When Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels delivered his 2009-2010 budget, he proposed a new, multi-million dollar initiative to dramatically change how the city deals with youth violence.

"We will not stand for this violence; this has to stop," said Nickels. "The time has come for the city and the community to fundamentally change our overall strategy on preventing youth violence. I am asking neighbors, families, schools, churches, service workers and community members to come together and join our efforts."

In 2008, five teenagers were shot to death in Seattle.  Earlier in the year, Mayor Nickels brought together community leaders, principals, members of the faith community and others to develop a new approach to preventing youth and gang-related violence.

The initiative is now being implemented and will focus on about 800 children a year who are at highest risk of perpetuating violence or becoming victims.

  Our new focus

The Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative will set a new direction by identifying and helping children who are at a vulnerable point in their lives.  Specifically, the initiative will:

• Help youth with repeat offenses re-enter society from state detention programs.
• Provide alternatives for youth who are arrested for crimes, but released because they don't meet the admission criteria for county detention.
• Help middle-school truants and students at risk of suspension stay in school and succeed.
• Prevent victims of violence and their friends and relatives from continuing the cycle of violence through retaliation.
  

"We won't wait for children to come to us for help; we will seek them out.  Whether it's helping them stay in school, re-enter society or manage their anger, the objective is to intervene at a crucial time in their lives and offer them a better path," Nickels said. 

While Seattle has experienced some of the lowest overall crime rates in decades, the number of juvenile violent crime incidents has remained constant at about 800 a year. 

Easy access to guns has clearly introduced life-and-death consequences to confrontations between our children," Nickels said.

  Our new approach

Initiative planners began by examining programs in Seattle and in cities across the nation including Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, San Jose, Washington D.C. and Lowell, Mass. 

Representatives from cities with proven strategies to decrease youth violence were invited to Seattle to share their innovative programs.  Baltimore's Operation Safe Kids used intensive outreach to juvenile offenders and saw a 44 percent drop in the number of youth re-arrested. "The lesson for Seattle is collaboration. You always need a strategy," advised Director Chris Williams.

Penny Griffith works with Latino youth and their parents in neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., where they dramatically reduced shootings and stabbings.  "The community got angry and said enough is enough," Griffith said.

Seattle's initiative incorporates many of the ideas from these national models.  It proposes a new approach to street outreach with the use of violence interrupters who are privy to information on the street and may actually prevent violent acts and retaliation before they occur. 

  Engaging Our Young People

Young people will be referred to a wide range of services through juvenile court, police, community outreach workers, schools, Seattle Parks and Recreation Youth Centers, and the neighborhood network agencies.

The Seattle initiative calls for establishing extended hours at some youth centers, giving children a safe place to go, or be taken, to stay out of trouble.  In addition to case management, anger management and recreation programming, the city will support more community-based projects that engage and mentor young people

In April 2009, Mayor Nickels introduced "soft uniformed" school emphasis officers assigned to four middle schools, where they will work to improve attendance and train children to deal with conflict.  In summer of 2009, the initiative is helping fund summer youth employment, giving young people an opportunity to learn important job skills and putting them on a path for a better future. 

Even before the initiative began, Seattle police stepped up emphasis patrols, working especially closely with schools, and doubled the number of officers working in the gang unit.  Mayor Nickels emphasized that law enforcement can be only part of the solution.  He also acknowledged members of the faith community for their efforts and contributions.

  Three neighborhood networks

One message came loud and clear from representatives in other cities:  Government should not dictate all the details of a plan.  The City of Seattle has been very deliberate in setting the direction and goals, but asking communities to help determine what's needed in their neighborhoods.

Initiative efforts will be coordinated through three neighborhood networks in southeast, southwest and central Seattle, where indicators of future violent behaviors, such as discipline rates in schools, are the highest.  The lead agencies coordinating initiative efforts are: the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle for the central network; Southwest Youth and Family Services; and a consortium of agencies in the southeast network led by Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club.

These youth-focused, community-led networks are serving as hubs to coordinate and tailor services around each child, including outreach, case management, family support, anger management, youth employment and pre-apprenticeships, recreation, community school police officers, emphasis patrols and neighborhood matching fund projects led by youth. 

In April 2009, Nickels named Mariko Lockhart as the inaugural director of the initiative.  Lockhart was president and state director of Communities in Schools of New Jersey and has served as a consultant on management, race and diversity.  Lockhart will work with three Network Coordinators, collaborating on outreach, intake and referral and data collection and analysis. 

  Accountability and goals

Simply tracking how much money is spent and how many young people receive services is not a meaningful measure of success.  Seattle's Youth Violence Prevention Initiative will include strict measures of accountability at two levels – whether neighborhoods and schools are safer, and whether individual lives are transformed as measured by indicators, such as school performance and recidivism.

The Initiative is charged to achieve:

• A fifty percent reduction in juvenile violent crime referrals in the three network neighborhoods.
• A fifty percent reduction in the number of suspensions/expulsions due to violent incidents in five selected middle schools.

City staff will manage contracting for many of the services provided in the plan and are researching best practices in each category of funding to assure that interventions are appropriate and effective for the populations served by the Initiative.

  Investing in our children

The Mayor's proposed 2009-2010 budget included $9.2 million for the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative—approximately $3.6 million in re-directed programs and about $5.6 million in new spending over the two years.  The City Council adopted a budget that appropriated $8 million, reflecting that some parts of the initiative were phased in over the first few months.