December, 2015

Roadmap to Peace: A community working to end violence

Institute will evaluate a new collaborative effort to support Latino youth at risk for gang involvement and violence.

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SF State Researchers join Institute

CCI welcomes Drs. Elizabeth Brown and Sheldon Gen, from the School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, College of Health and Social Sciences, as new Senior Researchers.

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Roadmap to Peace: A community initiative

Connecting and serving San Francisco's most vulnerable Latino/a youth

Late in the summer of 2012, residents in San Francisco's Mission

District experienced a wave of community violence. Residents were stunned to see six Latino youths gunned down in a flare-up of gun and gang-related violence, within weeks of each other. Parents, teachers, youth counselors and others mobilized with a series of community town hall meetings to talk about the ongoing senseless violence, and collectively develop systemic solutions.

These meetings resulted in Roadmap to Peace (RTP), a community-driven, five-year, systems-reform initiative. With support from San Francisco's Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF), Google, and the Jobs for the Future, RTP will created and coordinate a new network of on-demand support services in the areas of workforce and economic opportunities, health, housing, legal/immigration services, arts, culture and education within a restorative justice and trauma-informed approach.

RTP's primary goal is to improve the economic, health and safety outcomes of an initial cohort of 500 Bay Area Latino youths.

Community-based solutions

Using a Collective Impact model, RTP is rooted in community-based solutions: It is being developed by local service providers, parents, educators, community activists and university researchers who are seeing how disconnected Latina/o youth fall through bureaucratic cracks and get lost to street and gang violence, substance use, unemployment and the prison industry. Current participants include community residents, Instituto Familiar de la Raza, Mission Peace Collaborative, CARECEN of San Francisco, Mission Neighborhood Health Center, Mission Neighborhood Centers, H.O.M.E.Y., Bay Area Community Resources (CHALK), and Five Keys Charter School. This collaborative is striving to combine their professional and cultural knowledge to better support local youth.

Comprehensive, coordinated systems

Currently, providers in San Francisco offering vital youth programs and services do not have the institutional support to coordinate their efforts across agencies and disciplines. Each youth must work with several providers, most of whom do not have a system to effectively communicate with each other, share information or jointly case-manage. This disjointed system often leaves youth feeling frustrated and discouraged. RTP aims to change that, linking youths to the support and services they need in a coordinated, integrated approach - creating a human safety net for each of them.

Services on demand

RTP emphasizes the need for timely, responsive, on-demand services. Most disconnected youths experience crises in housing, healthcare, education, employment and emotional health. Currently, youth and their families wait as long as six months for help: By the time the youth can finally be seen, their problems have often worsened. "On-demand" services means youth and their families can receive care as soon as the needs arise, reducing negative outcomes and possibly even altering a young person's life course.

Youth-informed, youth-engaged

The network will develop with direct input from the youth themselves, as they are best able to verbalize their own needs and hopes. Their input is critical not only in the formative stages of the program, but throughout: It's envisioned that youths passing through RTP's networked services can become integral parts of its development - as interviewers, focus group leaders, feedback teams, and eventually as activists working to assist their own peers.

The major goal is the creation of this complete and interconnected system to support resiliency and increased well-being for each youth, and to empower them to in turn change the conditions that create harm in their community. Beyond that, RTP envisions two other, longer-term aspects to their work: to advance broader community- and capacity-building, and to advocate for progressive, more restorative justice policies in the criminal justice system, and in families, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and faith communities.

The evaluation project

The Ch�vez Institute and UCSF's Community Engagement and Health Policy Program (CE&HP) were invited to work with RTP for two years as an external evaluation team. Funded by San Francisco's Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, the team will look at how well the participating organizations are coming together in this still-forming network, assessing the program's design, processes and impact.

Networked services are difficult to both administer and evaluate. A formative evaluation at this early stage will inform the structuring of the program - such as streamlining comprehensive case management and establishing a unified system for data collection and sharing - and also leave behind a system for RTP to independently monitor their own performance in the long term.

The evaluation process will be primarily qualitative, using in-depth interviews of key project managers as well as of youths being served. Moreover, the team hopes to support an increasingly participatory process for the youths themselves, beginning with critical reflections on their own experience, and going on to carry out peer-to-peer interviews, conduct focus groups and collect and analyze data on the issues confronting them - generating better results and engaging them directly in community change.

For further information on Roadmap to Peace, please contact RTP Community Builder/Planner Angela Gallegos-Castillo.

For information on the Evaluation Project, please contact Institute Director Belinda Reyes.

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Two new senior researchers at CCI

Both professors to form part of the Roadmap to Peace Evaluation Project

Elizabeth Brown is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University and Director of the School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement. She holds a doctorate in Geography with a certificate in Law and Society Studies and a Master's degree in Cultural Studies. Her research examines the intersections between urban neighborhoods and crime control policies, and explores how depictions of crime and disorder influence juvenile justice policy, life histories of urban youth, and socioeconomic and racial inequality in the US. She has published articles on a diverse range of topics from trying youth as adults and public policy approaches to gang and school violence to urban redevelopment and contemporary urban policing strategies.

Sheldon Gen is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, where he teaches courses on public policy and applied research. His research examines public engagement in all phases of policy making processes, including policy advocacy, public outreach, policy analysis, and program evaluation. This interest stems from his decades of work with public and nonprofit organizations in issues of education, environment, public works and development. He holds a BS and license in civil engineering, a MPA, and a Ph.D. in public policy. He is also an alumnus of the Peace Corps and the Presidential Management Fellowship.

Both Drs. Brown and Gen are very excited about Roadmap to Peace and its Evaluation Project. They are both passionate about youth empowerment and healthy urban communities.

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And welcome to our new Research Assistant, too!

Michelle Parra is originally from Los Angeles. She attended UCSB where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Feminist Studies. She is currently a first-year student in the Sexuality Studies Program at SFSU. Her research interests include studying Latina sexuality, higher education, and race/ethnicity studies. In her free time she likes to bake and explore the outdoors.

As our new RA, Michelle will be supporting the Latino Educational Achievement Partnership and our new projects under development.

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