One East Palo Alto recently completed a long-term strategic planning process. The process was designed to identify key program initiatives in order to successfully address important quality-of-life issues in the community.
OEPA is making substantial changes to what was previously known as Safe Strategy #3 - building youth resiliency. We expect to undergo a three-month redesign process (November 2005 – January 2006) during which we will engage key stakeholders in conversation; gather data through interviews and surveys; refine our vision for this work; develop a set of cogent strategies, and select a set of initial partners. In February, we will have gathered sufficient qualitative data to enrich our knowledge and map out our strategies and activities, including performance indicators and expected outcomes. By March 2006, we expect to submit to the Hewlett Foundation and other potential funders a detailed plan of action, logic models for measuring outcomes, and personnel and partners required for success, and begin the implementation phase for this work.
Elements Already in Place
There are a number of key elements to the building youth resiliency strategy that we already have in place. Through the strategy formation process completed in October, the OEPA board was very clear in its focus – embracing the youth of East Palo Alto who are at risk and have multiple barriers. From the CDI assessment completed in 2004, we know service providers’ perspective that there are services for youth available in the community, and two fundamental gaps, or problems, remain: (1) services targeted to the youth at high risk population are few, and (2) service providers are not working in collaboration with each other resulting in unnecessary duplication and/or working in a vacuum.
We also know that with PCF funds secured for our youth-serving partners going into 2006, the East Palo Alto Youth and Young Adults Serving Agencies Consortium will continue to be a vehicle to unite the various agencies working with youth in the community. We have also started a series of stakeholder interviews. To date, we have completed six interviews with the following individuals:
Overall, the agencies surveyed work with over 500 children and families in East Palo Alto.. Their work focuses on areas such as health promoter (promotoras) training for peer teaching in emotional and physical health education; substance abuse and prevention; academic support and tutoring; parent training and family counseling; linking families with social services agencies and support; providing a safe place with educational and creative programs as well as recreational league play, and leadership development training in a week-long camp. Their representatives expressed a desire to see more system-level impact on the school districts and public agencies. It was not surprising to find that each one of these youth and young adult agencies shared a common understanding of the needs of EPA youth at high risk even though they each focus on a different facet of the problem. The information we gathered from this initial set of stakeholders includes the following:
When asked, what OEPA could do to add value to what their agencies are currently doing, the responses include the following: (1) provide or bring more funding to partner agencies working in EPA; (2) continue to support EPAYYASAC so that agencies can better understand the strength of the consortium partners; (3) convene agencies when the need arises, a good example was the SEP program that came from the Crime Prevention & Alternatives meetings; (4) OEPA is able to bring residents together and our agencies need more active adults to mentor our youth, and (5) OEPA could help us reach parents.
We’re also making a substantive personnel transition. We will be working on a job description for a director-level staff person to lead this work beginning 2006, followed by a vigorous recruitment process to identify a candidate. OEPA’s Executive Director, Faye McNair Knox, will head up this work until a director is secured. Her effort will be supported by the current Safe Program Director and consultants from La Piana Associates.
We believe that with the combination of what we have in place, and the execution of the following action plan and steps, we will finally be able to articulate a set of activities to realize our goal of embracing the youth in East Palo Alto. In doing so, we will make a difference in the lives of young people who are most at risk. We have set a timeline to reach this clarity with a detailed plan of action no later than February 28, 2006.
What’s Ahead
During the months of November and December 2005, OEPA’s Executive Director, Safe Program Director and La Piana Associates senior consultant, Shiree Teng, will continue to engage key stakeholders through individual interviews.
We will be meeting with several major public sector players, such as San Mateo Chief and Deputy Probation Officer, County Mental Health Services Director, County Public Health Director. We also will meet with program officers from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation that have invested in this population of young people.
We will continue to build our relationship with the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) as they have done some initial research for us, and NCCD has been engaged in both the Annie E. Casey Juvenile Justice Reform Initiative and The California Endowment Health Returns Initiative, both of which are funding probation departments to reform the inner-workings of the probation department, and to support the health and mental health issues of youth in detention.
We will plan a community forum, similar to the one that catalyzed the Sponsored Employment Project (SEP) in March 2005, that widens the table to include parents, caregivers and youth voices. We need to hear from this very important and often overlooked constituent base.
We also plan to distribute and analyze results from a youth survey that we will design to get direct data from youth themselves. We will contract with a core group of youth who participated in SEP to distribute and conduct these surveys. We will also rely on our faith-based networks and partner agencies in the Youth Consortium to get approximately 250 surveys returned. We hope to complete this by January 2006.
In February 2006, we will synthesize all the data gathered from our stakeholder interviews, community forum, funder research, and youth surveys and parlay this qualitative information with what we already know, and then plot out strategies, activities, measurable outcomes, and assign personnel to launch our work beginning March/April 2006.
This is an ambitious undertaking, and is unprecedented in East Palo Alto. When successfully completed, this process will give us the foundation and relationships with key players to move an agenda that is youth-centered, focused, strategic and viable.
One East Palo Alto Neighborhood Improvement Initiative
1798-B Bay Road, East Palo Alto, CA 94303