Northside Youth Collaborative

May 14, 2013 meeting notes

Present: Jocelyn Beard (MPS); Merci Rocha, Kim Olstad (World Vision); Rick Maas (MPD), Caalynn Schiro (The Link); Latrell Beamon, Sarah Rossman (Parks); Julie Austin; April Graves (Juxta);, Oliviah Walker, Wendell Johnson (MPH); Michelle Horovitz, Zoe Hollomon (Appetite for Change); Kesha Walker (RESOURCE); Laura Jensen (Augsburg student); Henry Jiminez (One Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Forums); Evan Barnett, Tameika Williams, Jo Haberman (MYC/YCB).

Latrell started the meeting with welcome, introductions, agenda review, and

announcements:

-Merci announced that World Vision is folding operations in the metro area due to funding cut-backs. Merci is committed to NYC through August.

-Jo asked if anyone can attend the Bring The Unity event on Saturday, June 1st - CUB parking lot – to walk around with NYC flyers, hand them out to any youth programs tabling at the event, and connect with programs we’re not already communicating with. Jo, Merci, Latrell, and maybe Oliviah.

-Evan reminded everyone about Paul Tough, author of “How Children Succeed”, speaking on Thursday, May 30, 4 – 6pm, Mpls Convention Center. Please register at ycb.org so enough refreshments can be planned. Paul Tough will be talking about the value of Out of School Time opportunities for youth, families, the community, and the future of our society. This is a free event organized by Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board, co-sponsored by ten organizations,bringing the Call To Action for Minneapolis Children & Youth to the larger public.

-Henry invited everyone to attend theYouth-ledMayoral Candidates Forum on Thursday, June 6th, 6pm, Sabathani Community Center(310 E. 38th Street S.) – please bring young people. The candidates forum is designed to raise the issues of greatest importance to young people in Minneapolis, and ask candidates to take the time required to fully address these issues. There will be at least one more youth-led candidates forum, probably in the fall. Please let Henry know if youand the youth you work with can help organize and/or share leadership roles at the next forum – 612-321-8806 or .

North High School Partnership with NYC

Merci reviewed the notes from the last meeting at North High – attached. Merci and Jo will draft a letter outlining what NYC is working on, to send to North High in August, for consideration re: next school year; key staff at North High can assess if/how they might want to partner, how students might be involved, etc. NYC co-chairs are recommending that we begin at this point and re-assess later next school year re: suggestions made that NYC may want to partner with all high schools on the north side. One possibility is to ask members of the south Minneapolis SNAP group (Southside Network Agency Partnership) to speak at a future NYC meeting about their work connecting schools with community-based organizations - their mission is to create school-community partnerships to support students’ success in school, work, and life. Jo will send out information about SNAP’s annual Principals Roundtable, an event in August that brings together key school staff and CBO’s for dialogue, resource sharing, etc. NYC members could attend to see how the event promotes better partnerships to benefit youth. Evan suggested we look into the process MPS requires for school-community partnerships, in case we need that moving forward; and also suggested Dick Mammen, school board member, could be consulted for assistance.

Summer Youth Events

Julie would like to see a youth/adult planning group start getting connected soon, to discuss possible summer youth events for July and August. Like last summer, an informal format that would allow Northside young people (16 – 24) to drop in, get information and resources, share food, enjoy social time with activities, creative expression – music, spoken word, hip-hop; hopefully, there will be enough interest & young people will take over the planning for future events - NYC would become a more background support role. Evan mentioned that the YCB/MYC downtown youth workers have just gotten permission to use downtown YMCA space for summer programs; - downtown youth workers did a great job last summer, and showed that issues with youth spending time downtown had nothing to do with high school students who were using their bus cards, but there are a lot of youth 18-25 who spend time downtown who don’t have jobs, resources, connections, many are homeless, etc. Evan suggested we look at possibly partnering in the YMCA space - NYC could maybe use part of the space for summer events.

Next steps: groups working with Northside youth, 16 – 24, will be invited to a meeting to talk about possible partnership for summer events:

  • Appetite for Change
  • Emerge
  • Committee of Positive Change (CPC) – Latrell Beamon
  • Nueva Generacion (soccer program)
  • Redeemer
  • Discovery Crew at PYC – Walter Anderson
  • Youth Farm
  • RESOURCE – Fresh Start program - Kesha Walker
  • Avenues
  • Project Sweetie Pie
  • Downtown YMCA (downtown outreach team)

& others….

Discussion about NYC six issues & next steps

Merci reminded the group that NYC is a collaboration, so need leaders from organizations to work with NYC re: how NYC plays a role in an issue area. If leaders don’t step up, NYC cannot move forward with an issue.

