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youth development

Nov 05

Helping young people reach their potential

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Today’s young people are tomorrow’s _______.  It’s a common expression and you can fill in the blank many different ways. It’s an inescapable fact that young people eventually grow up and turn into something.

Today’s adults, as every generation does, hope that transition is a positive one and one that will make the world a better place.

It’s also an accepted premise that many young people need a little help along the way and many nonprofits (and for-profits) are there to lend a hand.

According to the Minneapolis-based National Alliance for Secondary Education and Transition: “Youth development is a process that prepares a young person to meet the challenges of adolescence and adulthood and achieve his or her full potential. Youth development is promoted through activities and experiences that help youth develop social, ethical, emotional, physical, and cognitive competencies.”

In other words, how do you turn young people into successful adults?

Five years ago, an index to measure the youth development in multiple countries was created for the British Commonwealth. The purpose of the Youth Development Index (YDI) is to be able to compare five key areas for young people: education, health, employment, civic participation and political participation.

And as part of this effort, young people were asked for their opinions on the subject. For Eva Maria from New Zealand, youth development “is when, as a young person, you can believe in a future. A real future.”

Clearly, senior staff at Boys & Girls Clubs in Indianapolis would agree with Eva’s assessment. While there have been substantial changes in professionalizing the youth worker field since 1893 when the local club was first established, several things have remained constant.

First and foremost, young people come to the clubs to build relationships. For Maggie Lewis, the organization’s president since May, and LeeAnn Harris, who is senior director of club operations, this focus has been critical to the nonprofit’s longevity.

Research shows that a key factor to promote resilience in youth is the consistent presence of a single caring adult. Harris said that every survey of the views of the clubs’ young people reveals exactly that.

“It’s never, ever been about a program. The number one reason that they come in our doors everyday is because of our staff and the relationships that staff form with young people,” said Harris who has worked for the nonprofit since 1989.

“No matter how appealing technology becomes or how integral it becomes to young people’s success or their day-to-day interactions, no matter whether it’s moving young people toward the workforce or just trying to help them get their homework done, whether it’s a kid who only comes to eat or somebody who comes because they want to be on the robotics group, the only way we successfully serve any of their needs is to have that positive adult mentor relationship,” said Harris.

According to research compiled in the early 1990s by the late psychologist Norman Garmezy that single factor has a significant impact on children living in poverty. But the Boys & Girls Clubs believes it is also about adapting to the needs of young people.

In May, for example, the nonprofit added a new program at its Finish Line Boys & Girls Club on Indianapolis’ Far Eastside. The Pivot Re-engagement Center is a program for 16- to 24-year-olds and is a partnership of the club, Community Alliance of the Far Eastside (CAFE) and other local organizations. Partnering with EmployIndy, the strategy is to move young people toward employment or other options.

About two-thirds of the young people that are served at the club are not in school and are not employed.

Both Harris and Lewis are advocates for young people and think that sometimes adults tend to write them off as lost causes.

“I think we’ve proven time and again, but even recently through our re-engagement center that young people just want opportunities to be successful,” said Harris. “We’ve not had any problems or incidents there.”

She said that the goal for the program that started in May was to register 100 young people, but it’s at 700 and counting.

“These young people have had some bumps along the way and so they’ve come to us to get a better direction and to make the best of themselves,” said Lewis.

It circles back to believing in a future, and according to Harris, that starts in elementary school.

“We’ve seen that even with the school-aged young people that we serve. It’s amazing how, if you’ve never had an opportunity to create a vision for your future outside of what you see in your own community or even if you do have an opportunity to have that vision, hope itself can be knocked out of you before you ever turn 16. We see that all the time, and that’s our job to give them opportunity,” said Harris.

The nonprofit recently received a grant from Finish Line Youth Foundation that matches school-aged young people with employment opportunities at Finish Line stores. It also has a similar grant through Boys & Girls Clubs of America with GAP and Old Navy to support workforce development.

Again it’s about adapting. For several years, at clubs nationally and locally, there was a downturn of the number of teens participating. Many teens were looking for work opportunities. Boys & Girls Clubs saw this as a good way to address the needs of the population it serves and is helping them become a ready workforce.

Another thing that has changed in Indiana is there is now a career path for youth workers. Across the state, there are now education programs, which include certificates, associate degrees and higher education programs to certify and educate youth practitioners.

This year, Indiana is piloting an online program with the Child and Youth Care Certification Board (CYCCB), which is based in Texas. Practitioners in Indiana are able to use an online form to submit applications for Child and Youth Care (CYC) certification.

