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News from Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative | October 7, 2013
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SYVPI Making an Impact in the Other Washington
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 | | Eleuthera Lisch, Robert Listenbee, Mariko Lockhart |
SYVPI Director Mariko Lockhart and Eleuthera Lisch, Director of the YMCA's Alive & Free Street Outreach Network, had a productive trip to Washington D.C. in September. They were invited, as a result of their efforts with the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, to give presentations to the third annual Summit on Preventing Youth Violence, held September 26-27 in Arlington, Virginia.
The Summit was led by the White House Office of Public Engagement with the support of the Departments of Justice and Education and other federal agencies. The Summit focused on the current administration's agenda to enhance and promote youth violence prevention strategies--which feature the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention and the Defending Childhood Initiative as the centerpieces--and how the ten cities that make up the Forum (New Orleans, Minneapolis, Camden, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Salinas, and San Jose, California) can sustain their efforts. Senior White House officials, Attorney General Eric Holder, and members of Congress also participated along with mayors, chiefs of police, public health commissioners, school superintendents, and other city leaders from the Forum cities.
Eleuthera served as a panelist in a roundtable discussion the first afternoon entitled "Street Outreach Programs: Cure Violence, Ceasefire, and Other Evidence-Based Programs." The discussion addressed the importance of street outreach as a component of comprehensive gang control strategies, and panelists shared best practices and lessons learned based on their experiences implementing street outreach.
The second day kicked off with opening remarks from Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll. Carroll, who needs no introduction here in Seattle, is a successful motivator of young athletes, having won multiple national championships at the University of Southern California. During his time there as coach he established A Better LA which used street outreach to reduce the gang violence he saw in the surrounding neighborhoods. Here in Seattle, he has partnered with SYVPI and launched A Better Seattle to champion violence prevention and support the expansion of the Alive and Free Outreach Network. He has also offered his assistance to youth in other ways, including the SYVPI trip to the Seahawks training camp reported in last month's newsletter. (See related article by Tim Haeck, KIRO Radio.)
Following Carroll's presentation, Mariko and Eleuthera both appeared as panelists in the discussion, "Engaging Local Partnerships: Effective Community-Based Responses to Youth Violence." The focus was on building and maintaining effective collaborative partnerships between public and private organizations. The audience was especially interested in SYVPI's community-based model and our partnerships with the private and philanthropic supporters as evidenced by A Better Seattle.
Eleuthera and Mariko also had the opportunity at the Summit to speak with Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Administrator Robert Listenbee. He remarked on the lessons that can be learned from Seattle and plans to stay connected to the youth violence prevention work here.
"Bob has an inclusive and community-focused vision for OJJDP and we are excited about his leadership of that institution," says Mariko. His priorities for the Office include supporting research and programs that promote the safety and well-being of the nation's youth. He favors a trauma-informed approach for treating children exposed to violence and a developmental approach to juvenile justice. He also discussed federal efforts to staunch the "school-to-prison pipeline."
"We believe firmly that children should be kept in school and out of courts," Listenbee said in a radio interview on National Public Radio (NPR). "We don't think that kids who are truant, kids who are runaways, kids who engage in various sorts of violations of the code of conduct that aren't criminal offenses-we don't think they belong in the juvenile justice system."
For more information, read Listenbee's recent interview on NPR, or download "Report of the Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence."
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 | | Savannah (far left) ties for first place in the spelling competition |
SYVPI Youth March on Washington Coming Up Next: Seattle
Mariko Lockhart and Eleuthera Lisch are not the only people from SYVPI getting noticed lately in the other Washington. Last month's newsletter briefly mentioned a late-August trip to Washington D.C. by several SYVPI youth members. This month we have more details to share.
Five youth mentees, accompanied by two mentors and two adults (including 4C Coalition Executive Director Hazel Cameron), attended the March on Washington Memorial Youth Mentoring Summit. It was held August 25-27 on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington.
The Seattle mentees and their mentors were selected for the trip based on their participation in the 4C Coalition's Pen or Pencil™ (POP) Initiative Project. "Pen" stands for penitentiary and "Pencil" stands for education. The project targets youth who are at greatest risk of crime and incarceration and presents an opportunity for teams of youth and adults to work together for at least four hours each month to explore life's challenges by comparing the lives of youth and families in history with those today.
Thirty-four youth are enrolled in Seattle's POP project, most of whom are also enrolled in SYVPI. Each is partnered with an adult mentor age 21 or over who are recruited through the National CARES Mentoring Movement. A dedicated team of twenty-five 4C mentors dedicate their volunteer time to mentoring in Seattle, one of a number of affiliated POP sites in the nation.
In Washington, D.C., the travelers joined with youth from other cities to march in groups of 50 to the U.S. Capitol where they gathered together to hear a series of adult and youth speakers. Topics ranged from "Slavery by Another Name, Prejudice and Beyond Prejudice," to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers.
The Summit also included a "Spell It Like It Is" competition that challenged youth to spell such terms as "disproportionality," "efficacy," and "victimization." Savannah, an SYVPI youth on the trip, set a goal to win the competition. She spent hours and hours familiarizing herself with the words on the list. Her mentor drilled her on the words and her fellow travelers provided encouragement as well. All of their efforts paid off. Savannah tied with a young woman from Washington, D.C. for first place. (See the blog post by City Council President Sally Clark to hear directly from Savannah what this has meant to her.)
Back home in Seattle, the POP group has been inspired to carry out a young people's march on Seattle. Together they are choosing the primary issue to be raised by their march, finding out about other organizations already involved with this issue, learning how to get a permit for their march, contacting legislators and schools, and recruiting other youth to participate.
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 | 2013 Progress Report
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Progress Report to the Community Available for Distribution
SYVPI has published its 2013 Progress Report to the Community. The report provides an overview of the program's successes during 2013. Based on data provided by the Seattle Police Department, the report states that since SYVPI launched in 2009, no Seattle juvenile has died as a result of youth violence; and arrests for youth violence in the three SYVPI-served neighborhoods have declined by 28% - the same rate as even the city's safest neighborhoods. In addition, juvenile court referrals for youth violence are down in two of the three neighborhoods. The document also shares stories of young people impacted by the program along with an extensive list of the groups and individuals who have partnered with the Initiative during the current year. The report can be accessed here. Hard copies are available by contacting youthinitiative@seattle.gov.
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Safe Youth, Safe Community is a newsletter published by the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. Our mission is to prevent and reduce youth violence, which has disproportionately affected communities of color in Seattle, through coordinated community mobilization to identify youth at risk of perpetuating or being a victim of violence and connect them with needed support in reaching their full potential. For more information, please visit our website www.safeyouthseattle.org.
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