Champaign Candidates on Youth Programming

This question was created by journalists and community members during the Democracy in CU: Let’s talk solutions to community violence event on March 14th.

How do you plan to proactively engage youth in the community to provide trauma-informed, culturally competent programming?

MAYOR

Deborah Feinen:

I would support the local providers that are engaging in this work. Most of these issues are outside of the scope of traditional City services so we would need to partner with providers or help to fund the work other entities are doing in this area.

CITY COUNCIL

Tom Bruno:

Trauma affects victims’ response to services and the criminal justice process. We should consider policies and procedures that could be developed with the goal of avoiding victim re-traumatization, increasing the safety of all, and increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of interactions with victims.

Andrew James Christensen:

I have been involved in outreach programs for kids for more than a decade. I spent a couple years running the University’s traveling science show “The Physics Van”, I spent many years as the chair of the committee responsible for putting on the K-12 student screenwriting and filmmaking competition “Pens to Lens”, and in my day job I regularly present our science documentary work to school groups.

These experiences have left me with two major takeaways. The first is that students from underserved communities absolutely devour structured learning activities when you treat them with respect and make them feel invited. The other is that the arts are transformative for kids dealing with difficult emotions, experimenting with identity, and indeed trying to cope with trauma.

The city has many good youth engagement programs, such as the CommUnity Matters program which partners with the Park District, Unit 4, the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club, Lifeline Champaign, Inc, and DREAAM House. These programs are effective as childcare to help busy parents and as a means of keeping children’s active minds focused on constructive activities. The city should ensure programs like these have predictable funding, are strategically linked to each other, and are operated by members of the communities they are serving. These community members are the most likely to understand the life circumstances of the kids in their programs, be they trauma or achievement, and can connect kids to the best resources for advancement. We should also seek and leverage the professional experience of trauma counseling experts that live in our community.

The city should also support local arts programs like Pens To Lens and 40 North that are capable of bringing arts outreach to underserved communities and coordinate partnerships between these organizations and other youth engagement organizations inside and outside the city.

Matthew Gladney:

I think we should help fund programs that address this, and continue to fund the ones we already have.

William Kyles:

I would like to continue to engage our community partners such as Rosecrance, our mentor programs, churches and other agencies that address these issues.

Pattsi Petrie:

I would do exactly what the question posits be “proactive.” First, start by involving the youth to find out what is missing from their lives, what would they like in their lives, are they willing to help design what they want, are they willing to design spaces where they would like to live, are they willing to become tutors for those younger, etc. ? There are many agencies, many agencies funded by the MHB, many agencies that have experts to work on the trama-informed programs.  The main question is how to integrate what the youths think will be useful to them into the many programs that presently exist in the community.

I have resided in Champaign almost 5 decades. During this time, there has been an overabundance of activities for children up to 13-14 years old. An now even more since soccer has been introduced. Beyond that age, activity possibilities decline in number. It probably would be useful to revisit what the above 14 year olds would choose as activities.

Jon Paul Youakim:

Working with community partners through the Champaign County Community Coalition the city can target and support effective systems of care to provide trauma-informed and culturally competent services in the community. Part of the overall goal should be to address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) which include all types of abuse, neglect as well as household stressors such as domestic violence, mental illness, parental separation, substance abuse and the incarceration of a family member. To build resiliency against these ACEs individuals must have a safe, stable and nurturing relationship with an adult that believes in and supports the individual. We must work with the community in developing programs that foster healthy relationships with family and friends, strengthens economic support for families, supports positive parenting, provides resources for early childhood education and finds ways to intervene to lessen the harms of ACEs.

One of the long-term projects that I am a part of is Healthy Beginnings which aims at providing the infrastructure to break the cycle of poverty in our area and one part of that is the Nurse Family Partnership. The NFP targets first-time mothers, particularly those living below the federal poverty level. Some are teen mothers, others are mothers that are socially isolated or that just don’t have the resources or advocates to solidify their successfulness as future parents. Healthy Beginnings has nurses and social workers that work with the family to provide care & support as well as child & family education. The next step is to provide classes for parents of 0-3 year-olds to support positive parenting and develop healthy bonds between parents and their children to nurture healthy brain development.

The best way to engage with youth in the community is to ensure that their parents can live at home with them and be there for them as they grow. One measure to lessen the harms of ACEs that the city council can address is mitigating the damage of ordinance violations on families and youth. When 40% cannot pay the fines from ordinance violations and have to go to court we are creating a debtors’ court system and potentially a debtors’ prison system. When we have 1,800 outstanding warrants for unresolved ordinance violations that is 1,800 potential cases of placing community members into a debtors’ prison. In those 1,800 warrants there are mothers and fathers that will go to prison and be separated from their children.

Another step is finding ways for those that have interacted with the criminal justice system to re-integrate back into the community and reunite with their families. Many of these are community members in a lower socioeconomic status that may have been in subsidized housing. However, due to being involved in the criminal justice system they are no longer able to live with their children and spouse. We are creating fatherless and motherless homes. 80% of women in prison are mothers and the majority are guardians of their children. We are separating families. We must find ways to reunite families and prevent further disrupting the parent-child bond. No program in the community can replace that bond.   

NOTE: We reached out to Azark Cobbs, Kenton Elmore and Michael LaDue and received no or incomplete responses.