The Plan

MAGIC members meets with Frank T. Williams, Director of the Senior Ex-Offenders Program, and Dr. George Davis, Executive Director of Bayview Hunter's Point Multi-purpose Senior Services. Located at 1706 Yosemite Avenue in the Bayview, the Senior Ex-Offender program offers support for senior citizens seeking to re-enter their local communities after incarceration.

1. Organizational Description & Qualifications

Mobilization for Adolescent Growth in our Communities (MAGIC) is a collaborative effort involving the 

Urban Services YMCA, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), W. Haywood Burns Institute, the Community Leadership Council (CLC) and the San Francisco Public Defender’s office.  MAGIC was formed to implement the Comprehensive Strategy on juvenile justice reform in San Francisco communities suffering from violence and gang activity. The Comprehensive Strategy is a detailed, comprehensive community planning juvenile justice model which has been successfully implemented in over 50 cities nationwide.

Issues that will be addressed by MAGIC include:

• Mobilization of key community stakeholders interested in youth and juvenile justice to participate in a process that can positively affect the health, education and well-being of this population

• Assess the issues, obstacles, and barriers facing youth in the targeted community based upon data and research rather than anecdotes and hearsay

• Develop priorities for the identified issues and draft a plan to address the issues

• Implement the Comprehensive Strategy as a result of the mobilization and assessment process and thus, provide needed, relevant services for youth in the targeted community.

Urban Services YMCA will serve as the fiscal sponsor and advisor for MAGIC.  Urban Services YMCA was chartered in 1996 and provides life-changing programs to build health families, successful communities and educational excellence throughout the Bay Area.    Now in its seventh year, Urban Services operates HOOPS ---a twilight basketball league --- and Urban Core, which includes peer counseling, tutoring and structured recreation.  Urban Services also provides mentoring, truancy intervention for chronically truant youth, a Computer Technology Center in the Western Edition, a Safe Haven for youth, wrap-around academic and personal services through the OMI/Excelsior Beacon Center, a youth drug prevention, education and intervention center, on-campus violence prevention led by youth, a delinquency prevention and intervention program, parent education, case management and psychotherapy services.

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) will provide consulting and training services to MAGIC.  NCCD is the country’s oldest private non-profit research and consulting organization specializing in criminal justice and juvenile justice.  Founded in 1907, NCCD promotes effective, human, fair and economically sound solutions to family, community and justice problems.  NCCD conducts research, promotes reform initiatives, and seeks to work with individuals, public and private organizations and the media to prevent and reduce crime and delinquency.  Although national in the scope of its work, NCCD also works with counties, including San Francisco.  Examples of its work in the Bay Area include: developing a master plan for the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department, evaluation of Challenge Grant I programs for San Francisco and Alameda Counties, evaluation of Youth Alive’s Teens on Target Program in Oakland and conducting a workload study for the Alameda County Probation Department. 

The W. Haywood Burns Institute will work with juvenile justice stakeholders and youth agencies to implement the Comprehensive Strategy.  The Institute specializes in working with agencies which serve youth of color throughout the US and will work with juvenile justice stakeholders, including judges, police, probation officers, prosecutors, defenders and youth service providers to coordinate services to youth in Bayview/ Hunters Point and implement the juvenile justice component of the Comprehensive Strategy.  

The Community Leadership Council (CLC), a volunteer-based organization, will provide local community leadership support to MAGIC.  CLC is a group of community and business leaders from throughout San Francisco who are committed to finding new ways to combat violence on our streets through education, proven prevention strategies, youth services, parental involvement, neighborhood-based family services and by working together with juvenile justice stakeholders and government agencies.  CLC recognizes that in order to create lasting change, each targeted community must provide its own leadership.  To this end, a CLC will be established in each of the targeted communities to work with MAGIC.  Participants in the Bayview Hunters Point CLC include the Community Beacon Center of Urban Services YMCA, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Family Restoration House, and S-Net (Safety Network).

The San Francisco Public Defender’s office represents 85% of all youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system --- approximately 1500 youth each year.  The office’s juvenile division has adopted a holistic approach, which includes social work, educational advocacy, mental health and placement services for youth who have to be removed from their home.  The Public Defender also collaborates with community agencies that serve the City’s youth.  The Public Defender has been deeply involved with juvenile justice reform, and recently hosted a juvenile justice summit, attended by over 200 youth, juvenile justice advocates and professionals.  From the summit’s action plan, the Public Defender helped to develop the proposal upon which MAGIC was based.

