill Wilson Center’s “lease restrictive environment” guiding principle.

Today the funding limit from the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (maximum grant of $200,000) is a fraction of the needed funding to operate runaway centers. Shelters must pull in private funding as well as local government funds to keep the doors open. Medi-Cal was always an option for runaways with mental health problems but most centers shied away from the funding due to its bureaucratic paperwork and stigma it placed on kids. On the other hand, there were many homeless kids with serious mental illness not getting treated. After much debate, Bill Wilson Center joined the ranks of other runaway programs and began accepting Medi-Cal in 2007. I will be blogging off and on about the impact of Medi-Cal and its implications on our services.

Our Best Practice — No Fail Philosophy When Serving Kids

Sorry, but I am really getting a bit tired of folks using terms such as “best practices” or “promising practices” or “evidence based” to be describing how we should be serving kids at our runaway shelter or counseling center.   Don’t get me wrong, I am all for studying what works and what doesn’t in youth services.

We all can give examples of tons of money going to programs that just don’t work — remember “Scared Straight“?  The government poured millions into a program that took kids to prisons to talk to prisoners to scare them into staying away from a life of crime.   There were all kinds of testimonials from kids after leaving the prisons about how they were never going to end up there.  The media loved the program.  Only problem was after studying the program the research showed that it did not have any long term affect with keeping kids out of jail.   Of course, sometimes we just like to keep funding programs for other reasons — like D.A.R.E. My son went through this program when he was in 5th Grade.  the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program usually taught by Community Relations Specialists with Police Departments has shown to have no long term impact on whether kids use drugs later in life.  Here is one of many studies debunking the program.   However, the research did show that kids felt better about police officers after the training.

At Bill Wilson Center, we have been using many of the current “best practices” but we just call them by different names.  For example, when serving chronic runaway and homeless youth in our shelter we have a “no fail” philosophy.  I often like to say that programs fail, not kids.   Anyone who has been around teenagers know that they need to test limits and break rules.  Youth who have been living on the street for a long time are used to people turning them away for breaking rules.  Sometimes a “no fail” rule is tough on staff — they have to be trained and learn how to use other consequences to work with difficult kids.  However, our research shows that kids rank our staff very high because we make them feel like part of a family.  This best practice seems pretty obvious — if you keep trying sooner or later you and the kid will get it right!

Teenager is a Negative Word

Young people, that is what Glynis Shea, Communications Coordinator for the Division of Adolescent Health at the University of Minnesota suggested to a group of nonprofit CEOs that we call teenagers if we want to appeal to the vast majority of Americans.  I recently attended an all day workshop on public relations for youth serving agencies.  Her presentation was  great although I was totally surprised by some of her research on kids (not such a negative word).  Apparently, there have been numerous studies and focus groups with ordinary citizens on how they feel when they hear certain words relating to young people.  When groups were asked how they felt about the word “teenager” many stated they equated the word with juvenile delinquents, kids out of control, troubled kids, and on and on.   Add terms like “at-risk,” “abused,” or “street” and the negative feelings were even stronger.   It seems like it was either the kids’ or the parents’ fault for their problems or situation.  So, instead of using the word “teenager” we should try more neutral words such as kids and youth in our brochures and newsletters.   Gosh, just when my 13-year-old son was so proud that he could now be called a teenager!  Below is a link to her interesting work on adolescents at the University of Minnesota and selling youth development.

http://www.moappp.org/Documents/events/2006/framenotes2.pdf

Preventing Poverty

A year ago, while working on the new strategic plan for Bill Wilson Center, I wanted to think of a big audacious goal for us.  At first I ask the Board of Directors to consider a vision of ending poverty.  While many of them laughed, others soon caught onto the excitement of making a big change in Santa Clara County.  After a lively debate, the Board of Directors agreed that we could “Prevent Poverty” with our services rather than end poverty.  That was good enough for me.  Today we are building connections for young people so that we can prevent poverty in the next generation.  Although we have had some major setbacks with the mortgage meltdown and the evaporation of retirement and investment funds, I am hopeful that we will, indeed, prevent poverty as we build more and more connections for our youth.

Are Girls More Violent?

We hear stories every day that girls and boys today are more violent and are committing more serious crimes.  But hold on a moment — is it true? — or are we just charging kids with more serious crimes?  According to a report issued by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in May 2008, it may be that we are just arresting girls now and charging them for serious offenses when in the past they would have been let go with a warning.  Since 9/11 and Columbine there is “zero tolerance” for threats or adolescent missteps. The report cites that some of the increase is due to tougher charges.  Santa Clara County also recently completed its own study on women in the justice system which concluded that girls are more violent and committing more serious crimes.  However, there is no footnote that it may be that school districts and the police are being less tolerant and insisting on charging kids for these crimes.

What all the researchers do agree on is that most of these girls have experienced trauma and domestic violence in their homes and lives.  In Santa Clara County, 70% of the girls in juvenile hall interviewed for the study reported that they had been in foster care, according to Sheila Mitchell, Chief Probation Officer.  Obviously, we have a lot more work to do to get these kids connected, in the right way, to the community.   I hope we can work to move these kids out of juvenile hall and to programs, like Bill Wilson Center, that can help address their past domestic violence and trauma and teach them the skills to become productive adults.

Building Connections

Building Connections is the new tagline for Bill Wilson Center, a nonprofit, social services agency with so many services it is hard to put them all in one category.   We asked staff and volunteers, what was one theme that went through every one of our 14 programs?  what surfaced over and over again was that we work with kids and families going through difficult transitions.  We help homeless youth, stressed-out parents, grieving relatives, alcoholics, drug addicts — you name it — build lasting connections to the community.   It all sounds simple enough, but in a fast-moving world like Silicon Valley, finding connections can be illusive.

Research from the Search Institute shows that kids who made the successful transition to become healthy, productive adults had supportive adults in their lives other than their parents or relatives.  They could name a mentor — a neighbor, a coach, or a teacher — who played a significant role in their lives.   We help families and teens identify and develop these links to their community.

The next time you pass a teenager on the street say. “hello”.  You can make a difference in a young person’s day.   Join us in “building connections”.