Orlando wants to bring older teens into its youth programs

Orlando is hoping to fill its neighborhood centers with older teens and is even considering reshaping one to specialize in serving them.

Lisa Early, Orlando’s director of families, parks and recreation, briefed commissioners Monday on her department’s work, which includes plans to bolster programming for older teens. Orlando’s youth programs drew more than 10,000 children last year, with more than 80% coming from low-income families.

Revamping its efforts for older kids where the department sees a drop-off in participation “would take our facilities” to the next level, she said, and keep them “off the streets and out of trouble.”

The facility being discussed would function similar to The Door in New York City, where teens can sign up for a membership to the facility, which has everything from athletic space, a full-service kitchen and video games, and offer services such as mental health counseling and career and college readiness programs.

The Door is free, and all of the services are under one roof, its website states.

“You walk in and you can do anything you want: Just hang out, play video games, sit with your friends, go into the recording studio and make music and there’s health counseling there on-site. ... Not insurance-based, it’s just there,” said Early. “It’s kind of a hang-out spot.”

Abe Morris, Orlando’s manager of its My Brother’s Keeper mentorship program, said he visited The Door and was impressed with how it was able to engage students.

“I think the key takeaways that I took away from The Door was that they used recreation to engage youth to get them in the door and then they had support services where they had a one-stop-shop to refer kids to whatever services they deemed necessary,” he said.

Early said it was too soon to know if Orlando would be able to advance such a facility but plans could become more concrete this summer as the city council prepares its budget for next year.

The facility idea is indicative of wider plans to provide better and more comprehensive services to older teens, she said.

“Even if it doesn’t happen, we can start building out our programming for older youth at several sites that have the capacity,” she said. “One of the things we’re in deep discussion [about] now is at the Northwest Community Center… it has a big gymnasium and it’s not being heavily used by the surrounding neighborhood, which has a very high crime rate.”

She continued, “There are many times when the gym is not being used and there is nobody in there. How do you fill that place up with youth to make full use of it?”

The presentation also defined who participates in existing programs, and why the city primarily targets at-risk youth.

She said participation typically drops off at around 12 years old, even as more than half of participants range from 11 to 15. About 70% come from single-family households.

It’s important to program specifically for this age group, to address conditions that help influence them, Early said.

In Orlando, Black and Hispanic residents are more likely to live in poverty, and less likely to receive a high school diploma and a college degree, the presentation showed, citing U.S. Census data.

Eleven Orlando schools were listed among the 300 lowest performing in the state by the Florida Department of Education, and of students at those schools, 100% are low-income and at least 92% are Black and Hispanic students.

It goes further, Early said, citing data from Orange County Public Schools showing Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be disciplined at school, and juvenile arrest data shows 58% of youth arrests in Orange County are Black and 25% are Hispanic.