First Two Issues:Gun Violence/Gang Violence/ Youth Violence and Sex Trafficking

Gun Violence/Gang Violence/ Youth Violence

  • Oliviah updated the group on plans for a BUILD training -- tentative date is Friday, June 14th, at Juxtaposition Arts.
  • Plan is to outreach to youth workers on the NYC contact list, although there will be a limit

of 20 people who can attend the training.

  • Wendell is new intern with BUILD this summer – welcome, Wendell!

Sex Trafficking

  • Tameika updated the group about next steps re: adult-youth partnership for planning a Northside community forum on sex trafficking. Minneapolis Youth Congress Health Committee discussed the idea and they want to move ahead. Discussion about whether to invite just Northside practitioners, experts, youth, etc. to the pre-planning meeting, or to throw a wider net to see who might have useful information that could contribute to a strong agenda for the forum. Decision to invite people more widely, but when we come to the point of actually planning the agenda, speakers, content of the community forum, be intentional about having North Minneapolis people speak mostly, and also have a strong facilitator so that people who are not from Northside will not dominate the discussion.

Next steps:invite people to a pre-planning discussion, for a Northside community forum on sex trafficking, with these goals (other goals may be added through the planning process….):

  • Adult-youth partnership in planning and leading the forum;
  • Learn about the issues;
  • Discuss how Northside is affected;
  • Discuss what is being done, and what should be done in the future;
  • Invite community leaders, elected officials, candidates for office, etc.

Question raised – should the forum be a train-the-trainer event? This will be discussed at the pre-planning meeting.

Planning group: Minneapolis Youth Congress Health Committee, Tameika, Evan, LaReina, Mercedes, Linda, Michael, Oliviah, Kim, Merci, Sarah, Jo

Invite to pre-planning meeting:

  • Minneapolis Youth Congress
  • Family Partnership
  • Breaking Free
  • MN Women’s Foundation
  • Avenues
  • Link
  • Brooklyns Youth Council (Becca)
  • Youth Opportunity Center at Youthlink
  • Neighborhood Involvement Project
  • UROC – Sarah Martin(map with youth)
  • Kwanzaa Church
  • Minneapolis Public Health - Oliviah
  • Parks - Sarah
  • The Bridge
  • Youthrive
  • Kim Olstad and Merci Rocha
  • Youth workers from Sside and Eside who are working with these issues
  • MN Alliance Against Violence
  • MN Indian Women’s Resource Center
  • MN Department of Health
  • Civil Society
  • Minorities and Survivors Improving Empowerment (MASIE)
  • Legislature made human trafficking a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and required that the Department of Public Safety compile and analyze data on human trafficking in Minnesota.

Middle Two Issues: Youth & Jobs and Healthy Food

After discussion, decision to invite people working on these two issues to the NYC meeting on June 11th to discuss what NYC’s role could and should be on these issues.

Invite for Youth & Jobs: Emerge, Employment Action Center, Afro Eco, Workforce Centers, Achieve, Redeemer, Northside Crisis Response Team, METP, HIRED, Juxta, Cookie Cart.

Who else? Questions: how many Nside youth are working in Nside jobs? Connections re: graduation, GED, training, college. Lack of Out-of-School-Time opportunities for Nside youth.

Invite for Healthy Food: Appetite for Change, Project Sweetie Pie, Cookie Cart, Northside Fresh, PYC, Second Harvest, Redeemer, Fair School, Wirth Coop, McKinley CSA, Youth Farm, UROC, Glen Ford (Penn & Plymouth food store plan), Noble Academy, Pastor Paul, West Broadway Farmers Market, Camden Promise, North Point.

Who else?

Zoe is new staff person with Appetite for Change – working with youth on healthy food issues – welcome, Zoe! Some possible issues: economic policy and arguments for access, urban agriculture, etc.; local growers that employ youth; start with youth from community cooks.

Final Two Issues: Homelessness and High School Drop-out Rates

Organize Nside community forums to elevate the work already being done by broad coalitions on education and homelessness; educate the community about who is working on these issues, and how youth and the broader community can access people and organizations working on these issues.

High School Drop-out Rates

Plan – organize community forum this summer. (venue: North High?)

Planning group: Julie, Latrell, Jocelyn, Kim, Kesha (plus team), Jo.

Invite to participate in forum : GED policy changes in 2014; GRAD policy changes in 2013 & 2014; connection between achievement/opportunity gap & drop-out rates; education reform.

Homelessness

Plan – organize community forum for this fall (venue: North High?)

Planning group: Latrell, Jocelyn, Merci, Jo.

Invite to participate in forum: groups working in coalitions re: policy and funding changes during legislative session – how does Nside benefit – youth and larger community?