Conference Notes
March 29, 2010 – Understanding the Public Health Framework
9 – 10 Registration & Networking breakfast – Community Resources Display
Ato Seitu – Financially supported by justice Canada. Methodology using with youth is the arts to work with them in situations. We will not be doing all the counseling. What we’re trying to do is filter the youth out into the agencies that provide specialized help. In the long term, we need to give them the skills they need. They may need to go back to school. We will refer them to these institutions. We will allow them to address that. Your role today is very important in the discussion that’s taking place. We need a partnership. Thank you all for coming.
10 – 10: 10 – Welcome on behalf of the City of Barrie – R. Quammie Williams, Director of Culture
Good morning everyone. I want to say that it really pleases my heart to see this kind of occupancy in the city of Barrie. The most important thing to me is the young people. It is a very brave step for the community to have a conference like this. Start a dialogue and get to know each other. Making a lot of contacts. Also, when I told some of my colleagues that I was going to come this morning, and it took me a while to explain that one of the great things about the community that they living in is there are people that are actually making plans before there are issues. I grew up in Toronto and there it is backwards. This is a step forward. Looking at ways in coming up with solutions and coming up with way to avoid the negatives and so we do have plans to put in place. It is difficult moving from high school into adulthood. I had a lot of assistance and I also found the arts AND THE EFFECT and the power of the arts of having an effect on the youth. He will return on wed at 1pm.
10:15 – 11:00 Plenary Presentation, Lew Golding, CAMH – Public Health Framework as a Best Practice in Working with Youth Engaged with Guns, Gangs and Drugs
It’s actually a pleasure to be here. I don’t often get to come to this area. What happened in the last 3 months I’ve been to this area 3 times, even in the winter. I’m happy to be back. Couple things I want to say, first, based in Toronto, my comments and the context I will be speaking to, it is not Toronto-centric. Some of the conditions I will speak to are condition here. Cutoos to those trying to get ahead of this situation. Toronto did it wrong. We did not listen. There is a blue print next door, the us, and many of us are re, I have prepared this talk and I guess at some point there will e question a I hope you will have some question and I hope you will not leave me i’m up here spewing what I think. You have to do some work. To being, I wanted to submit this, youth stay in the home from the dependencies of childhood to the responsibilities of adulthood. Normal transitions, just keep progressing. We are now living in times where there are parents who have yet to finish the transition from childhood to adulthood. When you meet a young person who has reoccurring problems but are dealing with people like this. What is contributing to the mindset of this young person and then work to address that. That s what I am hoping to convey t you today. Violence is a very powerful statement. It shifts the focus from the young person to the society to. They need to navigate, if what they need are not in place, problems happen, you might seeing you people who are not able to identify these problems. In the end, they have frustration. This is not the choice they would have may if they have the options available to them. There is a lack of stepping stones to get them to the places we all want them to be at. This gang thing, is a problem that I’ve been looking at since 1984. We thought we had it properly understood. We approached the design makers to get some support, and in those days we were broad sighted by the traditional force that are suppose to deal with this issues. The police told us to stop. Hells angels, there weren’t any in the area – Scarborough. The community went with the authority. Until it got to the point where the authorities couldn’t manage it anymore. Too many public eruptions. There was a change of mind. Reactive steps taken from there. When you look at the literature, there are a lot of maximum client, they offer these 3 features: 1. the community recognizes this group. 2 the groups recognition of itself as distinct. 3. The group’s involvement in enough illegal activities to get consistent negative from law enforcement and neighborhood residents. What I say is a youth and interacts that spend a lot of time together and may claim a turf. That group becomes a gang when its members won’t excuse an opportunity to commit a crime. Group behavior, if it is criminal behavior, they are a gang. We don’t need to reference mafia structures, we look at local young people, look at alliances and what goes along with the. You got it. Those personal resources, as I mentioned, these are a set of skills that every successful individual that you can think of, they have command of. They are able to skip in and out of any one combination to mediate their challenges. We are in a cycle and I worry about the generations that are to come. I also encourage and look at youth and how they have discovered and they will find a way and find an environment in Toronto and have young people who begin in e were rich ideas and important relationships developed from that form who have continued to try to get ahead. But, to bring it to Barrie not here, it is. Although this is not the worst case scenario. Winnipeg is off the chart. Second, Vancouver, then Toronto then Saskatchewan. I did a talk very similar to this in 2006 in Kingston. There, they recognized to be what appeared to them as graffiti emerging. They thought it was saying something. They had brought together service providers to exploring what could be done. If our services are not actively not developing skill development, we are not doing them right. Gangs should be assessed by their function, not their location nor their name. one of the occurring mistake and oversight in Canada and the us, is people thinking that they need to learn what the colors are what these young people arte sporting or what they are calling themselves or what neighborhood they are living in. that’s not important, what is identifying what the gang reps. Don’t get caught up in this bl
11: 00 11:15 Q & A
