FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26 THROUGH SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2012

PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER

12TH AND ARCH STREET

PHILADELPHIA, PA

Black on Black Violence Conference

During the Summit, reform-minded, conservative policymakers of the Republican Study Committee had an opportunity to engage these leaders in the pursuit of more promising approaches that are successfully working to restore broken and impoverished communities. The event was a partnership between CNE, The Heritage Foundation, and Republican Study Committee.

Related:

Republican Study Committee, Conservatives Launch Anti-Poverty Initiative, Hear from Effective Community Activists

The Daily Caller, Republicans begin to confront poverty at the grassroots

Breitbart.com, Conservatives to Kick Off ‘Anti-Poverty Initiative’

Read More…

Leaders of the hardworking Washington, DC-area community groups that
receive training and technical assistance from the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise.

Visionaries often make poor bookkeepers. CNE addresses this problem by providing training an technical assistance to leaders of community and faith based organizations to strengthen their financial, organizational, and program management, establish 501(c)(3)s, create effective resouce development plans, and access new technology.

Since its founding in 1981, CNE has trained more than 2600 leaders of grassroots organizations in 39 states, and helped link them to resources totaling more than 10 times what CNE has expended. This includes more than 70 faith-based and community groups in Washington, DC that benefitted from CNE’s extensive technical assistance through the Compassion Captial Fund of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.

CNE is a strong advocate for community-based programs and works at the national and state level to remove barriers to their life-restoring programs through research, communications, and public policy.

CNE’s core Technical Assistance focus areas are Board Development, Financial Management, Human Resources, Information Technology, Organizational Development, Program Development, Evaluation and Data Management, and Resource Development. The Center also links the organizations together as members of CNE’s Hands Across Network through which they share information and resources, discuss best practices, and participate in training workshops.

For More Information

Contact: Terence Mathis
Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
1625 K Street NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202-518-6500 ext: 310
Email: tmathis@cneonline.org

Violence-Free Zone Initiative:
A Proven Model for Stopping Violence in the
Schools and Creating Peace in the Community

The Violence-Free Zone is the national model of a youth violence reduction and high-risk- student mentoring program created by the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise. Designed to operate in the most trouble-plagued schools in urban centers with high levels of crime and violence, the VFZ has produced measurable decreases in violent and non-violent incidents and suspensions in more than 30 schools across the country. The principles developed in the Violence-Free Zone model have also proved applicable to suburban and rural communities.

Three studies by evaluators from Baylor University reported that the VFZ had measurable impact in improved safety, reduction in suspensions and truancies, and increased academic performance. Educators and law enforcement officers from sites around the country have praised the VFZ for changing the culture of previously violent schools and reducing crimes in surrounding neighborhoods.

How It Works

The goal of the Violence-Free Zone initiative is to reduce violence and disruptions in the schools and prepare students for learning. The Center provides overall management and direction to the Violence-Free Zone initiative sites, and selects established youth-serving organizations to be CNE’s community partners and implement the VFZ program in the schools. These organizations have the goal of stopping violence in their neighborhoods and have demonstrated that they have the trust and confidence of young people. The Center provides training in the Violence-Free Zone national model as well as technical assistance, administrative and financial oversight, and linkages to sources of support. 

Central to the program are the Youth Advisors, mature young adults who are from the same neighborhoods as the students in the schools they serve. The Youth Advisors command respect because they have faced and overcome the same challenges as the students. Carefully screened, hired, and managed by the local community-partner organization, the Youth Advisors work in the schools as hall monitors, mediators, and character coaches, and they mentor the high risk students that often are responsible for disruptions.

The Youth Advisors

The objectives of the Youth Advisors who mentor high risk students are to guide them to positive paths and encourage their personal, academic, and career success.

Depending on the school size, a team of from seven to twelve Youth Advisors is assigned to each school, one of whom is selected as the VFZ School Site Supervisor. Youth Advisors are recruited from the community through word of mouth, among youth workers and other nonprofit organizations, and occasionally through advertisement. Each Youth Advisor is chosen for his/her genuine “heart” for young people who are struggling, and for his/her ability to understand and relate to their issues. The prospective Youth Advisors are carefully screened by VFZ staff for their suitability and experience, and must pass all school system, state, and local screening requirements. They then undergo a comprehensive course of training in VFZ procedures, code of conduct, and on how to handle various situations.

Before being employed they intern and shadow an experienced Youth Advisor. School Site Supervisors participate in a regular videocam teleconference led by the CNE National VFZ Program Director to receive information and share best practices.

