Put youth on resource center advisory committee
Pittsburgh has experienced an increase in violent youth crime, creating widespread concern and even panic. Whether these crimes represent a temporary uptick or a longterm trend, now is a good time for Pittsburgh’s philanthropic community to step in and fund evidencebased solutions.
Members of Pittsburgh City Council were right to reject ineffective citywide curfews. They also had a more promising idea: Providing youth resource centers that give kids a positive place to hangout, grow and learn. Successful youth centers, like Brookline Teen Outreach in the South Hills, provide individual attention, integrated mental health therapy and community accountability. The most effective centers require professional staffing, and longer hours than a small operation like BTO, which closes at 6 p.m., can offer.
That means teen resource centers, done right, cost money. But if city officials can learn from effective programs like Brookline’s, maybe they could persuade philanthropic agencies to fund similar centers elsewhere in the city.
The key is doing it right: A rushed or shabby program will quickly collapse, as the centers become just more sites of disorder. .
The Advisory Committee for Youth and Family Resource Centers is off to an inauspicious start. For starters, no young people are on the committee who could give first-hand accounts of what works. Every member of the committee, appointed by City Council and the Mayor’s Office, is either an elected official or a city employee. No outside experts. No one with actual experience running such a center, like BTO’s Caitlin McNulty.
Solutions to difficult problems
aren’t always found in the CityCounty Building. In fact, they rarely are. City government, as with its ineffective strategies to alleviate violence, is again avoiding the source. Find some young people now to put on the advisory committee. They will also have some insight into why some young people don’t feel safe or comfortable in their own homes, or have little effective supervision.
The need for effective teen centers is growing. The usual places teens hang out are increasingly shuttered. Management of the Waterfront shopping and entertainment complex, for instance, recently announced a daily curfew and youth supervision policy. After 6 p.m., anyone 18 and under must be with an adult of legal drinking age, and that person must have an acceptable form of identification. For many teens, that will rule out a prime place for a movie and a milkshake, or just to hang with friends. There must be some other option.
A network of youth resource centers could provide alternatives. But city officials will have to show the wisdom, and the humility, to put their ears to the ground and listen to the youth.