Leaders lead, workers work -- mobilizing the right mix in Norristown on youth violence

Many people have read the various articles that have recently described Norristown council's efforts to distribute the remaining funds in the Norristown Weed & Seed program's 2011 budget. Getting to this point has not been easy.

There are many who believe the government that governs best, governs least.

America has had a love affair with the mythic narrative of simplicity, though most of what makes us what we are as Americans is very complex.

The struggles in this country that overturned slavery, or gave women the right to vote, or are opening doors of recognition for marriage equality for same-gender couples are never issues that simply come down to are you for or against.

Democracy has so many voices and so many people who want their opinions heard, that you must have people who can sift through all the noise and all of the arguments and challenge us to come together. We must have people who can see the complex and different issues and points of view and still struggle to lead a working majority who can forge consensus and get things done.

In a thought -- we need leaders and workers.

We need people to express their points of view, but we also need people to point us to that view of getting something done.

And that is exactly where we are in Norristown on youth violence.

I am a person that believes in strategy and planning. As a former business journalist, I often read the business plans of many, many, start-up businesses. I became as good as a big five consultant in my ability to evaluate and review a strategic document that a new company used to gain contracts or raise money from investors.

These documents served a crucial function. Without such documents, a business could not get what it needed to make things or sell services.

The willingness to make things or provide services was not enough. You needed a plan, a strategy, a vision. In a word you needed leadership as much as you needed workmanship if the business was going to be successful.



A public debate will begin in earnest soon about how to use the remaining 2011 Weed & Seed budget. Many will come asking for money for their WORK, their own group's WORK. And that is fine.

I also hope, many will come with a vision to use this small amount of money for a vision of a measurable effort that will significantly and sustainably reduce youth violence in Norristown over time and for years to come.

You know there is a stereotype cliche that says "too many chiefs, not enough Indians."

However, frankly, my experience is that too many folks in Norristown, or too many of the same folks in Norristown show up for community efforts with a willingness to work, but not the wherewithal to lead. Leadership and workmanship are not the exact same thing.

When I complained about the state budget, how it was zeroing out Weed & Seed, a prominent leader in Norristown challenged me to go out and figure out a way to replace W&S. Well frankly, this process has been part of my fight to do just that.

The point is not another group of talking heads, but rather, a group of leaders, mobilizing resources and measuring outcomes from a comprehensive, community strategy. And while residential input is welcome, it's not enough to just live in Norristown, we need folks who can lead in Norristown.

I recently learn that Montco OIC has a Norristown Youth Development Council. Denise Ashe has a group of young people her organization is working with, and a group of partners who collaborate with OIC. These efforts must be measured for success or improvement, and if warranted, must be expanded with leaders from other grassroots and community organizations.

But beyond that, I know of no other serious, meaningful collaborative that isn't more than non-profits drinking coffee and eating bagels.

That's the cabal of inertia we're trying to break up in creating a new comprehensive community collaborative.

These non-profits are not driven by performance based solutions that could potentially put them out of business. I mean, solve a social problem and the social services agency goes away, right? Or at least has to reinvent itself.

We have a concentration of service agencies in Norristown that warrants a real discussion and measure of if these folks simply serve problems but do not solve problems.

Moreover, this process may be contentious because a few vocal residents will show up and attempt to have non-stop debate drive the process. They will remind of us every effort that has failed in the past. Such historical memory, while useful information, does not mean someone cannot go ahead and lead to forge an effort that might succeed.

There is little I can do about that, other than to set forth an agenda and a goal that challenges everyone who participates to raise the bar, and to focus on something bigger and greater, that requires critical thought and broad-based action.


We don't just need more volunteers, we need greater VISION.


We don't just need more laborers, we need more leaders. Those who can assign, manage and conceive of the work, as well as get down in the trenches, dig the ditches, pour the mortar, sweep the floor and wash the walls!


What happens if we have lots of workers, those who can take direction (and often wrongly want to give it), but no leaders, those who can conceive and offer direction?

Well, if that happens, we will look at the social problems, or institutional weaknesses that have to be addressed, but believe if we just work harder, alone, we can address them.

