CARY Newsletter Spring 2006
An Overview
Recent murder charges against a 16 year old for the shooting death of another youth walking home from school represents a reminder of the presence of youth violence in Austin. In one of our safer neighborhoods, the West Lake Hills and Rollingwood Park Police detained over 100 Westlake High School students halting a “fight club” in process near Zilker Park in November. Even more recently in January 2006, Austin School District Police recovered a loaded handgun from a Lanier High School freshman followed two days later by an eighth grader at Small Middle School being caught on campus with a gun.
While we may feel safe in Austin, our youth are not removed from violence. During the most recent Safe and Drug Free Schools report prepared by the Austin Independent School District, there were 8,500 individual students disciplined for physical violence or verbal threats of violence to others during the last school year, a 17% increase over the previous year. School age youth between the ages of 10 and 19 have been arrested and charged in 27 murders, 33 rapes, 425 aggravated robberies and 635 aggravated assaults during the past five years in Austin and Travis County according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.
The Council on At-Risk Youth (CARY) begins intervention with troubled and troublesome youth at a time when we know they are beginning to establish what may well be life long patterns of violence. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development “nearly 60 percent of boys classified as bullies in the sixth through ninth grade will receive at least one criminal court conviction by age 24, and 40 percent have three criminal court convictions by age 24.” A recent study by the Texas A&M University Center for Public Policy Research has found that a student’s involvement in the school disciplinary system is the most powerful predictor of whether he or she will later enter the juvenile justice system. Thus, CARY works with students when the schools suspend them for disciplinary reasons and they are assigned to “in school suspension” settings or removed altogether and assigned to the Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (the Alternative Learning Center in Austin, the Georgetown Alternative Program in Georgetown or the Eagle Rebound Program in Luling).
CARY is in our sixth year of operation with the “PeaceMakers Youth Violence Prevention Program” at the Alternative Learning Center and we now have programs operational at four middle schools at Bedichek, Dobie, Pearce and Webb Middle Schools. Evaluation surveys with school faculty and parents show PeaceMakers students with improved attitudes, behaviors, social skills, attendance rates and grades and with significant reductions in physically aggressive acts. One of our program graduates shared his opinion that “PeaceMakers should be in all Austin schools”.
CARY uses “evidence based” programs that have been rigorously evaluated and found to be successful in changing behavior. Students accepted for the CARY year long case management process are involved in four distinct behavior modification programs that are conducted by masters level CARY Youth Advisors. First, Positive Adolescent Choices Training (PACT) is provided over a six week period in the Middle Schools consisting of social cognitive skills training in communications, anger management, conflict resolution, dealing with criticism and negations training. Second, students participate in Service Learning projects where they discuss and identify school and community youth problems and then design and execute a project that will address the problems and remedy the identified issues. Students in Georgetown for example identified drinking and driving as a high school problem; they set about gaining a partnership with a professional film development company and completed a prevention film on drinking and driving. Third, students have a behavioral plan and receive individual counseling, coaching, mentoring and classroom behavioral monitoring during the time they are in CARY programs. Fourth, CARY is implementing the “Parenting Wisely” program to help teach parents improved means of dealing with their troublesome child with suggestions on communication, behavioral limit setting, and imposing reasonable consequences. Fifth, and finally CARY uses a transition plan that helps troubled youth set behavioral goals as they return from the disciplinary Alternative Learning Center to their respective middle schools.
Many positive ratings of CARY programs have come from the students themselves, from school faculty and from parents, however CARY is implementing a comprehensive evaluation plan this year that will 1) compare before and after behavioral incidents between CARY program participants and a control group and also 2) compare juvenile probation and court referrals between program participants and a control group with both experiments to determine program performance outcomes.
CARY received early financial support from United Way Capital Area, the RGK Foundation, Trull Foundation, Hogg Foundation, Allstate Foundation, Lola Wright Foundation, and the Hogg Foundation. A Bureau of Justice Community Gun Violence Prevention grant was received for the 2003 through 2005 school year and Safe and Drug Free Schools funding was active for the same period for programs in Georgetown, Luling and Lockhart. Thanks to the Austin City Council and the Travis County Commissioners Court for investing in the Council on At-Risk Youth (CARY) Youth Violence Prevention Program for the 2005-2006 school year.
CARY is eager to demonstrate the fact that investment in youth violence prevention programs at an early stage is a much preferred initiative for prevention of violence and crime. It is also a much more cost effective means of averting crime than processing these youth to the criminal justice system.
Jackie Goodman Joins CARY
Bob King, Chairman of the Council on At-Risk Youth has recently announced that Jackie Goodman, now retired from the Austin City Council has joined CARY as the organization’s Development Director.
We are very pleased to have a person of Jackie’s stature, exposure and experience join our organization. She identifies so very strongly with CARY’s mission of “helping youth promote safe schools and safe communities.” She will be a very definite asset to our vision of dealing with the current and long range issues on at-risk youth as well as of advocating for intervention programs and services for at-risk youth.
Jackie is a 30 year Austin resident. She is a former early childhood educator who brought children with special needs back into the regular classroom; she has had extensive volunteer experience with the Austin City government and as a community activist. During her 12 year tenure as a City Council Member , Jackie was active in a leadership role in many civic issues including early childhood education, education in general, health and human services, land use and neighborhoods. She spearheaded the Citizens Planning Committee and Smart Growth.
“I’m delighted to be associated with CARY and its mission”
Jackie’s participated in the day long CARY board planning retreat on January 21. On joining CARY she commented “I’m delighted to be associated with CARY and its mission, and privileged to join the committed folks whose dedication will bring us all, our children and ourselves, the beneficial and necessary changes that will make our part of the world a little better place to be in”.