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October 2015 SYVPI Newsletter
 
The City of Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative received a grant for $278,000 from the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to strengthen and expand trauma-informed education and training programs, including suicide prevention, for diverse professionals who work with youth and support the use of PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention & Support) in Seattle schools.

In King County, young adults 18 to 24 have the highest rate of suicide hospitalizations on average, much higher than all other age groups. Among some of Seattle's most vulnerable youth and young adult populations, the risk of death by homicide and suicide has shown an alarming increase over the past 9 months, as 6 alternative high school students in Seattle have either been murdered or committed suicide.

These funds will support Seattle's comprehensive plan that is being developed for the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention to address gaps in services for high-risk youth as they age out of the current juvenile crime prevention services. We continually strive to make sure that our services effectively address these urgent and serious challenges that face our youth.

Raequan (R) and Swedish Medical Center staff
SYVPI Success Story: Raequan Kea
 
Raequan Kea is a SYVPI youth who joined the Initiative in 2014. He recently participated in the Seattle Youth Employment Program this summer, working as an intern in the Nutrition Services department at Swedish Medical Center.

Adrian Daye, Assistant Network Coordinator at Therapeutic Health Services, describes Raequan as "A strong, smart young man who has overcome many obstacles in his life. He is always open to learning new things and improving himself."

While most SYEP internships last for only the summer, Raequan was offered a permanent position at Swedish Medical Center. He was ready for this opportunity in part through mentoring and other resources offered through SYVPI. A recent graduate of Garfield High School, he's got a love for cars and is pursuing plans to enroll in the automotive program at South Seattle College. Adrian Daye is excited for Raequan, "He's achieved so much and has the right attitude, taking the opportunities given to him, knowing their meaning, and excelling. I know he will do great things in the future."

Raequan is just one example of how SYVPI helps youth with wrap-around support. SYVPI provides access to job readiness programs, mentoring and recreation opportunities that create lasting pathways to careers and lay the foundation for a lifetime of success.
 

Photo courtesy of SE Freedom Net
Community is a Verb: Youth Contribute to Corner Greeters' Success 

Recently SYVPI has shared how the Corner Greeter program and Safe Passage has worked to prevent youth violence. What hasn't been highlighted how youth are key partners in contributing to its success, while learning valuable job skills at the same time.

Jerrell Davis, a community organizer and artist working with the Corner Greeters program, recently wrote for the South Seattle Emerald about how youth are contributing to this project's success. Davis writes about the job skills that youth learn, and the efforts to reclaim the narrative of a neighborhood while creating the platform to share it.
    SYVPI youth talk with Sergeant Adrian Diaz. Photo:Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times
Youth and Police: Building Community Together 

Cities across the country are focusing on improving the relationship between police and community. During her recent visit to Seattle, Attorney General Lynch met with a group of Seattle teenagers in a third-floor classroom at El Centro de la Raza to talk about policing's impact on youth.

SYVPI has addressed this issue by partnering with the Seattle Police Department to help build strong and positive relationships between youth, police and the community in order to prevent youth violence. One way we do that is through our School Emphasis Officers program. Another is partnering with City of Seattle's  Youth Employment Program for SYVPI youth to intern with police, and through our efforts with Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place For Youth. These are some of the many ways we are helping youth and moving relationships forward.
 
Photo courtesy of Rainier Valley Post
Mayor Murray's Budget to Extend "Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth" 

Mayor Murray included $250,000 in his 2016 budget to sustain the Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place For Youth project. This community-oriented crime reduction initiative was launched and implemented through a Byrne Criminal Justice Grant of $978,241 over 3 years. It quickly became a national model for working with community stakeholders to develop programs to reduce youth violence. Many programs such as Safe Passage, and Corner Greeters were developed under this program and have served countless youth and helped to reduce youth violence in 5 "hot spots" in Seattle.  

Click here for links to more SYVPI articles about how we have begun to reduce youth violence with help from the Byrne Criminal Justice Grant. 
President Obama Proclaims October as National Youth Justice Awareness Month  

On September 30, 2015, President Obama issued a proclamation recognizing October as National Youth Justice Awareness Month. Each year, there are more than 1 million arrests of youth younger than 18, and the vast majority are for nonviolent crimes. Nearly 55,000 individuals younger than 21 are being held in juvenile justice facilities nationwide-a disproportionate number of whom are young people of color, including tribal youth. The proportion of detained and incarcerated girls and young women, who are often victims of abuse, has also increased.

SYVPI helps to prevent youth from entering the juvenile and criminal justice systems through our case management services and neighborhood networks. We assess each individual youth's unique needs and connect them to youth employment services, encourage them to participate in pro-social activities and programs and help them manage their emotions so that they can fulfill their greatest potential.

 
 
The University of Washington's Equitable Parent-School Collaboration Research Project has recently produced several new tools for use by local school/district and community partners to strengthen family engagement in education. For the past three years, UW researchers have partnered with Road Map Project region families and community-based organizations to develop pathways and tools that aim to build capacity for fostering authentic family engagement practice. The hope is these tools help reshape school-family-community collaborations for improving student learning. The new tools include:
Please visit the UW's Equitable Parent-School Collaboration Research Project website to learn more. You can also check out this Impatient Optimists blog post to learn more about the work.
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.