11:15 – 11:30 break Understand the function, when moving to do the prevention work. This should drive your longest discussion. From a service stand point. Youth gangs and violence. Public health problem. It is not unlike some of the STDs. You know what steps you took to protect yourself and colleagues. We cannot do this in terms of managing youth gangs. Continues to be a hard sell, but it is really that simple. This is an issue that affects many different domains, economic, social, political, cultural, it is important that we remain mindful of those. Social – neighborhood, fear, space, “if I don’t show that I’m tough, I’m going to be victim”. They make sure they don’t become a victim in that space. People move out. Barrie residents use to be Toronto residence. Young people who buy into this pecking order to avoid victimization. Obviously, neighborhoods with high presence of police, there are not going to positive relationships ongoing. The very reason for the police to come in, the people see it detrimental. I worked in neighborhoods where the young people feel so disenfranchised, they can’t see themselves in university, even people in grade 8. Raised on a steady diet of marginalization, they don’t have a sense of hope to get them to these people. Partly because they don’t interact with people who have been there and don’t provide the support to get there. People have favorable accusations towards victimizing …oh she deserved it. There is a neighborhood where there are 3 high schools in fairly close proximity, one high school is basic level. Once high school, secondary and collegiate. People learn the skills to get to university. At best college. Many of the neighborhoods become criminalized. Domestic conflicts are common. These are a means to look at what you are seeing. Perhaps a definition or extend the scope of what you see. The public health framework begins with identifying what the concerns are and then the risk factors and then spends time also identifying the prevention factors which are in okay or what could be. Some have them but not enough. We want to develop more the final component of public health is to develop the relates to ciliate the outcomes that you want. There is not one institution to stop youth games. Its has to be collaborative. In terms of impact, dehumanization of loss – young people are pulled out of relationships that are meant stability to them and then moved to new environments and are expected to stimulate without understanding what was taken from them. Even if it was the convenience store clerk asking them how they are when they come in. this begins to shape this persons outlook. Example, I was a counselor, I was able to engage the toughest people living in Scarborough, I brought one of these young people, he was 16 at the time, mom was administrator of a nursing home ,dad was history teacher at a high school. They thought he was going to hurt them or himself. Room was black, listened to depressing music. I ASKED him if he had anything to say. He looked what do you mean? By how you look, we should be doing this. He was a full blown skin head. He was intrigued that I knew his statement. I knew about it I told him. He said no I shouldn’t be a problem. Then we got to talking about his parents and his family. They are expecting him to b as they are. This young man remembers as if it were the day before, he remembers in gr. 3.teachers handed back work, but when it was his turn, she told his mark to everyone, it was really bad and she pinned it on the board. When he was able to, he joined the most defensive force, skinheads, he joined up with them. No one was going to do that to him again. I knew more about the skinheads more than the cop. Now he is 29, he used to call every now and then. The last contact was he called to ask me what I thought of the idea to go to Trent to study journalism. I said go for it. Now were on facebook. There are things that have a tremendous impact. We need to have some understanding of and develop partnerships with a purpose. In everything talk about, with young women, young women’s behavior is modeled for young men. Their choices are guy’s choices. Joining gangs are behaving more aggressively than some of the guys involved in soft gangs. We have that here in this where these are poor parental supervision. Families where single female headed families, which are a result of abandonment by males is a risk factor. There is some work emerging around engaging fathers which cannot be left out of prevention exploring. If a young person drops out of school that’s one thing, but if they are expelled from school by age 14, they are on an extremely steep projector to be arrested by 25, all based on risk factors from a child. We can determine who will commit crimes. We need to address some of the indentified risk factors, in hence, resiliency. This is not possible if we don’t work collaborate. We have pitted service providers against each other, which affects their ability to provide the service. This is the first agenda item, how do we work together. From the same set of principles to the same outcome. Everyone has a place in the effort. Is it possible, to engage gang involved youth? Yes. But not in isolation. You keep hearing that from me, there is no one organization that has the best practice. They say they are, but they are not. I am troubled by the fact that agencies have lost sight of the youth developing a good sense of values as you approach this work is important. Don’t ever acknowledge, embrace them by their gang names. You end of affirming them and being that figure. The more people that affirm these statements, the harder it is for them to realize and get out of what they are doing. You are locking them in the very problem these services are trying to get them out of. People are led to believe that police are experts on this. They can lock kids up and have tools to make case. Bu they lack an understanding on the end behavior. All of you serviced needs to find a way to reflect an understanding and an effort. Kicking them out of school, gets them out of school but solidifies a negative track for them. Schools need to find a way that can’t engage in mainstream. Certain racial groups are more prone. Our position was to have a balanced approach. This is not a black problem, it is a community problem. It will emerge here if people suggest it can be easily managed here. When you look at it from a community perspective. When you focus on the need behavior, you miss the boat. You need to find out what is driving them and make that the basis for how we develop the service. I think in our work, our aim is to build resilience in youth and the communities that they live in. overall, our goal is to reduce vulnerability for youth and society. I think we all have a role in getting us there.