Practitioners can complete all required paperwork and submit documentation electronically. Over 300 Indiana practitioners, pursuing certification this year, are expected to use the online system, according to Jeananne Reich who is managing the program for Indiana. So far this year, nearly 200 were awarded the certification. Harris estimates that 75 percent of Boys & Girls Club Indiana’s staff are certified.

Lewis said over the 125 years, the facilities have changed from places to swim and play sports to places to obtain basic needs.

“Today, youngsters come to our clubs for basic needs. I cannot stress enough that they are coming for basic needs,” she said.  According to Lewis, poverty is the number one issue where the clubs are located. Annually, the nonprofit serves nearly 7,000 kids at its five facility-based clubs and five school-based sites.

Over half of club members’ households have an income of $25,000 or less, but families are asked to pay $15 for a young person to attend for the school year.  Over 75 percent of the young people are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Last year, it served nearly 300,000 meals and snacks, making it the second largest provider of Second Helpings meals.

In 2001, area schools began hosting after-school clubs. Although those programs are smaller, they are effective, according to Harris, since transportation is not an issue, making attendance more frequent. At these locations it is easier to establish relationships with a child’s teacher. In the city, the loss of community schools makes it more challenging. A given facility can have kids attending 50 different schools.

“There’s been great research done that proves the obvious that the more often a kid attends, the greater the impact you’re able to have. So although it’s a smaller number of kids, we know we have increased impact there because kids are with us almost every day,” said Harris. Second Helpings dinner meals are provided at the school locations, too.

Currently, there are five school sites. Two in IPS — School #44 and Jonathan Jennings — and three in Warren Township — Liberty Park, Raymond Park Middle School and Pleasant Run School. Earlier this year, three school sites closed when a 21st Center Community Learning Center Grant distributed by the Indiana Department of Education was not awarded. Students from George S. Buck (#94) were directed to the new Finish Line Club, which opened in 2016.

Harris and Lewis agree that although the adjectives describing the mission have changed, the basic mission has remained the same. It’s always been about helping young people reach their full potential.

“The part of our mission statement that I think speaks most to youth development is the part that says that we help young people reach their full potential. There are a lot of phrases before and after that — about productive, caring, responsible citizens through this program and that program — but it’s always been helping young people reach their full potential,” said Harris.

After serving as president of the nonprofit, Lewis, who is an elected member and former president of the Indianapolis City-County Council, said that if she were talking to her fellow council members, she would say, “Our youth are banking on us to get this right. They are looking to us for guidance and direction. And while there are a lot of other things happening in our community that take our attention and take our time away, they still need adults to guide and direct them.”

Feb 13

Groundwork Indy’s roots

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

In the 1980s, Liverpool, England started an experiment. The city worked with young people to improve areas that had been neglected. After seeing some success, Groundwork UK was established by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to promote local partnerships that could rebuild Britain’s bypassed urban communities through community-led strategies.

Its success led U.S. National Park Service staff to travel to the U.K. to learn more. Impressed, the Park Service launched Groundwork USA in 1996, recognizing its potential to build upon the human and environmental assets found in every community.

It was joined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Program to establish pilot programs in three communities — Bridgeport, Conn., Lawrence, Mass., and Providence, RI. Based on success in those cities, additional programs were established in Concord, N.H., Somerville, Mass., and Yonkers, N.Y.

In 1999, the New York’s metropolitan Regional Plan Association joined the partnership to help establish the Groundwork USA national office to support the growing network. The organization has a home base in Yonkers and just had a recent deadline for potential site applications.

Today there are 23 chapters, which based on the U.K. program are called trusts, in the U.S., including one in Indianapolis. The U.S. program is designed to help local stakeholders in communities struggling with environmental, economic and social decline.

“The National Park Service was looking at it as a way to get some work done in the urban core, and at the same time engage urban youth, kids of color. They wanted these kids to become future advocates and future visitors of the parks. They realized that these young people are not visitors, don’t feel welcome and have barriers. So Groundwork was started as a means to build that urban constituency and also to get some work done,” said Phyllis Boyd, Groundwork Indy’s executive director.

Each trust, while independent, works with other trusts and shares resources. Each tailors their approach to the unique needs of small- to medium-sized cities, neighborhoods, and rural communities, working hand-in-hand with local residents, government officials and business owners.

The national office assists with everything from national grant access to the nuts and bolts of daily operations. Indianapolis received a three-year grant to get started.

Sample projects of Groundwork Indy

RECLAIM

In 2016, Groundwork Indy was awarded a National Creative Placemaking Grant for $200,000. The project, which started in January, will conclude in 2020. Called RECLAIM, it is directed by Groundwork Indy’s Executive Director Phyllis Boyd and Artist LaShawnda Crowe Storm. The project will use art to transform vacant spaces along an the unsafe, walking corridor into a safe pathway for elementary school children. The project will include a series of hands-on design, business and community development workshops.

