School Linked Services
The mission of the School Linked Services Initiative is to provide families in need with readily available and effective services that they would otherwise not be able to access due to lack of resources, including: income, awareness, and/or time constraints due to long and inflexible work hours. By co-locating services on school campuses, school staff is in a good position to work closely with the family, therapists, case managers, and other providers to develop a coordinated plan for students in need. In addition, students receive services on the school site and miss little, if any, class time. It is a win-win situation: students do not miss valuable education time and schools retain much needed attendance dollars. The integration of education and social services at target sites has made school communities catalysts for social change within larger neighborhoods.
Under this Initiative, Safe Passages has developed two important strategies that build on the strength of children's emotional, social and academic skills: The Middle School Strategy and The Next Generation: Digital Pathways Initiative: Digital Pathways Initiative.
The Middle School Strategy
School and community violence stem from the larger community issue of inadequate resources to address the socioeconomic hardships experienced by families living in disenfranchised communities. According to Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General (2001), most youth violence begins in adolescence and ends with the transition into adulthood.
The Safe Passages Middle School Strategy targets adolescent youth and is a multi-component program, based on best practices in violence prevention. The goal of the Middle School Strategy is to reduce the incidence of violence among youth and improve overall school climate. Reducing school suspensions is a primary programmatic approach and indicator of program success for this strategy. Behaviors that result in suspension are often either violent or indicate developing aggressive behavior and contribute to an unsafe school atmosphere. National best practices regarding early intervention show that a multi-component approach is most effective at improving school climate and student social skills. The Middle School strategy is currently implemented within the Oakland Unified School District and the San Lorenzo Unified School District.
Strategies that Work
The Safe Passages middle school strategy, informed by practices that have proven to get at-risk kids re-focused on learning, embraces a network of activities that brings schools, parents, providers, and students together to work to improve school safety and create a more collaborative, productive school environment. These approaches include alternatives to suspension, a violence prevention curriculum, increased parental involvement, after-school activities, case management, and mental health services.
A School-Wide Curriculum that Helps Students Stop, Think & Act Responsibly
Second Step, a nationally renowned violence prevention program, teaches social skills including empathy, impulse control, non-violent problem-solving and anger management. All of the teachers receive training in the program, and for one school period, at least once a week, students and teachers school-wide turn their attention to Second Step. It is the only violence prevention program in the nation to have earned the highest federal rating of "exemplary" because lessons are developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive, and address a core of social skills. Moreover, recent studies show the program ultimately provides teachers with more teaching time in the classroom - not less - and significantly increases students' pro-social behavior.
Creating Alternatives while Reducing the Need for Suspension
Suspending students is often a lose-lose proposition. Students who are suspended can fall behind in school and wind up in an unstructured, unsafe environment instead of in the classroom where they belong. Unsupervised young people with too much time on their hands can come to harm - or cause harm - creating problems for the community as a whole.
Each of the Safe Passages middle schools has a Positive School Climate Committee (PSCC) that brings together teachers, parents, and students to develop creative and effective alternatives to suspension, such as on-campus suspensions and/or community service during non-school hours.
Individual Problems Demand Individual Solutions
Not every young person acts out for the same reason. He could be frustrated with a math lesson. She might be teased and lose her temper easily. Or the problem could be deeper. He might be depressed; she might be traumatized from witnessing violence at home.
The Safe Passages' middle school strategy is designed to give teachers and parents a way to refer students with challenging behaviors to on-campus case managers who are trained to evaluate youth behavior. Using the advice and support of parents, caregivers, and teachers, case managers develop an individualized plan for each student that may include tutoring, counseling, mentoring, referrals to school conflict management teams or enriching after-school activities. The plan might be short-term or long-term and vary in frequency and intensity based on the student's needs. Most importantly though, the young person, their parents, caregivers, and the teacher work together to devise a proactive plan that addresses specific behavioral problems. And teachers have somewhere they can turn to, so they can focus on teaching.