You know, we can blame parents. But what can we do to impact the reality of disinterested or uninvolved parents? Can we just tell babies who have had babies, you need to do better? Will finger wagging and moralizing alone do it? What if those parents need childcare, and job training, and affordable housing? Those are system issues that cannot just be resolved by a little prayer and an extra part-time job. Can we solve this by simply locking them and their children behind bars when they break curfew? If not, what else might we do as a community that can be measured and sustained?

If kids need something to do, what might we do in light of the existing things they can do and places they can go to do it?

So here, I am challenging you all to go beyond and beneath the surface. I know you all know thinking, planning and executing is needed here.

In a word, leadership will be needed to reduce youth violence in a significant and sustainable way. That's the goal we ALL should be working toward.

Community leaders to weigh in on faith-based proposal to reduce youth violence

When a 16-year-old girl could be gunned down in an alley and no one will speak up or speak out to help solve the case, and when an 18-year-old boy could be stabbed to death by a man brazen enough to do so in front of his little boy, and in front of patrons at a business near downtown, then we must act.

We most consolidate public will for the strongest measures of law enforcement, while at the same time offering alternatives to incarceration to all youth who would seek to change and improve their own future -- and the future of our community.

READ THE FULL STORY ON FAITH-BASED PROPOSAL TO REDUCE YOUTH VIOLENCE

It takes resources to fight youth violence. Kids need a place to play. Kids need transportation. Kids need summer jobs. Activities, employment, training, guidance, mentoring, these are all valuable things that cost money to be done and done well.

We must find new streams of resources, and build more sustainable public-private partnerships if we are serious about achieving long-term reductions in violence.

For these reasons, president of the Norristown ministerium -- Bishop Richard S. McCray, recently convened a meeting of community leaders, where he and I unveiled a strategy to have the Boston, MA-based TenPoint come in and do training and capacity building of leaders from congregations and grassroots community organizations. The model is not necessarily new. What is new in recent memory, is that this is being initiated from the local leaders, and not an initiative of the state or the county.

We have come together -- council members, pastors, NAACP officials, school board members, NASD superintendent, police and community activists and we are working toward embracing a plan that places faith and community organizations and their leaders at the center of a new partnership paradigm. Police, the District Attorney's office and human services agencies will all be crucial allies. But now more than ever, initiatives must have their beginnings from within a community.

In an effort to be as transparent as possible, and to seek as much input as possible, I make available to the public, the plan released to community leaders on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at the Faith & Hope Church of the Nazarene.

This plan calls for investments on the part of many different agencies, governmental entities, non-profits and individuals to work. The model proposed seeks to build a new coalition led by local faith and grassroots organizational leaders, including parents, and especially youth.

Read more details, download a copy of the plan and see videos explaining the TenPoint model and a video and a letter of endorsement from the Norristown Police Chief all by going to my councilman website.

Please comment and weigh in with your opinions!

PEACE!

Save the date? Why events alone will not stop youth violence

August 27 is a day I try to remember with great consistency. The reason is simple -- it's my mother's birthday.

And typically, there aren't multiple events on that day, or anyone's birthday. Normally, people try to work together, across lines of family and friends, neighbors and colleagues, and put together one big celebration, particularly as folks cross milestones like 40, 50 and beyond.

Can you imagine your birthday coming up, and your significant other, your best friend, and your close colleague all planned an event, a birthday party for you, but they were all at the same time but at different places?

It doesn't make sense. Sure you could be a party animal, and hop from house to house. But it might, just might make more sense if everyone came together and threw you one great big bash.

In fact, it would probably mean a lot to you to see your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends and your family all show up to show you some love -- together.

Well, while this analogy might not work for everyone, it seems to me that is the same problem we have when it comes to tackling youth violence in Norristown.

August 27 is not only my mom's birthday, but I'll be running around town to multiple events that supposedly target youth as they prepare to go back to school.

Parents Against Violence Everywhere (PAVE) will have an event at the Greater Norristown Police Athletic League; Tabernacle International Deliverance Church will have a youth and family fair in the church parking lot at Marshall and Barbadoes Streets; and Living Ground Ministries will have Family and Friends Day in Elmwood Park.

Each event is targeting youth, and offering fun, games, free food, and free giveaways of book bags or school supplies.

And to top it all off, the following day, Sunday August 28, it's like the party isn't over yet, witih UNITY DAY in MLK/Simmons Park, where we will do it all over again.

Now, please, please, please, don't miss the point.