MAGIC is currently seeking grant funding to pay for the cost of trainers from NCCD and the W. Haywood Burns Institute to conduct the initial needs assessment, planning process and implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy in San Francisco’s Bayview/Hunters Point District. Costs for a community juvenile justice caseworker, outreach, copying and other miscellaneous costs will be pursued through other funding sources.

Stakeholders and leaders from other districts, including Portrero Hill, Visitacion Valley, Western Addition, Tenderloin and Mission Districts, will be encouraged to participate in MAGIC’s planning process for the Bay View and to adopt the Comprehensive Strategy in other communities.  This will allow neighborhoods and communities to work together, rather than in competition with one another, and draw from the experiences learned from the Bayview planning process.  In the second year of this program, MAGIC’s Comprehensive Strategy will be implemented in other targeted communities.

2.  Fiscal Capacity

Urban Services YMCA, MAGIC’s fiscal sponsor, has a current budget of $3.9 million. In addition, Urban Services manages mental health contracts totaling an additional $2.1 million and has numerous contracts for service with local and state governments. 

The Urban Services YMCA has a board of managers that is comprised of 15 members from the community. The board provides broad oversight of operations and policies, review budgets and expenses, and make recommendations for programmatic and agency changes. 

3. Proposed Project Goals & Objectives

a. Project Goals and Objectives

The goal and objective of The Comprehensive Strategy is to set in motion a systematic approach to juvenile justice reform.  In order to achieve this, key community leaders must be mobilized, data must be thoroughly researched and presented, community resources and gaps in existing service systems fully identified and evaluated, and a comprehensive plan developed and endorsed by key participants. 

Although San Francisco has more than 268 youth agencies, there is a lack of coordination between existing youth services, as well as the juvenile justice system.  Many agencies lack awareness of the operations of other agencies, and fail to coordinate their efforts even though they are working with the same youth.  A comprehensive strategy must include information sharing, and successful partnerships between the school district and the courts.  Policies must be developed that permit and encourage collaboration while maintaining client confidentiality.

To this end, the following goals, objectives and performances measures have been identified:

Goal: To mobilize key community leaders in Bayview Hunters Point

Objective: To bring individuals, families, juvenile justice stakeholders, government agencies, youth services, faith-based organizations, and businesses, together to participate in a series of community trainings

Performance Measure: Full participation by community stakeholders in juvenile justice reform while building mutual trust and a “safe process” to in which difficult interagency can be addressed

Goal: To conduct an intensive assessment phase of data collection and analysis to identify priority risk factors that contribute to youthful lawbreaking and draw attention to gaps in the existing continuum of prevention and juvenile justice programs in Bay View Hunters Point

Objective: To present the community with accurate and validated information concerning recent trends on violent crime, gang activity, drug offenses, domestic violence, gun crimes and at risk youth.

Performance Measure: Helping the participants “get the facts straight” and obtain technical assistance to interpret accurate data on crime and at-risk youth.

Goal: To research, evaluate and present information about existing youth programs that are responsive to the identified community needs in the Comprehensive Strategy, while helping to re-direct and re-focus programs which are not

Objective: To increase collaboration, joint planning and program development by youth agencies and juvenile justice stakeholders, while reducing duplication of services

Performance Measure: Full continuum of services available to at-risk youth and their families, and ongoing evaluation of existing and new programs oriented toward measurable outcomes

Goal: To produce a multi-year Strategic Plan endorsed by local officials and designed to guide the development of new and existing programs and the investment of resources

Objective: To develop a community consensus on a plan of action

Performance Measure: A plan for continuum of services which includes parenting skills, truancy intervention program, violence prevention, a gang prevention/intervention, youth substance abuse, youth employment initiatives, peer mentoring programs, teenage pregnancy, teen court, restorative justice and conflict resolution programs.

4. Program Design

a. Target Population

The Strategic Plan will impact the 7,700 children and families in the Bayview through its  mobilization of direct service providers who work with youth and families.   

Virtually all youth who grow up in Bayview Hunters Point are at risk of entering the juvenile justice system.  The Strategic Plan will focus its efforts on proven prevention strategies and early intervention, and will benefit all youth in the Bayview.

