Henry Fernandez, a former youth-agency head and then a city official, has an idea of what that plan should look like. He says New Haven needs to reverse the dangerous present course seen in youth-agency cutbacks and violent incidents involving kids with guns.
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New Haven has come a long way from the bad old days of the early ’90s, but we have begun to slip backwards and will continue to do so if as adults we do not meet our obligations to our children. Ten years ago more than 500 children were served by youth programs at the Q‑House, Latino Youth, Hill Cooperative Youth Services, and the YWCA. All of these agencies are now gone and nothing has come along to give this number of children back the positive youth development these agencies once fostered. While there are still a few very strong agencies left in New Haven, places like LEAP and Farnam Neighborhood House have seen budget cutbacks and have had to fight every year to serve our children. Now we worry about hordes of unruly kids on bikes and the potential re-emergence of youth gangs.
New Haven’s young people need us to form and implement a youth policy. What would it look like? While the first ten years of my professional career centered on solving problems for kids mostly in New Haven, as a city official the past seven years I focused on economic development. As a volunteer and now in my consulting practice, I have concentrated on broader national anti-poverty strategies. The New Haven Independent asked me to identify the elements of an effective youth policy for our city and thus I have been thinking about this and welcome the opportunity to return to my roots. Here are some essentials for a successful youth policy:
1. Summer jobs for teenagers. We need about 1,000 more such jobs. This needs significant support from the city, Regional Workforce Development Board, Community Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce, Yale University and the two hospitals. These jobs build fundamental skills required throughout life like self-reliance, teamwork, punctuality and money management.
2. After school programs and summer camps. We need more financial support for leading youth agencies so they can serve more children. Easily Farnam, LEAP and the Boys and Girls Club, could double in size and still not serve all of our children. The cutbacks in state and federal support for LEAP and the lack of a significant designated pool of city funds targeting after school programs and summer camps in all neighborhoods are both devastating. These organizations keep kids in nurturing environments, off the streets, and introduce them to wilderness camping, the arts, and other mind-expanding worlds.
3. Youth sports leagues. With several little leagues covering most sections of the city, New Haven Youth Soccer and a myriad of basketball programs including Farnam House, there is actually a strong base here that should be built upon. This reflects what can be done when parents and volunteers work together with local business sponsors and City Hall commits the resources necessary for quality facilities.
4. Introduction to the arts. New Haven has the best collection of arts organizations for a city this size in America. Yet despite some outreach efforts, many children have never been to the Long Wharf or created a clay pot at Creative Arts Workshop. The arts community has made strides but must make a pillar of its work exposing New Haven children to diverse art including that reflecting their own cultures, and go beyond that to allow kids to use their own creativity. Arts institutions should look for ways to make New Haven’s young people an integral part of their programming. This will open children to whole new avenues for growth and create receptive lifetime new audiences.
5. Recognition of our changing community. While all children are under-served, new immigrants have even less available to them. Organizations like Junta for Progressive Action and Fair Haven Health Community Health Center do provide some services but these are miniscule compared to the thousands of new, mostly Latino immigrant children who call New Haven home. We cannot allow these children, many of whom will never return to their former country, to grow up without essential supports.
6. A Youth Development Department at City Hall. While the city’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Trees runs some very good and creative programs for kids from canoeing to climbing walls, there is no place where the buck stops on youth programming in City government. No one person leads an agency accountable for ensuring that youth programming is nurtured in all neighborhoods or responsible to report annually to the mayor and Board of Aldermen about the state of our city’s children. If a crime is committed in a neighborhood, citizens and their elected representatives know to hold the police chief accountable for solutions. Whom do we hold responsible for the decline of youth services? In a bureaucracy, no one responsible means that resources go to many good places where attention is focused, but not to our children.
7. An effective youth policy watchdog. We need to be consistently reminded when we fall short. Connecticut Voices for Children keeps state officials on their toes. We need citizens who will similarly hold all segments of New Haven (City Hall, state legislators, business, Yale, block watches, fraternal organizations, the United Way, the Community and Casey Foundations as well as the religious community) responsible for our children.
If we rebuild our institutions in these ways, our children will grow up healthier, smarter, and believing that we love them.
(To listen to what Mayor DeStefano has to say about youth policy, click here. To read his comments, click here.