What the Youth Advisors Do

The VFZ Youth Advisors work closely with and support school safety staff, police School Resource Officers, teachers, and counselors, adding a new layer in a comprehensive system of support. They greet the students each day and work as cafeteria and hall monitors, encouraging students to get to class and enforcing dress and behavior codes. They respond if teachers ask for assistance in calming a class. They are able to defuse conflicts before they erupt into violence. Because the Youth Advisors are trusted and respected, the students respond to them and share confidences with them in ways that are not seen by the students as “snitching,” thereby making it possible to head off dangerous situations.

If requested by the schools, the VFZ Youth Advisors oversee a special “suspension room,” where students under suspension are carefully supervised and given homework and discuss behavioral issues. This ensures that the student will maintain his or her schoolwork in a disciplined setting rather than being unsupervised at home or on the street. In some of the schools, suspended youths are assigned to meet with VFZ staff upon their return to school to work out issues that might have led to their suspension. In some schools, VFZ Youth Advisors manage a “tardy room,” also with the goal of identifying and helping resolve students’ reasons for being tardy. If students are truant for more than a day, Youth Advisors will call their homes and try to address the reasons.

Typical Youth Advisor Day

Morning Greeting: The Youth Advisors welcome each child with an encouraging word as they arrive at the school. They also look for signs of tension or that a student needs someone to talk to.

Game Room: Offering a safe and enjoyable environment for students in school where they can also talk with Youth Advisors.

Violence-Free Zone Meetings: During free period or lunch meetings students come to talk out problems and receive motivational and character coaching.

Supportive Conversations, Mediations, Conflict Resolution, and Interventions: Youth Advisors respond throughout the day to problems presented by students or school staff.

Tutoring: Youth Advisors offer homework assistance and where possible, tutoring.

Safe Passage: Youth Advisors assist the school staff and security officers outside the schools, even walking students home if needed, to ensure safe passage. They also watch for outsiders who may gather outside the school buildings to cause trouble and they work to defuse tensions.

After-School Programs: Individual sites have established a variety of creative programs to motivate young people, including sports programs, positive “rap” clubs, and discussion and activity groups focusing on issues concerning youth.

Qualifications

• Must be at least 18 years old
• Must pass a background check with no sexual
• offenses or crimes against children
• Must know the culture of the community
• Have at a minimum a GED or working towards one
• Must pass a health examination (communicable diseases) and TB test
• Must pass a drug and alcohol test (given periodically)

Training

• Child Abuse and Sexual Misconduct Training
• Character Development Training
• Conflict Resolution Training
• Leadership Development Training
• School System Policies Training
• Youth Advisor Training
• Weekly Peer Meetings to Share Approaches

The Center has created an extensive data collection protocol and receives data from school and police officials to provide a comparison between before and after the Violence-Free Zone program is initiated, and to track the progress of individual students.

The Violence-Free Zone is supported by public and private funders. The Center raises funds nationally and negotiates contracts with local school systems and police departments. It also helps the community partners raise funding from local foundations and businesses.

 origins of the vfz      starting a vfz     vfz manual
results and evaluations

For More Information

Contact: Terence Mathis                                                                                                                   Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
1625 K Street NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (202) 518-6500, ext: 310                                                                                              Email: tmathis@cneonline.org

Information About VFZ Sites and Lead Organizations

Convicts, gang bangers, addicts and dropouts from across the country descended on Denver the other day.

But instead of drawing police, they had an admiring audience of analysts, academics and donors eager to study their success. Success, that is, in transforming troubled lives — just as they themselves have been transformed.

Leaders of more than a dozen groups, from San Antonio’s Outcry in the Barrio to the House of Help City of Hope in Washington, D.C., gathered for the “Joseph Summit,” a movement to change lives, schools and neighborhoods. Sponsored by the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE), the summit took its name from Joseph of the Old Testament. In his book “The Triumphs of Joseph,” CNE founder and president Robert L. Woodson explains that Joseph transcended his dysfunctional family and checkered past — including a prison stint — to lead Egypt in a crucial moment.

Read more . . .

Robert Woodson would probably wince if you called him a “community organizer.” That’s because for the last 30 years as president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, he has not spent time organizing the poor around ineffective government programs and other addictions he has been helping them become self-sufficient.

“You can’t learn anything by studying failure,” he says. “If you want to learn anything, you must study the successful.”

I spent last Tuesday riding around Washington and Waldorf, Md., visiting housing projects Woodson’s organization supports and studying his success. I met former drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes and pimps — all of whom testify to having been through failed government programs — who now say they are clean, sober and off the streets.

Read more . . .