We ought to support our youth, and celebrate them and offer fun activities for them. But really, should we make them troll all over town, with multiple conflicting events among organizations who could have done a bigger and better event if they had all worked together?

And what do we do after the party?

You know, I'm married, and I'll celebrate my fifth wedding anniversary this year. I love my wife, and I still look fondly at the photos of our wedding day. But you know, we never got the video done. And we never officially got a photo album.

We immediately jumped into the work of marriage. The day-to-day activities of communicating, sharing, paying bills, having date night, raising children. We had to get past celebration and honeymoon, to the hard work, the real work of building a life together.

And that's what our children really need -- us coming together to build infrastructure all year long that supports youth.

Let me give you just one example. When I lived in Washington, DC in the 1990s, an African American colleague asked me to volunteer in a program in which she volunteered. It is called Project NorthStar.

Project NorthStar, then and now, was a program that literally reached hundreds of mainly black and Hispanic youth, who lived in the District's only two women and family homeless shelters. You can imagine that homeless kids have many challenges, not the least of which was no stable place to live. Churches and groups often came to the shelters to do one-time events -- puppet shows, carnivals, face painting, they gave them school supplies. You get the picture.

But Project NorthStar was different. Very simply, Project NorthStar provided one night of tutoring per week for the ENTIRE school year for these kids. We also provided a meal. When I volunteered, I was asked to make a commitment for a full school year. I attended training classes from an educational specialist, and my Monday night schedule revolved around showing up at one of DC's elementary school cafeterias to work with my kid.

Now, sometimes the kids didn't show up. It was inevitable. The shelters had a limit on how long families could stay, and families could be in and out of shelters, depending on their circumstances.

I became attached to those young African American boys I worked with. Today, 15 years later, I still remember DeJuan and DeVaughn. I remember how they were in special education, and I had to learn specific techniques to work with a special education child. I remember talking with their mother, and sometimes taking them back to the shelter in my car, rather than letting them ride the bus.

I also remember trying to stay in touch with the family even after they moved out of the shelter and into an apartment, far away from where the shelter was.

It wasn't an event, it was an investment. It wasn't a celebration, it was a commitment. We had events, like a Christmas party, but it wasn't like that would be the first and the last activity we did with these kids. We were there week in and week out.

The black and white professionals (mainly lawyers) who came together to start this program were shocked they had to create a board, get 501 (c) 3 status, and grew to a budget of $250,000. But to sustain the work, and not a one-time event, required structure, leadership, measurable outcomes, proof of success and financial investment from public and private sources.

Mentoring programs like Project NorthStart, when done right, where folks are trained and committed, have been proven by research to improve the life outcomes of such kids. Programs that involve training and longterm commitment have been proven, over time, to reduce youth violence.

Rather than offering ourselves self-congratulatory citations because we threw a party for some young people, why don't we get to the hard work of building longterm programs that require organizational collaboration, financial investment, political will, evidence-based outcomes and personal commitment? Most importantly a strategy to reduce violence period in Norristown will require both vision and LEADERSHIP.

Don't you know every time I walk these streets on Friday and Saturday and talk with our youth, they still say they need something to do. Folks, their needs don't end when our one-time event ends. And their needs don't end when PAL and Carver and churches close their doors for the evening. Their needs are ongoing, and so our efforts have to be ongoing.

When August 29th rolls around, and the weekend is over -- who is going to help these kids use the school supplies they got? When the weekend is over, who is going to help these kids eat, if the best meals they had all week were at our events?

The social traumas, which give rise to youth violence, don't disappear because we all did the electric slide at a community party. If only life was that simple.

But it's not. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey -- who is dealing with a much larger problem of youth violence than Norristown, put it best in a recent article, where he said, "people want easy solutions to complicated problems. Parenting is a part of this but not all of it. . . . It's not all the schools' fault."

I pray soon that these festivals and parties will mark only milestones in a year-long effort of the day-to-day hard work to reach young people, save as many as possible, and to remove from our community those who refuse to turn around. It's going to take grassroots organizations, churches, police departments, district attorneys, the school district, and it's going to take a commitment to stop fighting over a date, and who gets the money, and who is in charge, to submitting to the scrutiny of research, the proof of a track record, and the commitment of working together. After all, we are only a town of 3.2 square miles.

We have a complicated problem on our hands -- we are not called to save dates, we are called to save lives.