Fall 2000

Although there's been some improvement, violence is still the cause of most deaths and serious injuries of youth in Oakland. For good reason, then, Oakland's Safe Passages primary goal is to reduce youth violence; one of its three strategies targets middle schools.

In order to reduce youth violence in Oakland, Safe Passages is focused on two groups of youth: the highest risk students, for whom intensive targeted intervention will be provided, and middle schoolers for whom school-wide activities will be provided in order to change school climates from one of fear to one that is nurturing and safe. Several strategies in local middle schools are being developed to impact each group of youth.

Research shows that focusing on kids at this age is important to reducing current and future violence. Five hundred youth ages 12-14 are arrested annually in Oakland, and the average age of a youth in the probation system is only 14.5 years old. Suspensions from school are a risk factor for future criminal behavior, and in Oakland 57 percent of suspensions for violence occur in middle school, even though middle schoolers account for only 20 percent of all students.

Clearly, our middle school students are in need of support and intervention," says Laura Pinkney, executive director of Safe Passages (previously known as Oakland Child Health and Safety Initiative, or OCHSI). "Violence at such a magnitude impacts not only these young perpetrators and their victims, but also the entire school culture and all students attempting to learn and grow into healthy young adults."

As indicators of success for this effort, Safe Passages seeks to reduce the number of suspensions for violence and improve perceptions of safety at school. Specifically, Safe Passages is striving for a 30 percent reduction in suspensions for violence in targeted middle schools and a 25 percent reduction in all Oakland middle schools by the end of 2005. Safe Passages and its partners are working with four middle schools with the highest suspension rates and the lowest rankings in areas such as test scores. Within a few years this will increase to 10 schools - the 10 of 14 Oakland middle schools that account for 84 percent of suspensions for violence.

The effort is supported by research. "Our board was adamant that our strategies be based on real needs," says Pinkney. "We didn't want to guess or assume what was needed, so we asked the kids, parents and teachers what the biggest problems are." Henry Chang, vice mayor of Oakland, chairs Safe Passages' board.

Last spring, three of the four middle schools participated in a comprehensive survey and focus groups funded by Safe Passages and Alameda County. The survey results showed that students feel much safer in their neighborhoods than at school. While only 16 percent of students felt unsafe in their neighborhoods, more than 30 percent felt unsafe at school. More than 23 percent of students carried a weapon (gun, knife, or club) to school at least once in the month before the survey; nearly one in ten students carried a weapon four or more times.

Safe Passages and its partners are working with principals, school staff, parents and community based service providers to complete a master plan for an array of new or expanded services at each of the targeted schools. One of the first will be expanded mental health services. "Many aggressive and disruptive youth have unidentified and untreated mental health needs," says Dave Kears, Director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency and a Safe Passages Board member. "Starting with the 2000-2001 school year, each of our four target schools will have mental health professionals on site to assess and serve youth who need counseling or other mental health services."

The need for this service was further demonstrated by an alarming and tragic finding in the survey: Between 17 and 25 percent (depending on the school) of middle school students said they had made a plan to commit suicide within the last year, and two-thirds of these made at least one attempt.

Safe Passages will also work on these other strategies for middle school kids:

Suspension alternatives: Up to one-third of students at these middle schools are suspended for violence annually. This time away from school is not in the students' best academic interests, nor is it in the community's best interests since these youth are often unsupervised during their suspensions. Each middle school will create alternatives to suspension that decrease the number of students who are suspended off-campus. Alternatives might include counseling, on-campus suspension or community service. Also, each middle school will increase the capacity of teachers and staff to handle disruptive behavior effectively and fairly.

Behavior monitoring: Research shows that aggressive or disruptive students, whose behavior is closely monitored by an on-campus team of adults who meet regularly as a team and with the students and their parents, have improved grades, attendance and behavior. Each middle school will have the capacity to take this type of team approach to serving its most troubled youth.

After-school activities: The benefit of quality after-school activity is well documented. Each middle school must have sufficient after-school activities to keep students who need them engaged until caregivers return home. Also, aggressive or disruptive youth may need a more structured set of activities geared to increasing their academic skills and positive behavior.

Conflict resolution and violence prevention skills: This will be accomplished through implementation of a nationally-renowned violence prevention curriculum.
Caring adults at school: Each middle school will increase the presence of caring adults on campus by engaging parents, service providers and volunteers to provide positive activities and to serve as safety monitors.

Mental health services: Each middle school will have mental health services available on site, in order to address the serious mental health needs exhibited by students who are either considering suicide and/or engaging in violent behavior towards others.

Parent support and engagement: Many parents require support to succeed in the critical task of nurturing middle school students and providing them with appropriate boundaries and standards for behavior. Each middle school will create venues for parents to access family support services such as family counseling and employment training.

Role of Safe Passages

Implementation of this strategy will require changes in policies, improved data collection and analysis, and additional and/or reallocated financial resources. Safe Passages will serve as the primary change agent for these efforts. Initially, Safe Passages will assist in the development of needed agreements among public systems and then hold all systems accountable for their implementation.

Studies of school-community collaboration highlight the difficulty of merging two distinct cultures into a partnership capable of service children and families well. "Safe Passages plays a crucial role in working with the District to ensure that the resources needed by school sites to take on the additional challenge of working with community agencies and residents are available, as well as brokering training for community agencies to understand the school culture into which they are entering," says Dennis Chaconas, Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and a member of Safe Passages' Board.

Several Safe Passages' Board members, including Kears, Chaconas, and Dr. George Musgrove, Assistant City Manager for Oakland, have designated their senior staff to work with Safe Passages. Josefina Alvarado-Mena, Director of Student, Family and Community Services for OUSD, Gary Thompson, Director of the Alameda County Interagency Children's Policy Council, and Estelle Clemons, Director of Strategic Grants Management for the City of Oakland, meet weekly with Pinkney and her staff to manage the implementation of the middle school strategy.

"One difference between our effort and many other school-community partnerships is the level of focus and the amount of good data this approach is based on," says Pinkney. "We're trying to impact specific indicators affecting a specific issue - youth violence. The strategy will likely have a positive impact on other health issues, but this is our focus."

However, this strategy will require money. Safe Passages estimates the cost at each school will be nearly $500,000 annually. There will be many sources, and Safe Passages will help identify and secure leveraged funds and define and support policy changes to redirect funds. Already, Safe Passages has coordinated a $250,000 grantwriting process to fund after-school programming and the East Bay Community Foundation provided $200,000 with a match of $50,000 from OUSD. This grantwriting process yielded $3.8 million annually in new state and federal funding for programs at schools throughout Oakland; of this total, the four targeted middle schools are receiving approximately $700,000 per year for the next three years. Plus, Alameda County is funding the new mental health services.

In addition to its middle school strategy, Safe Passages seeks to reduce youth violence through a system of individualized intervention for the 1000 moderate and high-risk youth offenders in Oakland, and is developing a strategy to work with Alameda County's Every Child Counts effort (funded by a state tobacco tax) to ensure that young children who are exposed to violence are provided with support so they do not grow up to become perpetrators or victims of violence.