- Pertaining to parents that have youth, parents would see potential negative behaviors and often move them to the suburbs and move to places that seem more favorable to raise your child. Would you say then that this is not a feasible solution to parents?
Yes, it may seem like a safer place, but the majority of the young people that leave the places make it. In a lot of cases, when the young person moves to a new environment, they end up engaging in the same challenges in that environment. What it comes down to is the parent’s ability to own…to be safe. It is the wrong thing to do. It doesn’t help the young person to develop the skills. I moved to Pickering because I know Scarborough and wanted to raise our children in an environment where they would have fewer distractions. I sign my children up in programs in neighborhoods where there are problems and they see these young people are reminded and are presaged. This doesn’t work in every case.
2. You mentioned that’s important to understand the function of the gang and the needs of the members. Are there certain things that most members need that we are unaware of?
The need to belong, if they are not getting that, they will gravitate to the forces that provide that to them. They see the gangs as acceptable relationships. They describe their gang colleagues as friends. People don’t expect boys to resonate first. We’ve worked with people whose committed the most atrocious crimes and don’t understand until the cops come. Family and school that continually beats them down. If you are a person that presents that positive all encouraging relationship in their life, it doesn’t matter how long the time is between each conversation.
Ato – One of things that were seen often was youth culture. What is youth culture? There is a tendency to refer to youth culture in a very negative way. There is a paradigm shift around corporate culture. If you look at youth culture today, there is an economic connection to youth culture and a social once. You are the driving force behind economic development.
Exemplary services or programs – have youth involved in planning their service. They don’t close their doors at 5. Young people come alive after school hours. There are a lot of folks doing good work, but I would apply the question, given that we have a broaden, agencies and organizations that provide services for youth, addressing are doing the right thing. Unfortunately the funding structures are a problem.
Statement from female host (volunteer lady)
I like the idea of prevention, stopping the problems before they happen. Talking about skills needed; stress management. Are we maybe not focusing n that in schools. What about the school system doing a little more?
I agree such efforts need to be taken, but I don’t think it is the job of the school. It requires a shift in how we structure society. Everyone embraces their role.
Mr. Williams, it is very important that we stop dehumanizing youth.
How do we get parents more involved?
Organize a parent support group.
Ideas:
I am hoping that whatever some of these thoughts are formed we can have a discussion. Put some of your hopes, dreams on the table.
This is a community issue.
11:30 – 12:00 – L.S.
12 – 1 – Lunch
1 – 3:00 Workshops a) Youth, Gangs, Guns – Probation and Parole b) Examining Youth, Gangs, Guns – Public Health approaches
Apsgo association, we are an association of parent support groups of Ontario. Group in Barrie, then closed up because there weren’t enough parent volunteers or enough parents coming out to the meetings. The closet to here is in aurora and there are some in Toronto and Brampton. It is parents sharing stories about their struggles and this helps other parents. It help parent of destructive youth and empower parents to deal with the situation to assist parents in acquiring the skills to help their children. Once the parent changes, the child will change. It’s easy to label a child, especially those who get in trouble. We have to find out what ticks with them and not judge them based on their physical appearance. What excites them? Often times we label them the minute we see them and that’s a no no. that’s not letting them in.
YMCA – since muskoka. Getting youth who are unemployed jobs. We take referrals from probation officers and also have a justice program and offer outreach counseling for youth asking for help. Youth leadership programs with youth from high schools.