Providing Help Within Reach
The location of mental health services often makes the difference between whether or not kids get access to the help that they need. Safe Passages' partners are changing school culture by bringing mental health providers into the schools to work alongside teachers, administrators, and case managers. Students who need support during a rough time can be referred to experienced mental health providers at their school, who then tailor their approach to the needs of each individual student.
Engaging Families Helps Engage Kids
The middle school years can be a challenging time for parents as well as students, and parents often are less involved in their children's school lives at this time. Research shows that parents who participate more in their children's education increase their children's chances at academic success.
With this in mind, the Safe Passages model has school site coordinators and case managers working together to engage parents and families in school activities. Our middle school sites are also engaging parents individually through Student Success Teams, comprised of parents and school staff, to develop plans for students in need of intensive support.
The After-School Hours Matter
Kids who participate in quality after-school programs have fun, are safe, and tend to achieve more in school. For all of these reasons, Safe Passages is working to increase the number of comprehensive after-school programs that are available on campus at our seven middle schools. Better after-school programs mean increased safety and achievement for the entire school.
Next Generation: Digital Pathways Initiative
The Next Generation: Digital Pathways Initiative is designed to be a partnership between public k-12 systems, higher education, innovative technology focused workforce development organizations and Safe Passages. The initial partnership is comprised of San Francisco State University, San Francisco State University's Institute for Next Generation Internet, Bay Area Video Coalition, Coliseum College Prep Academy, Roots International Middle School, the coalition of small schools at the McClymonds campus and Safe Passages.
The Initiative integrates best practices in school linked services, intensive academic support, youth development, technology based project learning and youth work force development. Students will work on projects such as desktop publishing, storyboards for video assignments, music and animation, website production, and enter the global market place by jointly creating projects over the internet with students in India.
The Next Generation Initiative builds on the success of support programs established through the Middle School Strategy by adding academic supports; technology skills training; and job training and placement through workforce development, including internships and summer job placements at dedicated community business partners. Participating students will have the opportunity to earn college credits through San Francisco State's College of Extended Learning and create e-portfolios of their work.
Students at target sites will be offered transitional support to high school, continued academic and social supports, as well as post graduate job placement assistance and higher education support.
"The Next Generation: Digital Pathways Initiative prepares students for college and provides students with skills and experiences that they will be able to use in a technology-driven world."
-Principal Aaron Townsend, Coliseum Preparatory Academy
How Are We Doing?
Targeted middle school sites are located in some of the toughest neighborhoods in Oakland and the unincorporated areas of Alameda County with the highest concentrations of poverty and violence, including, East and West Oakland, and Ashland/Cherryland communities.
In 1998, the Safe Passages Middle School Strategy established the benchmark of reducing suspensions for violence at targeted OUSD middle schools, 30% by 2005. By the target year, the number of violent suspensions had decreased by 72% -- 200% of the goal.
During the 2005-06 school year, the Middle School Strategy was expanded to be implemented at the following school sites in Oakland: Claremont Middle School, Kizmet Academy, Calvin Simmons Middle School, Carter Middle School, Edna Brewer Middle School, Elmhurst Middle School, Frick Middle School, Havenscourt Middle School, Lowell Middle School, Madison Middle School, Westlake Middle School.
Beginning is the Fall of 2006, the Middle School Strategy was replicated in Bohannon Middle School and Edendale Middle School in the San Lorenzo Unified School District. Both middle schools are located in the unincorporated areas of Ashland/Cherryland in Alameda County.
Middle School Highlights 2005-2006
Oakland Unified School District
Expansion of the Middle School Strategy in Oakland was made possibly by an infusion of additional violence prevention funding by the City of Oakland. The Middle School Strategy was adopted as a best practices approach by the City of Oakland and chosen as a premier school based violence prevention model supported by the voter approved Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004 (Measure Y).
Claremont Middle School: Claremont became a full-fledged Safe Passages school in 2005. Claremont's coordinated services team includes several school-based staff members in addition to the Safe Passages Team, making the access to services very broad for each student that the team reviews. Claremont also received an OFCY After School grant, further rounding out the services available to students and families.