Brownfields research

There is already a lot of mapping data collected by the city about where brownfields and potential brownfields are located in the Northwest Area.

“If a site has suspected contamination, it is considered a brownfield because it impacts development potential. People that think it might be contaminated are like, ‘I don’t want to touch that property,’” said Boyd.

“So when you are dealing with brownfields, the idea is to get a handle on what is really happening on the site, if there really is contamination, how best to deal with it when you have an end use in mind, so what are the things that you need to do to prepare for either residential or commercial or light industrial use again.”

Young people have been involved in Phase 1, by researching historical uses of the property, concurrent uses on the property and by looking at records and maps to see if there was any activity that could potentially have been a source of contaminants.

“If the Phase 1 comes back and says, ‘Yeah, there’s a likelihood that there could be contaminants, then we do the Phase 2 which is the actual testing, physical testing of the soils. When that comes back, you kind of know what you are dealing with.”

Even before that research is done, it’s important to know what the end use is.

“So do we want that corner lot to become a park? Do we want it to become a mixed- use neighborhood serving food? Because the requirements then for cleanup are different depending on that end use is,” said Boyd.

Feb 13

Groundwork Indy: Developing a neighborhood and youth

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Most teenagers don’t sit around talking about invasive plants and medicinal herbs or brownfields. But at least a half dozen area teenagers are the exception. Isaac, 15, Adarin, 16, Nashawn, 16, Randie, 16, Aliza, 15, and De’Shawn, 19, spend Saturday mornings researching and learning more about these topics, while also getting their hands dirty.

These six teens are members of Groundwork Indy’s Green Team, and spend not only their Saturdays during the school year, but summers too, learning how to best help the Northwest Area neighborhood. Not all live in the neighborhood now, but several were born there. The area is bounded roughly by 16th Street on the south, 38th Street on the north, Martin Luther King Street on the east and Kessler Boulevard North Drive on the west.

groundworks-indy-photos

Their work stems from an extensive community assessment. First, there was a feasibility study by a steering committee to determine if Indianapolis was a right place for a Groundwork program, and at the same time a Northwest Area Quality of Life plan was being developed. With 40 percent of the homes vacant, 584 of the 3,840 acres dedicated to green space lacking attention, and multiple identified brownfields, there is plenty of work to go around.

“The Quality of Life plan was underway in the area, and the city was working on funding for an areawide plan for brownfields and redevelopment, so these two things came together. It seemed like Groundwork was kind of the answer that could plug some holes that needed to be filled,” said Phyllis Boyd, executive director of Groundwork Indy. The original 2012 steering committee is still involved.

Why Indianapolis for this nonprofit youth program? Periodically, Groundwork USA solicits applications from around the country for potential branches. Late in 2012, the city of Indianapolis on behalf of a corridor steering committee submitted a letter of interest to Groundwork USA, and after site visits from the national organization that spring, the city received funding and technical assistance to conduct a feasibility study.

By early 2015, Groundwork USA’s committee, working in close collaboration with the Northwest Area neighborhood, voted unanimously to move forward with the creation of an Indianapolis branch.

Groundwork Indy has two youth development programs – the Green Team for high school students and GroundCorp for out-of-school youth up to age 24. Both programs work from a leased building on Burdsal Parkway near Flanner House and close to the south end of the corridor.

The Green Team meets Saturdays during the school year, and daily in the summer. The program’s goal is to help build environmental awareness and life skills for these teens. Students can stay during their high school years, and earn minimum wage.

“If it’s a good fit for us, and it continues to be, they’re welcome to stay and keep working, and eventually become like crew leaders. One of the things we teach them is the important of their contribution to the community. We’re here because the community has said: ‘This is what we would like to see, this is what we need,’” said Boyd, who moved from working in the for-profit sector as a landscape architect to this position in the summer of 2015.

These young people are helping to change the neighborhood. They’ve embarked on tasks like things removing the ground cover from sidewalks so kids at the two area elementary schools don’t have to walk in the streets. They removed brush from a railroad trestle, making way for the city’s urban pathway. They are researching medicinal herbs that can help improve the health of urban residents. So far they’ve focused on common aliments of African-Americans, and will include some in this summer’s garden.

For the most part, each project is part of the neighborhood’s plan for greenways and parks, brownfields, vacant properties and healthy communities and urban agriculture and community gardening. Right now, for example, the group is in talks with IU Health about a September safe-routes-to-school volunteer effort to do some intersection painting around the two neighborhood schools – Elder Diggs and Global Prep Academy at Riverside 44.

