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CREATIVE CITY NEWSLETTER: NOVEMBER
2003
ISSUE 9: DESIGN AND PLANNING
ISSUE IN FOCUS
NEWS YOU CAN USE
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST: YOUTH SPACE
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YouthSpace
Creating Safe Spaces With, For, and By Youth
Although general crime statistics are on the decline, the
juvenile crime rate is skyrocketing – 158 percent since
1986. Attempts to reduce crime through harsher sentencing
laws and programs that keep teens from being out late at night
are not succeeding. These strategies do not target the hours
in which crimes by juvenile offenders are committed. Midnight
basketball and curfews do not address the fact that 40 percent
of juvenile violent offenses occur after school, between 3:00
and 8:00 PM.(1) Clearly,
young people need new programs and safe spaces that will deter
them from turning to violence and provide alternative activities
during after school hours.
Crime is only one critical issue that face young people today.
Drug use, depression, suicide, and teen pregnancy are all
on the rise as workforce readiness declines.(2)
These problems are particularly acute in low-income areas,
where resources that build youth resiliency and capacity are
scarce. The Carnegie Council on Youth Development stresses
that the "lack of places that provide safe havens, attractive
opportunities, and trustworthy adults" are the key to
the predicament that young people find themselves in today.(3)
These spaces should not just contain youth to keep them out
of trouble. In order to help prepare young people for productive
futures, programs need to build decision-making skills, strengthen
competence for employment, and stress the value of higher
education.
A Forum for Change
Therefore, Partners for Livable Communities and the Academy
for Educational Development’s Center for Youth Development
and Policy Research (CYD) are seeking to hold a conference
to discuss the critical issues affecting young people, the
lack of safe spaces for children and youth programs, and the
empowerment of young people within youth-based projects. In
addition, we hope to explore the role local institutions,
such as school, libraries, museums, and community-based arts
organizations, can play in the delivery of high quality youth
programs, thereby dispersing the burden placed on traditional
social service providers. The conference would showcase existing
best practices in the field of youth development such as Gallery
37 in Chicago, Illinois, Caring Communities in St. Louis,
Missouri, and Mill Street Loft in Poughkeepsie, New York,
that can serve as models for the creation of a broad-based
strategy.
The Issues
This conference will help pinpoint:
- Space needs for youth programs
- Programs that are already at work
- Gaps in what these services can provide
- Specifics such as program management, space sharing, and
commercial contributions
The conference agenda will include: keynote addresses by
national experts on youth issues; best practice presentations;
small, facilitated break-out sessions to encourage intensive
discussions and brainstorming; and a site visit to an exceptional
local program
The Participants
This two-day event will be designed for approximately 300
people from a range of professional fields, including:
- Youth program practitioners
- Public officials
- Community-based organizations
- Philanthropies
- The private sector
- Advocacy and umbrella organizations
- Schools
- Churches
- Community colleges and universities
There will be a nominal registration fee for the conference,
but scholarships will be provided for those needing assistance.
The Partners
Partners and CYD will seek co-sponsors that reflect the diversity
of participants, such as the Community Foundation for Youth,
the National Association of Neighborhoods, the National Association
of Youth Museums, Children’s Defense Fund, the Carnegie
Council for Adolescent Development, Boys and Girls Clubs of
America, the National Center for Children in Poverty and the
President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Youth
At Risk Project.
1.Statistics in this paragraph are drawn
from an interview with James Fox, former FBI agent and dean
of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University,
on the NBC television show "Sunday Today," November
19, 1995.
2.Children’s Defense Fund, The State of America’s
Children Yearbook 1995, 1995.
3.Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, "A Matter
of Time," March 1993.
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