For youth who enter the juvenile justice system, the Strategic Plan will work closely with the Community Assessment and Resource Center (CARC), the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, the Detention Diversion Advocacy Program, community-based diversion programs, the Juvenile Probation Department and the Public Defender’s Office to seek alternatives to incarceration for Bay View youth.  The target population who will benefit from the Comprehensive Strategy are youth from Bayview/Hunters Point who have active cases with the juvenile probation department, youth who have been detained in Juvenile Hall from Bayview/Hunters Point, and youth who have been committed to Log Cabin Ranch.

b. The Proposed Program

MAGIC’s Program will be modeled on the Comprehensive Strategy that has been implemented by NCCD in over 50 communities throughout the country, but will be tailored to meet the needs of the targeted community.  The Comprehensive Strategy requires a step-by-step process to install a highly structured and consensus-based operating system. During each stage of the process, NCCD will aid in the transfer of knowledge, skills, tools and practices that are necessary for successful introduction of an on-going collaborative assessment and planning.  The planning process can be broken down into three stages, each with specific goals and activities:

• Stage One: Mobilization of Key Community Stakeholders.  The Key Leaders’ Orientation is designed to orient key policymakers and decision makers representing all areas of the youth-serving system to the strategic planning process.  The Planning Team orientation provides a broad overview of the foundations of a comprehensive strategy, the key elements of a comprehensive approach, and the roles of the various stakeholder groups.  This activity culminates with the development of a shared vision for the future of the community’s children.

• Stage Two: Community Assessment: This requires building a data-based portrait of the specific community that can be used as the cornerstone of the community response.  A comprehensive strategy provides a methodology for brining together the data from all of the agencies, organizations, and systems along the continuum so that they can be organized, examined, and used to make informed decisions about the entire system.

• Stage Three: Comprehensive Community Planning Process.  The goal of Stage Three is to use the community profile to create an integrated, comprehensive, system-wide community response plan for filling identified gaps in the continuum of programs and services addresses the needs of youth in the community.

• Stage Four: Implementation.  Once the planning process is completed, the final stage is to implement the Comprehensive Community Plan, monitor and supervise progress, and measure and evaluate outcomes.

The Comprehensive Strategy is developed through three main training events: a one-day orientation for community leaders, a three-day training on how to collect and analyze data on risk factors and service gaps, and a three-day training on promising strategies.  The first orientation is designed to elicit support for and commitment to the Comprehensive Community Planning Process.   This training is directed at the “movers and shakers,” within a community who have the resources to initiate and sustain the reform process.  The next two training sessions is designed for the “implementers,” who are responsible for conducting the day-to-day activities of public and private agencies, and those who were needed to make operational changes to support new policies and procedures.  The Comprehensive Community Plan is drafted during these sessions.

Underlying the Comprehensive Community Planning Process are hundreds of hours of study, research, preparation and community organizing.  NCCD’s trainers will meet with key “movers and shakers” and “implementers” in order to fully communicate the concept behind the Comprehensive Strategy and securing commitments to support the implementation of the plan in the Bay View.  NCCD will provide intensive technical assistance both on-site and over the telephone.  In addition to its trainer, NCCD will employ dozens of students and interns to assist in data collection. Fortunately, a great deal of information concerning at-risk youth and crime statistics in the Bay View already exists.  NCCD will not seek to “recreate the wheel”, and instead will draw upon the wealth of information available through the Juvenile Justice Local Action Plan, the Gang-Free San Francisco Initiative and other available research.

The Community Leadership Council will focus its efforts on organizing the leaders who will participate in the Community Planning Process.  Success of the Comprehensive Strategy depends upon the commitment of key local leaders, and that the Community Planning Process must draw leaders from all parts of Bay View’s diverse communities and neighborhoods.  Members of the CLC will personally reach out to community leaders, meet with them individually, and seek their commitment, support and participation in the Community Planning Process.  CLC will be responsible for publicizing the meetings and performing the logistics to host the meetings in the Bayview/Hunters Point.  CLC will also develop and publish a newsletter on MAGIC’s activities which will be distributed on a quarterly basis.

c. Timetable

MAGIC’s Comprehensive Strategy (CS) for Bayview/Hunters Point will be implemented according to the following timetable:

PHASE ONE: Development of Comprehensive Strategy & Consensus Building

PHASE TWO: Implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy

PHASE THREE: Implementation Plans in New Community

5. Roles and Responsibilities

CLC Bayview/Hunters Point Coordinator:  Ms. Angelia Green will serve as the coordinator for CLC of the Bayview.  Ms. Green is currently employed as the site manager for the Bayview Hunters Point Community Beacon Center (BHPCBC), a program of Urban Services YMCA.  Ms. Green has worked for Urban Services for four years, where she has organized at-risk youth and families in Bayview/Hunters Point.  Ms. Green previously worked as a social worker with San Francisco Educational Services and Bayview Adult Day Health Center. Ms. Green recently helped organized a town-hall meeting at Gloria R. Davis School which drew over 400 residents to discuss the problem of violence and at-risk youth in the Bayview. As the CLC program coordinator, Ms. Green will be responsible for performing community outreach, organizing the CLC working group and planning logistics for the Comprehensive Community Planning Meetings.  Urban Services YMCA’s executive director, Chip Rich, will serve as an advisor to MAGIC.  Mr. Rich, who has worked with Urban Services since 1983, has developed and sustained many of the programs for at-risk youth Urban Services provides today.

Principal Trainer: Frederick Mills is a Senior Fellow with NCCD.  Mr. Mills brings over 40 years of experience in both the private and public sector in the areas of juvenile justice, human resources management and program development and implementation.   Mr. Mills has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and a Lifetime Teaching Credential from the California Community College Board. Mr. Mills’ professional experience for the State of California includes positions as Deputy Secretary of the Youth and Correctional Agency, Deputy Director of the California Youth Authority, Deputy Director of the Office of Criminal Justice Planning, Assistant Chief of Planning and Resource Development for the Youth Authority, and the Principal State-wide Trainer for Youth Authority Peace Officers.

In 1980, Mr. Mills was appointed as Deputy Director, Youth and Adult Correctional Agency by the Governor of California.  In that capacity he represented the Agency Secretary in a variety of capacities including liaison with community groups, legislators and the Office of the Governor.  Mr. Mills was responsible for planning, developing and implementing the California Youth Authority’s Free Venture Program in 1984. This private/public sector industry program resulted in the employment and training of numerous youthful offenders, the payment of restitution to victims and the reduction of program costs.  Mr. Mills has implemented the Comprehensive Strategy in Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Louisiana and Hawaii, and served as principal trainer for each of these sites.

Principal Trainer: James Bell, the founder of W. Haywood Burns Institute, will serve as the principal trainer, and will develop evaluation and assessment tools to assist youth agencies in providing more effective, efficient and coordinated services to youth in Bayview/Hunters Point.  Mr. Bell is a national leader in devising and implementing strategies to implement disproportionality of young people of color in the juvenile justice system, and leads the institute’s work in ten sites to reduce the over-representation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system.  Prior to founding the Burns Institute, James served as a staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in San Francisco for over 30 years, representing incarcerated youth.  Mr. Bell brings a strong background in restorative justice and working with agencies focused on the delivery of youth services. 

Juvenile Justice Leadership/Coordination with Government Agencies: Jeff Adachi, the Public Defender for the City and County of San Francisco, will seek and secure the participation of the juvenile justice stakeholders, including the Trial Courts, the Juvenile Probation Department, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Police Department on behalf of MAGIC.  Mr. Adachi has served as a deputy public defender for 15 years, Chief Attorney for 3 years, and the City’s elected Public Defender since 2003.  Mr. Adachi will also work with MAGIC to earn the support and cooperation of all City departments, including the School District, Department of Human Services, the Recreation and Park Department, Housing Authority, the Department of Children, Youth & Their Families, and Department of Public Health.  MAGIC, with Mr. Adachi’s assistance, will also seek the participation of the City Attorney’s Code Enforcement and Foster Care/Child Welfare divisions, as well as the participation of state agencies, including Child Protective Services and the Department of Rehabilitation.

6.  Conclusion

            Communities such as Bayview/Hunters Point have long suffered from social and economic neglect.  No one has suffered as much as its youth.  Without the resources needed to overcome the many obstacles they face --- which include education, employment and housing --- youth find themselves with few opportunities to succeed.  The Mayor and the Board of Supervisors have indicated their strong commitment in providing resources to combat the violence and gang activity which has plagued communities like Bayview/Hunters Point.  However, without a comprehensive community plan, blind funding is not the answer.  The implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy will allow the government and other key stakeholders to invest wisely and effectively in the future of the City’s youth.

Contact Information:

Jeff Adachi, SF Public Defender

555 Seventh Street, 2^nd Floor

San Francisco, CA 94103

(415) 553-9520

Other Documents Available Upon Request:

The Comprehensive Strategy (1000 pp. document)

Reforming Juvenile Justice Through Comprehensive Community Planning (34 pp.)

Letter from Urban Services YMCA Board of Directors

501(c)3 Letter from Urban Services YMCA