I think that given the scenario, there is an approach. Get some advice from someone who understands Canadian law around that specific culture. The school has to deal with the problem. It is the process of strategy. Because of the religious and cultural background. A man will come in and act on behalf of the family. School social workers may be more perceptive. It may take time for her to be empowered. Caribbean culture is very similar to western culture, they speak English follow the same laws, etc. when victims involved in religion occurs; now the victim has shamed their family. This offers a reason to why some don’t report the abuse. You don’t want to put the victim back into harm. Bring awareness to people in that institution with what? What factors? Most school boards have specialist who are trained in cultural diversity. Not all do maybe, but just hearing the example I find it hard to accept. By not doing anything in this situation, it actually empowers the bullies. When girls have the support of their parents, they can take the situation to the principle. Although the principle may not do anything, she can take it to the next level until the situation is dealt with. Remaining in silence empowers the bully even more. This could be a social death sentence. We need to understand how various cultures are structured. Contact support groups within the community. We want to be heard, what does she want to have happen? During an assault, power is stripped tremendously. We give them power back by doing what they want. An anonymous third party report. Her name is never on, but a description of a person who did this. This report goes to police. If similarities, will be used for comparison. Advocate with key community members. They don’t want a whole lot they want to forget about it and put it behind them. Moral conditions of traditional values. They want services from their own people. Culturally sensitive care. On a macro level, we’re dealing with two different levels of approach. To help people of different cultures to place these things within the Canadian context. Not fully stigmatizing these women. Do the soldiers whose families live in poverty in the us really have a choice? Her choices and own desires may be limited. We should not deal with this after the fact. Don’t neglect the male sense of responsibility. They have the sense of right and wrong but they are still doing it. The perpetrators need to be focused on too. If they are identifiable or not, the question has to be dealt with. The victim now is tainted. Education is needed so women don’t put themselves in that point. The society around us, parents are absent, children are making the decisions themselves, females are highly sexual. The young girls are being taught that their sense of self-worth is. The female sense of who you are is related to the world (music videos). The males are not having the message of treating women with respect, instead they are taught to just get sex (from the media). How are they seeing themselves? Their whole sense of worth is based on sexuality and how sexual they are. Dedication is always placed on the shoulder of the woman. The man has no responsibility if they get pregnant. The man is not educated to understand, there is not enough education to males. You’ll find more information of what the females shouldn’t do verses what the male shouldn’t do. The media is reinforcing that as well as the entire society. Whatever has happened to her is her responsibility, even though she is the weaker sex. It is her responsibility to be the stronger person, rather than the man. Boys should hear from victims, maybe if they saw the impact of their actions. To prevent it, it takes greater education and it takes more tools. Females need to be encouraged so they can stand on their own 2 feet. Females need to be educated and sensitive to environmental factors. Example, father is an alcoholic, so the son decided to never try alcohol in his life. Thus, the son is not an alcoholic.
If a youth is choosing a gang as protection, then we need to take a step back and look at the steps that brought her to the point where she was. The perpetrator needs support just as much as the victim. Micro and macro level solutions: raise awareness about that issue. Peer programs implemented in schools. Help support kids who are fearful to report to authority figures. Legal parameters must be addressed. The voices of youth need to be brought to the table. Youth they don’t know who to go to. Putting a face to the name or agency is good so they know who to call, how to get referred. An assembly at the beginning of the year. Not knowing the guidance counselor could have an impact; know who the team is and the school psychologist. Communicate with them using the vehicle of their choice, which is most familiar to them and thus becoming more comfortable with the situation. Don’t make personal traits trackable/obvious to outsiders. If these things had been in place ahead of time, then this option for her could have been prevented. You can’t see feelings. It is a very delicate area. Lots of grey space, not everything is black and white. The kids probably had better protection in that gang.
The scenario that was painted was not to look at people with color with one blanket of culture. The 2 scenarios are Muslims and people of Hindu background, south Asian, rape and molestation she doesn’t think about how she was violated, she is thinking about the shame brought onto her. How do you bring what happened to that young lady and weigh out and how to proceed in the right manner. It has long term implications. In marriage time, the virginity is tested before marriage. There are two sets of dynamics at all times. Intervention and prevention. Intervention: I’m going to be proactive about the situation, what are the issues and how are we going to get people aware. Prevention is the knowledge of cultures, social and economic background. There is enough there for you to organize and deal with the issues. Instead of working with your own organization. We don’t want to be culturally arrogant. Be conscious about the paradigm and not someone else’s paradigm.
We also need to take a look at the bullies because they may have more of a problem than the victim.
Ebenezer – boot camp for young offenders. Didn’t include people who were charged with sexual assault or murder. The conditions of the reserves, trying to prepare them and reintegrate .a lot of these youth know a lot about the system, more than you and I could ever know. To ensure that these services should not be abused. Nationwide, they want to join a gang. You want to go to jail – make your bones, its respect. No one messes with you after that. The police unit was only black people in that particular year. How do we get youth gangs to care? You are not dealing with stupid people; a lot of them are very intelligent. Prisoners segregate themselves based on racial differences, although the race isn’t identified blatantly. “When I see minority youth with a criminal record, I do not judge anymore. I know better”. We do need ongoing communication as service providers.
Show the similarities between the people who are different. Perhaps integrating martial arts into schools. Kids learn to live in the conditions that are suppressing them.
