On January 7, Mayor Rybak spoke before the Minnesota Meeting and launched Minneapolis’ strategy to prevent youth violence. Entitled the Blueprint for Action: Preventing Youth Violence in Minneapolis, the plan frames the problem not just as a law enforcement issue but as a public health problem as well. Viewing violence among our children as a public health problem means recognizing that it is a preventable condition that cannot be solved through enforcement alone. The plan calls for a broad-based approach that recognizes the underlying causes of violence among our kids and effectively addresses those causes.
The Blueprint establishes four goals for the city aimed at addressing the root causes of youth violence:
• Every young person in Minneapolis will be supported by at least one trusted adult in their family or their community. This means increasing the number of mentoring opportunities for kids and proper training for mentors, increasing the number of private sector jobs for kids, increasing the number and improving the coordination of public and private youth programs, re-establishing Police Liaisons in public schools, and providing kids with consistent and meaningful violence prevention training through the Minneapolis parks, libraries and schools. The Blueprint also calls for providing transportation to youth to make programs and opportunities accessible, providing safe spaces for kids when they’re not in school, increasing training and support programs for parents of teens, and preventing and reducing teen pregnancy.
• Intervene at the first sign that youth or families are at risk for or involved in violence. Some of the steps identified to achieve this goal include expanding summer job opportunities for kids already in the criminal justice system, establishing a juvenile supervision and service center, developing standard protocols for parks, schools and health care facilities in the aftermath of critical violent incidents, creating specific mentor programs for kids with an incarcerated parent, and increasing street-level outreach to reconnect at-risk kids with education and employment opportunities.
• Do not give up on our kids in trouble, but work to restore them and get them back on track. Strategies include: Improving coordination between different parts of the juvenile justice system; increasing the funding and expanding the scope of juvenile probation; implementing a comprehensive tool to assess mental health and related needs; improving connections between youth offenders and education, employment and health care opportunities; and expanding restorative justice options. Other strategies include creating re-entry plans for kids returning from the criminal justice system, developing culturally appropriate rites of passage for youth offenders returning to the community, and expanding sentencing options for youth to include comprehensive behavioral training and therapy.
• Recognize that violence is learned and can be unlearned by reducing the impact of violent messages in our media, culture and entertainment. Some steps identified by the Blueprint to meet this goal include developing a public education campaign to promote the cessation of violence, partnering with other cities and mayors to form a national coalition against youth violence, supporting stronger penalties for the illegal sale and distribution of firearms, and working to change the community values that contribute to the acceptance of guns.
In addition to these goals and strategies, the Blueprint identified several important measures of progress including rates of homicide, assault, school suspension, curfew, truancy, gun possession, teenage pregnancy, as well as high school graduation rates and funding for youth activities.
Mayor Rybak committed the city to accomplishing four immediate goals within the next 100 days: Hire a coordinator to oversee the implementation of the Blueprint; prioritize and refine the action items and develop specific implementation steps; identify public and private resources to support implementation; and call upon community partners to take responsibility for specific action items.
Nothing is more important to the future of our community than the health and well being of our children. As stated by the Blueprint: “The continued success of our entire community is at stake. Today’s young people are the most valuable generation Minneapolis has ever raised. As we strive to prosper in a global economy where markets are created and shaped by increasingly diverse peoples, the students of Minneapolis are the key to our competitiveness.”
“We need everyone in this community to embrace the core value that youth violence affects each of us and each of us has a role to play to keep our children safe.” View the full Blueprint for Action at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/mayor/.