SDOP Youth Campaign

SDOP Youth

In 2007, gang violence in the City of San Diego reached the level of an epidemic. There was a 61% increase in gang related homicides in San Diego (following a 50% increase in 2006). In response, SDOP leaders conducted more than 20 research meetings with City Officials, Police, Parks and Recreation, social service agencies, and researchers. These meetings confirmed what we had been hearing from youth and families - kids are slipping through the cracks. High-school dropout rates are at a crisis-level. 23% to 42% of African-American and Latino youth do not finishg high school in San Diego. The economic consequences of dropping out are devastating. Dropouts earn about $8,000 less per year than those who finished high school, and youth who have dropped out are much more likely to be unemployed or incarcerated. Providing early intervention services to an at-risk youth costs approximately $560 per year, compared to the cost of about $70,000 per year for incarceration. 50% of California prison inmates did not finish high school.

In the 30 years between 1978 and 2008, California dropped from being the 21st to the 35th state in per-student spending. During this same period, the state’s incarceration rates per capita increased by 5 times. In the City of San Diego over the past 5 years, police department funding increased by $120 million while $6 million was cut from Parks and Recreation, which houses most of the city’s youth services.

In response to this dire situation, SDOP leaders launched "Pathways: Hope and Opportunity for Youth Campaign" in 2007, an effort to unite public officials and the community to develop and implement a permanent, comprehensive, City-led youth strategy that brings hope to our youth and communities. SDOP’s campaign has brought together for the first time the six crucial stakeholder groups needed to create this strategy: (1) The City (Police, Parks & Rec.), (2) The County (Probation, Health & Human Services), (3) The San Diego Unified School District, (4) Community Based Organizations, including social service providers and clinics, (5) The Business Community, and, (6) Churches / Community members. The Campaign aims to create the political will at all levels of government to make youth a priority in the City of San Diego, and to develop permanent revenue streams to support neighborhood based programming and services for youth and families.

Pathways Campaign Vision: Safe, healthy, and productive youth, connected to their families, schools, and communities, their own futures, and the future of San Diego County.

In order to bring about this vision, the Campaign has 3 major goals:

1. To develop a new, permanent, city-led mechanism for collaboration, communication, and coordination among the major stakeholders.

2. To increase programs and services that enrich the lives of youth and families, and keep youth in school and away from delinquent activity.

3. To develop a permanent revenue stream to support neighborhood based programming and services for youth and families.

SDOP's community organizing work focused on youth opportunities has already resulted in increased political will at city and county levels to focus on youth opportunities, leading to the work of the Mayor's Task Force on Youth Recreation and Prevention Services. Over the past 12 months, the Task Force has met regularly to gather, share, and analyze data, research current resources and gaps, and discuss barriers and challenges. Already new collaborative partnerships are being built and data-driven approaches are being developed as a result of our work. Some of the achievements to date include:

1. Increased Coordination & New Efforts:

• San Diego Unified has piloted a range of intervention and prevention programs targeting the highest behavioral and academic risk students throughout the district. These programs are partnerships between schools and community-based organizations. Subsequently, the school district is receiving $700,000 in Federal Stimulus money to expand the programs at 3 to 16 Title I high schools.

• SDUSD is designing and implementing a young women's leadership development program, and expanding a truancy attendance intervention program and an in-school suspension program for all 9th grade students at all 16 of its Title I high schools.

• All but one school in the pilot project improved academically over the course of the school year.

• $6 million in Federal Stimulus money provided summer job opportunities for hundreds of youth. SDPD and SDOP hosted a business/community partnership event on May 7th to partner youth with prospective employers. In addition, 33 summer jobs outside the Hire-a-Youth program were created.

• With a grant from Workforce Partnership's Hire-a-Youth program, San Diego Unified became the largest provider of youth jobs over the summer. 594 young people were hired, 120 received career counseling and college guidance with local universities, and 38 students were offered permanent jobs after their internships concluded.

• The City's Parks and Recreation Department used a grant from OJJDP to extend hours at various community centers in the pilot project area on Friday nights, and collaborated with the County and CBOs to provide a nutrition program for local kids throughout the summer.

• A pilot food stamp eligibility program, implemented by SDUSD & SDOP at two schools in the project area, resulted in a grant application that was approved for this school year. The program extends food stamp outreach by SAY San Diego and AmeriCorps to 17 schools in San Diego.

Attendance, Truancy & Public Safety:

• The San Diego Unified District required every school to develop new attendance rate goals resulting in success. As a result, the daily attendance rate for all students system wide in 2008-09 was 95.44%, the highest in its history. Among subgroups of students, the most significant attendance gains were realized by African-American and Latino student populations, particularly in the pilot project area.

• The SARB process was retooled, and is now being done at the beginning of the school year instead of at the end.

• School truancy policies and procedures were evaluated and revised, with the assistance of SDPD and the Probation Department. All district teachers and administrators were retrained on new truancy procedures and expectations on how to intervene with consistently truant students.

• SDPD and the school district implemented a high level of coordination on curfew and truancy sweeps, based on data on juvenile criminal behavior.

• San Diego crime rates have decreased, including juvenile crime, with a consistent decrease in both the South Eastern and Mid City divisions.

• In six months, SDPD has doubled the number of parent notification letters for children and teens that had contact with police for minor infractions.

• A new juvenile crime diversion process was instituted, resulting in the highest ever number of youth being diverted by the police department. South Eastern Division reported a 497% increase in the number of youth diverted, while Mid City reports a 2,000% increase from last year.

Better Use Of and Access To Data:

• A website listing community services and resources for youth and families in the Pilot Project is now ready to launch.

• Crime data by neighborhoods and type showed how youth were avoiding curfew and truancy sweeps times and committing most offenses on Mondays. This data was used to revise curfew and truancy sweeps, resulting in increased success rates.

• The School District created an Office of Dropout Prevention which gathers all student attendance and truancy data.

• Our collaboration has allowed us to share existing data more efficiently among the partner organizations and agencies, resulting in better decision making toward resolving community issues facing children and teens

The Task Force has created 3 sub-committees to deal with different aspects of the project: (1) Youth Enrichment Sub-committee, Public Safety Sub-committee, and Education & Schools Sub-committee. Each sub-committee is responsible for designing a solution-oriented plan that will lead towards the achievement of the Task Force's 9 Desired Outcomes. SDOP is represented in a leadership capacity on all 3 sub-committees.