4 p.m. – Dinner & Networking
March 30, 2010 – Focus on Female Youth
9:30 breakfast, networking
10 – 11: 00 – Rai Reece, Phd Candidate, York University – This presentation will examine the relationship between Canadian criminal justice and youth. We will explore how social justice initiatives prove to be better alternatives to incarceration for young people.
Thank you first of all, this is a really important conference that Is well over due. I just want to start by saying that what were going to be talking about today is a little controversial. A lot of this is taking place in Toronto but Barrie has almost become the hub I started my work when I was 18, in Scarborough. I was working in metro housing and then youth that were street involved and IV users. Then I moved into working with prisons, and ex-prisoners. I coordinating women’s programs and we are currently the only organization in North America that works with prisoners that are HIV positive. Working with young girls and then transferred into working with young women. I want to have a conversation with you and not at you. We’re going to start by looking at some of the history. There is a lot of talk right now about young girls being really violent. A lot of it is media hype. Crime overall is actually decreasing in the city. Women’s bodies are often feminized. We have ideas of how young women should act. Back lash of the feminist movement. Did not take into consideration of the affects. Part of this backlash meant that a lot of patriarchal, male oriented vies of how young women should act. Liberation hypothesis and a lot of dialogue of women needing to work and not being good mother. We are seeing the warehousing of young girls of color in institutions. Talking about physiachtric initiations. Girls do have violence issues, violating curfews, etc. there has been an increase in the criminalization of young women who are poor, racialized. When we articulate working with young girls, particularly women who are at risk. Some of this core factors include peer pressure, racism and homophobia. Canada’s very assorted history when it comes to racism, complete denial and it comes to the way this country has treated aboriginals. We see aboriginal communities in the system earlier than their ancestors. We see violence in a merit of forms, cultural, verbal, financial, etc. perpetrated against young women. Because of the first two, a lot of young women are afraid. They are afraid to report the incident. The trend we see over all is young girls are afraid to report violence. When they treat themselves theory stop talking. Peer pressure is big. Stats show that there is a lot of pressure to be sexually active. When they are promiscuous, they are now bad girls. So all of these things are connected to racism, sexism, etc. if your struggling about your sexually, targeted because of race, they are alienated. Then they retreated. Some of us are service provides. There is solution that we can talk about and how we can address some of these issue’s once you empower a young woman… the safe schools act has a no tolerance policy. When I was in highsch0ool I didn’t have this policy. But when you have this policy you have to have provision in place to tolerate this type of policy. There are not the provisions to help support that child in moving on. If they can’t go back to that school, zero tolerances are actually quite faulty. It is that much harder to bring them back into the hold. We say you know what, we messed up, etc. this child now has to navigate the system on their own. A lot of parents are very upset. It’s not just the home, it’s the entire system. Juvenile detention centers. We pull out strains of sensationalized . And we run with that because that’s how we can get more money, and build jails. Jails cannot sustain themselves on their own, we need super jails. Specifically looking at women, issues are really different than they are for young men. In nature, the4y are highly more vulnerable ion the street. More susceptible to sexual assault, violence, sex work (a currency) which makes young girls disadvantages. We know that young women have a lack of gender specific and community gender specific programs. Girls would say they want to talk about something else but sometimes they don’t feel like talking about it in a group consisting of males. Girls only focus groups. I want to reach these girls in a way they could be safe. It is continual and consistent. When I work who young women, were still finding a gender bias and programs only for men. It is not getting better within the system. This is a problem. When women are put in houses with young men. There are risk factors involved. Rapes, abuses. The system does not encounter this. Also tend to access to services programs. Girls are often medicalized, given more prescription drugs. We tend to diagnose or misdiagnose young women. In many young offenders we talk about incidents of sexual assault. Segregation of young women in facilities. Kim pate, a lawyer, has done a lot of research. People are interested reading it, please let her know. Young women needs are ignored, are subsumed by those of young men. In terms of service providers, it is really important, the best way to approach the people and ask them what they need and what it is what they want. Show them your template, you will lose them. Do gender focus. It is very much about having focus groups and talk about what their needs is. An assessment doesn’t need to be clinical. She may not need to go to a mental health organization. When there are issues around violence, it is important to ask first, rather than assume. What are your needs>? Sometimes they don’t know. We need to do some work. We need to arm ourselves with knowledge. Be able to explain what racism is. Issues that affect young women. Particularly dealing with teenage mothers. We also know that there is overrepresentation. Young women who are poor, you cannot pay your find, which means you’re going to be picked up, and if you’re a young mom, the issues just go on and on. They are afraid they’re going to lose their kids. A lot of young women, especially notice women, who are in the federally system for lack of payment of fines, not violent crimes. Warehouse people who are in nonviolence charges together. Level one charge is status offences result in 0 tolerance rules. There doesn’t have to be a direct correlation to youth in the juvenile system, but once you do get into the juvenile system it doesn’t take much work to get into the federal system. If we don’t address these issues, this is going to happen. A lot of girls are picked up on wire taps, because they are involved with guys who are involved with illegal activity. Their charges extend from transporting, transporting, trafficking guns, etc. sexual orientation. The stereotype of girls turning into gun holders is not supported by stats. This last point of this kind of girls becoming more violent, if you look at the stats, it doesn’t fit. There is not a direct correlation. What happens to young people once they get into the system? House arrest group home. The of jda, meant that young women could be in prison for running away, not meeting their curfew, in 82 this was suppose to end the seemingly way young people were treated. This didn’t work; it actually put more restrictions on people. The YCJA replaces the young offenders act. This is currently not working.