Elmhurst Middle School: Elmhurst Middle School, in East Oakland, became a Safe Passages school in 2005, helping to bring together various existing services such as a school-based alcohol and drug counseling program and a very effective Parent Center with the case management, site based coordination, and mental health services of the Middle School Strategy.
Westlake Middle School: Westlake became a Safe Passages school after a year of implementing the Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum. Building on the sophisticated infrastructure created through a Healthy Start grant a few years before, Westlake's Safe Passages staff fit right in with the existing referral process and system for providing mental and behavioral health services to their students.
Conflict Resolution Coaches & Second Step- Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004 (Measure Y): Through City of Oakland Measure Y dollars , half-time Conflict Resolution Coaches were placed at all Safe Passages schools. These coaches recruit, train and support peer mediators to work with other students to reduce conflict at their sites. Principals reported fewer students in their offices since the Conflict Resolution program began!
National Youth Violence Prevention Week: During the first week of April in 2006, Safe Passages and the Oakland Police Department sponsored the Second Annual National Youth Violence Prevention Week in 16 OUSD middle, elementary and alternative education schools.
This week of events promotes conflict resolution, school safety, anger management, respect, tolerance and collective action. Each site put on a week of activities for students, parents and staff around these themes, including a poster and essay contest.
San Lorenzo Unified School District
Beginning fall 2006, the Middle School Strategy was also implemented in the San Lorenzo Unified School District at Edendale Middle School and Bohannon Middle School. Over 2,000 students are currently being served at the two school sites.
San Lorenzo Unified School District (SLZUSD) is located in an area with high concentrations of poverty and crime, with significant populations of vulnerable youth and families. Further, this district, similar to OUSD at program onset, has middle school populations with high rates of suspensions for violent offenses and a scarcity of prevention and intervention support services to address the critical needs of their students.
Edendal and Bohannon Middle Schools serve the students and parents that live in Ashland/Cherryland, where according to the 2001 Community Information Book, prepared by the Alameda County Public Health Department, nearly 40% of households earned an income of less than $30,000. Although both schools have diverse populations, Latino students represent about 40% of the student population on each campus. These schools are among the top three schools with the highest rates of suspensions in SLUSD. During the 2004/2005 school year, Bohannon had the highest rate of suspensions among the district's three middle schools, with nearly 40% for violence related incidents.
Safe Passages has begun to document the impacts of the Middle School Strategy on these two school campuses, and will report on findings by next year.
Safe Passages/Our Kids Oversight Board
Policies and implementation decisions about the Middle School Strategy occur at the Oversight Board. It is comprised of local leaders, public agency administrators, and community service providers who are seeking ways to bring social services to children and families at the location most accessible to them. This Board evaluates best practice models and works on practical implementation plans to ensure that children have access to services like mental health counseling, case management, and after-school programs.
Safe Passages/Our Kids Oversight Board
- Hon. Gail Steele, Alameda County Board of Supervisors
- Josefina Alvarado Mena, J.D., Executive Director, Safe Passages
- Sara Bedford, City of Oakland Department of Human Services
- Ken Berrick, Director, Seneca Center
- Alex Briscoe, Assistant Director, Alameda County Health Care Services
- Michelle Burns, EPSDT Coordinator, Alameda County
- Vana Chavez, Finance Director, Health Care Services Administration
- Steve Eckert, Director, East Bay Agency for Children
- Yvette Leung, Our Kids Program Administrator
- Barbara Loza-Muriera, Alameda County Inter-Agency Children's Policy Council
- Alison McKenzie, OUR Kids Clinical Supervisor
- Marian Meadows, Senior Policy Associate, Safe Passages
- John Stein, Director, Fred Finch Youth Center
- Carolyn Novosel, Director, Child & Youth Services, Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services
- Jackie Wong, OUSD Department of Student, Family and Community Services