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Youth Services
MAGIC believes that
comprehensive, wrap-around support services should be readily available to youth
and families who need them, preferably in their neighborhoods and delivered by
providers who understand the unique cultural sensitivities of each community. At
least 268 agencies and organizations in San Francisco include youth services in
their mission statements. Of those,
34 youth-serving agencies are located in Bayview Hunters Point. Of Bayview's
7900 people under the age of 18, at least half are teens. MAGIC is committed to
maximizing coordination and effectiveness among youth service providers in BVHP,
offering a fast, flexible and supportive alternative to the juvenile justice
system.
There are many complex
issues involved in providing counseling, treatment, probation and other serves
to at-risk youth. Questions that are often asked include:
- What is the full range of youth and related family
services actually needed?
- Do existing services meet those specific needs?
- What programs and strategies have worked well in the
past?
- Are there identified gaps in services not addressed by
existing providers?
- Can existing youth services be made more effective
through partnering?
- How can social services, education and juvenile
justice professionals improve communication and work more cooperatively in
support of youth, families and communities?
- How can the juvenile justice system in particular
build a stronger bridge to the communities it serves?
A Comprehensive Community
Planning Process can help address those questions. Such a process first seeks to
build a relationship of trust and mutual respect – the foundation of effective
collaboration – among existing service providers.
One of the first exercises
in the planning process involves designing a system of support around a
"hypothetical child" who grows up in Bayview Hunters Point. Both
typical and unique needs at various points in the child's life are identified
and measured against existing services to identify gaps. Participants remain
focused on the child's needs, as opposed to the mission or operations of any
particular provider. Once there is an agreement as to what the child's needs
are, then a supportive service model is developed to support those needs.
The collaboration of
youth, their families and youth serving agencies to design a comprehensive
system of care, supports a model developed “from the bottom up” rather than
imposed “from the top down”. This approach also enables agencies, through
improved communication with clients and each other, to create a
"wrap-around" service plan that is 1) individualized to meet the
unique needs of the child and the child's family; 2) culturally competent
(respecting the language, customs and cultures of the child and family); 3)
family-centered, and 4) community-based.
An effective service plan
relies not only on conventional clinical services, but also on extended family
members, friends, neighbors, church members, volunteers, local service
organizations, teachers, mentors and coaches.
The Comprehensive Strategy
will further identify and incorporate successful programs and collaborations
from within BVHP, and examine best practices from around the Bay Area and other
parts of the country to determine if such practices could be adapted
successfully to BVHP. Technical support must be available to agencies to assist
them in incorporating new strategies and ideas into their daily programming.
A successful Comprehensive
Strategy will:
- Encourage agencies to share information,
resources and clients rather than to compete with and undercut one another.
- Encourage block grant applications by multiple
agencies or the community as a whole, to qualify for larger grants and to
increase spending flexibility.
- Identify and secure stable and flexible funding
for youth agencies and community non-profits over time, allowing providers
to focus more on their day-to-day work and less on survival.
- Develop service plans with both short and
long-term goals and objectives, and monitor service plans for compliance and
effectiveness.
- Increase community awareness of program
services, and ensure that services are available, accessible and timely.
- Develop a centralized database or information
resource of available services, and make this database available to youth,
families and community-based organizations.
Throughout this
discussion, it must be kept in mind that the main goal of having youth support
services is to provide a safe, healthy, positive and violence-free environment
for the child, while maximizing family support and educational achievement,
which allows youth to mature into young adults and achieve self-sufficiency.
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