There was a phase 1 and phase 11 young offenders. Morton house youth services is an all male youth facility. All women are transferred directly down to Toronto now. Taken away from their families. The boys were even considered. There are not a lot of supports within the system for young women. Often times, most prisons are in Kingston. Women are moving away from their families. They are coming from lower income families. Now we have to be looking at poverty issues. Now the parents are going to have a harder time supporting that person. The other thing with the youth criminal injustice act if you get charged with something, if you are 17 years old, you are automatically considered an adult. When you try a child in a court, the system is completely different. The issues are magnified and multiplied by 10 xs. You may have a young girl who is 17, one day she will be transfer to the federal system by her 18th birthday. There are not youth historical provisions in place to help her deal.
Ashley smith video – young woman from newbrunsick, we placed in the juvenile system at 14 for throwing crab apples at something. The main problem is that the crutching system didn’t know how to deal with Ashley, so they transferred her to grand valley in Kitchener. They dry celled her. She is high risk, for the potential of suicide. She hasn’t seen population and hasn’t for the last 3 years. No people visit her, expect once in a while. She has attempted suicide 3 times and eventually succeeded. Her case is tragic because she slipped through the cracks. The warden sentenced officers not to enter her cell. She was straight jacked until she urinated on herself. She died in 2007. There was a lot of controversy. Always lock down. The result meant a physiology unit on the compound. They just wanted to cover their rears because it wasn’t there before. Why were these issues not addressed before Ashley had to die?
Community based funding. We can do really good advocate for young people. It’s really important that service providers are aware of the issues. The amount of money spend on corrections is 1 billion. Its 85,000 to house 1 male prisoner in Ontario. 150,000 for one female. A lot of money is spent on caging young people. We have to do the work. When we do our presentations in schools we are not welcome in schools because parents don’t want their kids knowing about the hive. We look at is like, they are going to do it anyways. In some cases not, sometimes we are welcomed. A lot of young girls feel dirty when they had their kid when they were 16 or 17. High quality support system for youth. Schools could be gender focused. Girls get bullied at school, on the buses and when they get home. Criminalize young women doe’s violence. Penalize people for crimes only make them harder.
I just want to know what advice is there room for male to interact specifically in the community with regards to young girls.
11: 00 11:15 Q & A
11:15 – 11:30 break
1:30 – 12:00 – Sarah Morano – Performance
12 – 1 – Lunch
1 – 2 :00 – Presentation by Bernice Trudeau, Barrie Native Family Centre – Could not make it.
2 – 2:15 Q&A
2:15 – 3:00 Workshops, a) Rai Reece – Examining Women, Gangs, Guns and Drugs b) Native Women’s perspectives
4 p.m. Dinner & Networking
March 31, 2010 – Arts as a Tool of Resilience
9:30 breakfast, networking
10 – 10:30 – Ato Seitu , Six ‘AH We Artists Collective– Arts as a tool of resiliency – Creative Partnerships for Intervention and Prevention
Tropicana Community Services – Youth START: Striving to improve The Pro-Social Skills of Our Youth.
