Days 8-10

It's been a busy few days hence the lack of blogging.  Monday started off with a visit to the offices of the National League of Cities where Leon Andrews gave us an outline of the work of the Institute for Youth, Education & Families in supporting mayors & municipal governments across America to think strategically about how they can ensure all children and young people achieve to their full potential and in doing so, promote healthy communities.  It was a fascinating presentation and although there are quite a lot of differences between the way in which local government operates in the States and back at home, there were transferable lessons and parallels, particularly in terms of how children and young people need to be involved in decision-making.

We had a 2-hour window as some appointments were swapped around so I had a quick look in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian which has an impressive range of top quality exhibitions including one on the civil rights movement commemorating 50 years since the ‘March on Washington’ for jobs and freedom.  It’s an amazing museum and I would love to explore it further.

In the afternoon we met with a number of folks from the East of the River Clergy Police Community Partnership which had been started by Commissioner Chuck Ramsay (whom we met in Philly last week) when he was Police Chief in DC in partnership with local pastors.   This is a faith-based initiative that seeks to reduce violence and works through a variety of initiatives including a transitional housing programme, mentoring, gender specific conferences for young people and initiatives such as ‘40 Days of Increased Peace,’ a summer diversionary project for young people. 

Rev Donald Isaacs from ERCPCP with Paul

Lastly on Monday’s schedule we spent some time at the Metropolitan PD – Washington’s police department headquarters where we were allowed to sit in on a crime briefing in their Operations Room, and then we met one of their Community Outreach Specialists who filled us in on some work the PD is developing to engage with young people in tough communities through sport activities as part of a crime prevention strategy.


On Tuesday morning we headed to the offices of the Open Society Foundation and had a fascinating discussion with staff and colleagues from a variety of associated organisations who are working on a range youth justice issues.  Much of their work is around legal advocacy and policy development/ change from prevention work, improving the justice system when young people are in the system and then work on re-entry and what happens when young people come out of the justice system.  We heard some frightening statistics – 65% of young people who are suspended or expelled from high school end up involved in the justice system; 70% of young people in the justice system don’t make it back into school/education when they exit the system; $6 billion is spent in the US on incarcerating young people.  (Some further information here. We left thankful for our own juvenile justice system, whilst it’s not perfect, we don’t face the same battles as in the US, but we were impressed by the dedication and perseverance of the folks we met working to change legislation.

Next we drove out to Anacostia to Covenant House, a national organisation that focuses on meeting the needs of homeless young people.  The Executive Director was very informative and we were impressed by the strong value base of the organisation with guiding principles that include immediacy, sanctuary, communication, choice & structure.  One of the things that stood out for me which had also been reinforced on some of the other visits, was the commitment to young people in the 18-25 age bracket and a recognition that support is vital at this stage of young adulthood.

Mural in the offices of LAYC

LAYC's mission statement

Our last visit of the day was to the Latin American Youth Centre which was a really colourful place as there is a lot of emphasis on artwork as a developmental intervention.  In the basement there is a recreational space for young people – pool table, table football etc – which is the first point of contact for many of the young people who in engage in LAYC programmes.  We were impressed in particular by the mentoring scheme run by LAYC and we had the opportunity to hear first-hand from both young people and their mentors (promontores) about the impact of the mentoring support on their lives.  The organisation has been running for 45 years and in that time has established a very comprehensive range of programmes for young people in the local community including social services, health promotion, housing, sexual health clinic, drug prevention, LGBT project, workforce development. 


On Tuesday evening we got our glad rags on and went to a St Patrick’s Day reception hosted by the Irish Embassy where Taoiseach Enda Kenny gave an address.  It was a fun evening with a chance to meet the great and the good as well as re-connect with US Consul General at Belfast, Greg Burton, and board members from the funder of the study visit, the International Fund for Ireland.

Looking smart for the Irish Embassy reception

Wednesday was our final ‘work’ day and we had an early start with our bus pick-up at 7.30am for the Northern Ireland Bureau St Patrick’s Day breakfast.  Both First and Deputy First Ministers, Peter Robinson & Martin McGuiness were there to speak and promote the good stuff that is coming out of Northern Ireland in 2013 including the World Police & Fire Games and Derry/Londonderry City of Culture.  Again the great and the good were all there, and it was nice to be able to re-connect with some new friends including Selvon from Lifepieces to Masterpieces.

Following the breakfast we took a tour at the Capitol which is a truly impressive building with stunning artwork and statues throughout.

After a quick stop at the hotel to change (us ladies were hugely relieved to get out of our heels) and grab lunch, we had our final visit to the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative in Anacostia, east of the river.  Again this was an organisation that has a wide range of programmes which when they started out 17 years ago set out to provide community-based child welfare services, but now they have a much broader focus as they recognise that in order to see improvement in child welfare they have to deal with systemic issues such as poverty and education etc.  One of the things that stood out about this organisation was the fact that they have a Quality Assurance team comprising 10% of their staff to ensure that they are achieving the outcomes they set out to achieve and that they have the right infrastructure and support in place for case-workers to be effective.  They also run a fatherhood programme with a weekly parent support group; they have a mini-grants programme so that smaller organisations in the area can access funding for projects; they run a 'Safe Summer Programme' where they hire 48 young people and employ them for 30 hours a week at $10 an hour to be community organisers working to bring positive change in their local community.  We were very impressed by FSFSC’s work and the obvious dedication of their staff team.

And now we’re about to leave DC and begin our journey home.  I have mixed emotions – it’s been an amazing trip, I'm very grateful for this opportunity to see and learn so much, there’s been great synergy amongst the group and of course the craic has been 90.  But I think we are all at the point where we’re ready for home, it’s been a full-on yet hugely enjoyable experience.  We’re planning to meet up as a group in a few weeks once we’ve had some time to process all that we’ve seen and heard, then we can begin to look at how we apply some of our learning.  There are many things about Northern Ireland that I’m thankful for as we don’t face some of the systemic issues such as poverty to the same extent as the US.  However I think it’s fair to say that having done this trip we are all the more committed to the work that we do, the communities and young people that we work with, and we want to do it better ensuring that there are positive and lasting outcomes for young people across Northern Ireland.