United Communities to Stop Violence "Parenting Youth and Families; raising a community"

~~~~ .. The Report .. ~~~~

by Bill Murray

Our coalition called "United Communities to Stop Violence" sponsored the second in a series of community events, "Parenting, Youth and Families; raising a community," a community policing dialogue held on Saturday, October 19th, at Bravo High School.

The theme of the day was:

Issues OF the community ... Solutions BY the community

As community based policing advocates, we at Los Angeles Community Policing are pleased thank the many community members who came forward to participate actively. Monica Harmon, who did a wonderful job as the event's MC, Everett Littlefield, who hosted all the "community tables," and Corinne Simon-Duneau, who handled the registration, all played especially significant roles.

Though attendance was light, the event was a success. In fact, three times I was approached by folks from other parts of town who asked if we'd help them plan a similar event for their areas. Of course I said we'd be more than happy to assist Northeast, Van Nuys and Wilshire develop similar community dialogues.

Once again, we heard comments like, "When's the next one of these dialogues to be held?" and "When are we going to be doing this again?"

The results? We've a spirited partnership on the Eastside now, one which engages a variety of groups coming together as a community to find shared solutions ... bottom line, we're working together to reduce violent crime and improve the quality of life.

An exciting program with a unique format was devised for this successful community conference. In addition to the agenda, some 30 community tables were maintained by a variety of organizations throughout the day.

The event appealed to people of all ages, and from every walk of life. In addition to community members, numerous representatives from service groups, government entities and LAPD attended.

Knowing a significant number of our participants would choose to communicate in Spanish we'd prepared a variety of ways the event would be inclusive. We accommodated this important part of our community throughout the day.

The format began with an assembly in the school cafeteria where community volunteer Monica Harmon served as MC. Her welcome and introductions were followed by an invocation delivered by Father Robert Dolan, S.J., of Dolores Mission.

He was followed by our featured keynote speaker, Jose Huizar, Member of the Board of Education, LAUSD, who spoke eloquently about "Raising A Community."

Mr. Huizar was followed by an expert panel. Each of the members briefly described the work they do and discussed his or her perspective on the issues of raising a community.

The panel included:

	Jitahadi Imara		County Probation Department
	Gary Liebsack		County Recreation and Parks
	Charlotte Martin		City Recreation and Parks
	John Liechty		Los Angeles Unified School District
	Greg Martayan		Commission on Children, Youth & their Families
	Valentino Paniccia.		LAPD's Juvenile Group.

Next, individual community members were invited to make a comment, ask a question of the panel, or express a point of view.

Then the attendees had a hamburger and french fries lunch, donated by two Lincoln Heights restaurants, "Dino's Jr." (Dino Pantaris), and "McDonalds" (Jessie Carrillo and Richard Rodriguez).

The second and perhaps most exiting part of the day began after that ...

Small professionally facilitated workshops, breakout groups, were held in the classrooms. We held them both in Spanish and English, and the groups were deliberately kept small ... none had more than 20 people.

These two topics were the general seminar themes:
1) reducing conflict between young people; what to do
2) responsible parenting; family dispute resolution

The guided seminars were designed to engage all the participants in a dialogue where not only existing programs were discussed, but related community concerns were heard, issues expressed and new ideas shared.

Finally, everyone reconvened in the cafeteria to find out what had been discussed in the other groups.

Representatives from each of the seminars came forward to tell the attendees what was discussed their workshop. In this way, everyone who participated learned what had occurred in the other groups.

We discovered the dialogue in the seminars had some things in common, and some things unique.

Here are the combined results ... the issues, concerns and ideas ... expressed to us by the participants:

		need to educate ourselves about resources that already exist
		be more available to share community resource information
		be responsible to educate the community
		stress parental responsibility to guide youth
		improve outreach - building a community
		improving a community begins with improving me
		establish more long term plans and goals, not short fixes
		put much more focus on prevention, reaching the very young
		classes are needed, perhaps mandatory, in parenting
		mandatory events / meetings - suggested going into the schools and giving out citations for non-attendance
		school volunteers should visit homes to help parents understand information about their schools
		leadership classes - for women classes of support group to help establish more self esteem and assertiveness
		need to have councelors in schools for younger kids - taught by other kids? (10 to 21)
		need for better male role modeling
		advertise for male mentoring
		find a way youth can report bullies
		need a community program that helps teachers and students get along - friends vs. authority figures
		ask siblings to act as role models, and help with teaching (i.e. like Boy Scouts)
		have more programs going out to schools
		have more job fairs
		planting the seed - i.e. increase the councilor to student ratio
		in the elementary school system begin to get kids interested in college
		trade classes are important
		target middle schools
		more community involvement, especially from the private sector - College Institute?
		public should have a "I have a Dream" foundation
		children have to know there is an "apple" and be shown the steps to get there
		more involvement of local celebrities - we have so many - children follow a "hero"
		need for more parental education and involvement - problems include single parent families, families who work, competing values
		come back to community - mentoring, after school programs - make kids feel safe
		hospitality important
		involve and engage the senior citizen community more
		in three highest elementary grades have churches, educators create a program that can teach spiritual, non-denominational values
		hold events for older kids in middle schools - "Friday Night Live" suggested
		find and share "best practices"
		better coordination of efforts, especially churches for the parish, their own block
		expand the commitment through larger alliances, perhaps using the neighborhood councils
		we have to get people out, involved as volunteers - fund raising, games, interesting things
		need safe places and transportation - kids need to know where can they go to be safe from gangs
		more business involvement needed to sponsor activities and transportation - this is good for business
		promote the "Kid Watch" program - identify "safe houses" and "safe businesses"
		promote the "Safe Passages" program - have people come out of houses to keep eyes on kids as they come and go
		teach parents about gang clothes, signals, and attitudes
		have a dress code in the house
		teach parents to say "No" - to have courage
		remember - we reap what we teach at home

Obviously there's a lot to be done. The challenge now will be to select some short and long term goals arising from this, designing meaningful partnered relationships and programs that make sense for the community ... all geared towards reducing violence and improving the quality of life.

Will this mean an end to crime on the Eastside? Of course not. But we have to start somewhere.

This was not a passive event. At every step we'd designed elements that immediately engaged the participants in helping each other find the solutions.

See, and that's the point. Because successful community policing partnerships depend on the active participation of all those who live and work in the area.