Ato – It was interesting that there was a 15 yr old in the states that just hung her because of bullying. She was confronted from the girls at school, she was dating a popular guy from school. She was from Ireland. Lots of rumors were spread on the internet. They are investigating and administrative staff was bullied and did nothing and said nothing. On the forefront of entertainment media, the internet there is a present movement to stop this particular video that was released. The game was about toughing, groping and raping women. Today I am going to talk about arts and resiliency. There are a number of methodologies that I’m aware of with the arts in the field. Grasshill. Primarily non-american. Western concept; the arts as a tool. Focused on the poor in braznia. Social activist discovered the poor accept their condition of being poor. By doing this they develop a poverty mentality. They pass that on to the children. The group of artists as well as social workers developed a way to get kids to know who they are accepting who they are. These artists would use the arts to educated these kids and show them their role and how they are fitting. That in a nutshell. The arts in a cultural action framework. That’s a bit more aggressive approach using the arts. Primarily used where there are political struggle taking place. They developed a theory, the adapted a concept that basically used the arts a vehicle to educated and adjutant and direct people where they should put their energy in their struggle. It is an offense approach. The artists in a partime period produced art that criticized what was illegal. Shouldn’t shut down theatres, they were prisoner and poor and it was in a context where the art became a context. The third one is that art is a tool of resiliency. Primarily about looking at how to use the arts to meet the needs of the youth. These needs vary and the arts can be used to transform those individuals. Each of these methodologies is based on social/political environment. The arts of resiliency are the primary focus today. They promise from a strategic point of view is about developing and creating prevention and intervention. These 2 are not the same. Intervention focuses on outreach in terms of providing info and giving directions. Preventing is more working on how-to actually creates a change. Understanding their surroundings. Bold art is impotent because outreach is crucial to any kind of social organization. Who outreach is because what we call in the commercial words “advertising and marketing”. We don’t have the resources so outreach is primarily street, soldiers, front-line, name it claim it date it that connect with the community that we want to serve. Prevention is about developing programs that meet the needs of youth and their conditions. Resiliency cannot be taught. You cannot teach someone. It is about providing opportunities for youth and skills that are need in day-to-day living. They are a successful transformation from kids to adults. This is the whole purpose of looking at resiliency. Analysis, and analytical skills that can be utilized to help maneuver through the challenges that are life. The silence is focusing on teaching the youth to break down problems by creating new ways of thinking of problems. Involvement of the community is important. Self confidence. It is not the role of the artist to provide all the humanity needs. Counseling, medications…that is why partnership is very important. It’s about actually developing skills. Looking at the holistic process sops they can move on. They are in jail because they do not have the tools to transfer these skills. Friends come around $$$ Looks big Gangs come around. Milk the cow to rob the system. They move onto marijuana (drugs). The involvement of theses family , media cultural organization and other forms of organization. By focusing on arts as a tool the arts can tools competenticies, skills, social skills, civic skills from arts. Build cognitive skills, evaluation, and creativity. Self expression, cooperation, and social skills- musician you have to cooperate. Discover their talents and explore vocational opportunities. Offer opportunity you coordination, physical skills healthy eating. In our society it is so gross to see our youth smoke pot then go to McDonald and eat. Cultural projects, history allow to a better understanding of their culture, civic pride. Community mapping, take youths out in the community, churches, businesses,
10: 30 11:00 – Lillia Shillingford, YouthSTART, a Programmed of Tropicana Community Services
-I’ve looked at the notes around the room – they are similar to those in Scarborough. Specific things that we include in our program arts based components. We recognize a real vehicle to increase self esteem, a collaborate effort CAS probation school social parent struggling with their youth. We must include the communities that we live in used as a tool. Escalating need for parents supporting them. We include 10 to 12 wk cycle the needs. The staff is well trained. At the interview process needs of the family, youths.
Assist youth with aggressive tendencies, 9-13. Skill streaming>not all youths have the same skill sets at same age. Everyone does not have these skills. Anger Control Training> dealing with the anger, anger reducers, aggression is a learned skill, it can be unlearned. Moral Reasoning> given the youths tools and skills are not be used, this challenges how you set your values, walking them through challenging their values which are positive.
Themed trips, learn diff places, age, and social. Benefits>promote the building healthy relationship, manage emotions, develop leadership roles, resolve conflict. With this there is less expulsions, less police being involved. Aggression Replacement Training ART > the goal is START to reduce aggressive impulses. When this is facilitated it is programmed and it works and results are very evident. START> some of the research show specific results (evidenced based) Goldstein & Glick 1986 New York. Youth START>pro-social skills, gives tools to maintain self control, confidence.
Summer Camp-infused 2 wk session 9-13, it is focused heavily on Arts based, spoken word. At the end of the summer they put all of their experiences together. They are appreciated of being recognized by the community. The youth do not appreciate or know they have gifts – it is important that they are appreciated for these gifts. Aggression Replacement Training>run a group within an organization. Provide to start these programs, in turn they can continue strong programming within the organization.
Positives from youth >make better decisions, less fights in schools or on the streets
June1-3, 2010 Next training session to Facilitate START
Build a sense of ownership by displaying their skills on the wall, structured, and tailored for them. 2 volunteers up. Modeling and practice. Discussion about real issues they are dealing with. Role Play. Demonstration. What are some of the issues youth deal with today. Mathew replies…… Bottom line kids don’t know where to go for help. Displaying card showing “feelings” Steps for this: decide what happened to make you feel this way… Often time’s youths lash out in anger because they cannot express their feelings. Mathew jumps (showing anger) Mary has a service in mind, express how you feel about the situation….. Mathew expresses his frustration as a youth.