The group also is coordinating with the city’s Department of Public Works to get infrastructure improvements on DPW’s schedule and determine what additional funding is needed to complete improvements.

Adarin, 16, who was born in the neighborhood, notes that since Groundwork Indy got involved, the neighborhood’s not dirty. “We’re coming together to change this community. And some people are respecting it. I like that,” he said.

With Boyd’s background, the teens are learning about botany, too. They don’t just plant trees, they learn about the plants rooting systems and conserving water, and why native plants are important to the ecology.

“I think it’s important that they hear all this stuff, and at the time that they’re hearing it, they’re actually working and got their hands in the soil, hands on the trees, doing something where they can really absorb the information, and they get like, ‘Oh, this is why this information is important.’ So it’s not taught classroom style where it’s a lecture, it’s very much like in the moment, where we’re doing what we’re doing. And they seem to really like learning that way,” she said.

For Aliza, 15, who attends Northwest High School, planting a garden last summer infused pride.

“We worked on planting a garden out back, and it actually turned out good. We had fresh tomatoes, peppers and basil. We brought some home, and we ate some here. We made chili, and all types of stuff, like guacamole, salsa and pickles.

That is just what Boyd hopes will happen.

“They’re really thinking about their work in this larger context of their community and their city. We try also to help them understand, not just the historical context of why neighborhoods are like they are right now. They can grow up in a place like this and think like, ‘It must be like this because we deserve for it to be like this.’

“There are historical, structural reasons why there’s been disinvestment, why the sidewalks aren’t taken care of, why you see all these vacant lots, why the highway went through where it went through. But if you only live in Indy, if you only travel in a very small circuit of Indy, you don’t necessarily get the information that it is systemic. It’s not just by chance, it’s not their parents’ fault, it’s not their grandparents’ fault that this is the way it is. There are systemic things at work that made it so,” she said.

GroundCorp employs out-of-school youth in Marion County, ages 16 to 24, and focuses on job training and job preparedness. The six-to-nine-month program provides part-time employment Monday through Friday, but improving the quality of life in the neighborhood is only part of it.

If these young people don’t have high school diplomas, they must be engage in an adult education program working toward a high school equivalency, an alternative to a diploma.

“We also get them assistance with other partners to get their educational levels up. There are some certifications that require an individual to test at a ninth grade level, before you can qualify to do them,” said Boyd.

“We see the GroundCorp program as a stabilization pad, and a jumping-off point to do other things, like YouthBuild, the Culinary Institute at Edna Martin or something else. It only pays $10 an hour, which is not what anybody can live on, so we need to actually get them in and moving on to something that’s better,” said Boyd.

Currently the nonprofit doesn’t offer the educational component onsite, but it may change to make it easier for team members to complete their education.

“Transportation is one of the hugest hurdles that we have,” said Boyd, who will write bus passes into future grant applications. “Some of our 16 to 24 that are in the GroundCorp program have more barriers, and just need a lot more support from others.”

For every 8-to-10-member GroundCorp crew, Boyd needs a staff person to manage them out on the sites. The crews with participants over 18 can use power tools.

In the summer, the two groups have been able to mix, even taking field trips together.

“It is actually quite easy to mix the groups and work on projects together. Because of the age group of the GroundCorp crew, over 18, there are things that they can do that the younger, employed youth cannot do, like power tools and things like that. So there are certain jobs that they do.”

Boyd is encouraged that EmployIndy is convening a community of practice by coordinating the efforts of grantees that have federal workforce dollars. Seeing that the population of grantees has the same barriers, talking to each other is making programs more effective.

“We’re really good at finding community projects, putting people to work, integrating STEM knowledge into that, teaching skills that are very work-related, teaching about getting to work on time, doing your timesheet, some basics. But then we need to have partners that help with the other wraparound services,” said Boyd. “Then I don’t have to run around and figure out social services when it’s already someone’s job to do that.”

There have been many surprises in the year and a half for Boyd, not the least of which was how easy it was to underestimate kids and what they can accomplish.

“They’re teenagers and we’re just like, ‘Oh, they’re just thinking about things that aren’t that important or just very self-centered. They care about their environment. I thought it would be harder to elicit talking about their values. But if I’m really clear about my values, and I’m expressing my values, it gives them space to be very open about their values.”

“Before we started working, if you looked around this neighborhood, it wasn’t as nice and as clean as it is,” said Aliza. “I see more people cleaning up and gardening, and it makes me feel like I’m inspiring people to do better. I see Groundwork as a role model,” said the 15-year-old Northwest High School student.

Nashawn, 16, Northwest High School said, “I learned that I really care when people are throwing down trash and stuff. We’re just trying to bring life back to the neighborhood.”