The biggest issue is where to go. People don’t want us hanging out at the parks because we’re not viewed as good people. Are there any positive outlets? Can someone help? How come we don’t know about these places? We do what we can, there are not a lot of volunteers. Has anger got you anything that you want? Some parents use the program for pro social issues and have some type of issue with anger and regression. Youth repeatedly get expelled from schools, getting in fights, beating up their moms and siblings. How we respond to emotions and act out is key. We don’t tell youth their behavior is bad, we look for solutions. Act, behavior, consequence. An education department, there is coordinator now, and we do this to succeed and got funding and hired a dedicated coordinator. We do some specific planning ahead of time.
Young people seem to be intrinsically connected to the arts. There is difficult because there is a lack of infrastructure, as well as infrastructure available to everyone. There needs to be wide community access. Cause what happens is there is one group of people who can afford to rent theatres and the rest (the poor) are left out again. And these folks are already living it well enough. The downtown area is lower income and yes there are great efforts into the development of downtown. The issue is whether the downtown area can incorporate lower incomes within the community to function in a way that everyone is involved. Revitalization of culture in a community will change the way the community sees themselves. This is an environmental change. There is a lack of hope. If there is no hope, you’re open for a lot of negative activity. Graffiti Park. See these people in a different light, see these people for the talent they have. Competition is part of youth culture, so we made it competitive. This will attract the artist to put their best foot forward. But now the police can come to one area and find all the criminals based on their past artwork. Community always has to put in more effort. The people that need it will get the money. There is a ricochet effect from the youth who is a bi-product.
A comprehensive approach deals heavily with the prevention of crime, etc. what are the root issues and causes. Gangs are merely a response to other failures in our society. Key value is non-violence. Giving choices during their care treatment is more empowering especially for women who were disempowered.
Ontario Arts Council: Solutions for social ills. The arts aren’t the only solution but they are a major way of addressing it. More than 50 programs, they fund dance, music, theatre, arts and crafts as well as arts education and community arts. There is an aboriginal artist association. Decisions are made by the members of the community and give their input. There are eligibility requirements though. www.arts.on.ca, www.artreachtoronto.ca,the ministry of heritage deals with the federal funding of the arts. Who you’re serving, what is the art form and what the activity is. There are deadline calendars. There are also literature programs. Have a GOOD relationship with your funder. Poverty and postal code indicated in the suburbs there was a firth of service. Most of the funding goes to these neighborhoods.
BOOM – group of high risk youth at a youth centre in Orillia. Beautiful Orillia one music. Program that organized with the youth, who did all the work themselves, just with encouragement. Movement dedicated to playing the music, education doesn’t matter. There are core issues that youth and adults have. Our youth are rampid, they are rebellious. – Hitler said this. Not one youth is high risk, they were just bored. A collective, rebellious anger that festers and eventually will break because its natural law.
We should be able to raise money from within the community. Therapeutic, a holistic approach. The outside is good for these kids. Recent trends rising globally are sustainable businesses. Businesses are actually encouraged to become more sustainable if they want a fighting chance. By sustainable I mean giving back to the community in some way. Many tourists are now looking to travel to hotels and resorts that employ locals, etc. This same philosophy could be used to financially contribute to this project.
Youth helping out and creating money. We want these kids to sell what they are making. A talent show? Let them showcase their talents. Take the money that is made and put it right back into the program. We have to be focused, start with something small then build up to bigger. There needs to be a sense of ownership and have part ownership of the organization. First, we need to identify our resources. Acknowledge the funder publicly. Have someone dedicated to fund rising. We don’t have to build on something small, I think we can work on something big. Funding possibly from colleges or universities. Display art at businesses as well as list the sponsor. List the author/artist. Collaboration with college students and the arts (young offenders using the arts).
Start with buying a space. Make a state of the arts facility. Pay workers enough (what they deserve). Once there is a will, the money will fall into place.
11:00 – 11:15 – Q & A
11:15 – 11:30 break
11:30 – 12:00 – R. Quammie Williams, Director of Culture, City of Barrie – Arts and community revitalization
12 – 1 – Lunch
1 – 1:15 – Ontario Arts Council – Announcements
1:15 – 2 :30 – Mobilizing Funding – Workshops – partnership building, community development, resiliency – a path toward mobilizing community partners.
2 :00 – 3:00 Performance by Mike Maher and Dave Dick
Closing Plenary
4 p.m. Dinner & Networking
Mobilize Barrie: A Path toward Finding and Mobilizing Community Partners Conference 