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Youth crime
Program addresses cures for Alton ills
By Linda N. Weller
The Telegraph
ALTON - A daylong program Monday on neighborhood risk factors fit in with recent calls to stem youth crime in Alton.
Drugs, firearms, family history, conflict and lack of management, and friends who engage in problem behavior were all part of a seminar that drew nearly 50 participants at Saint Clare's Hospital, 915 E. Fifth St., in Alton.
"Instead of just treating the symptoms, let's treat what's behind them," said trainer-facilitator Nigel Wrangham of Portland, Ore. "These are not predictors, just indicators. They make it (youths' problems) more likely."
Participants broke into groups to discuss factors affecting communities and individuals. Wrangham kept the discussion moving quickly, engaging as many people to add their comments as were willing to respond to his analogies.
One discussion was why the number of deaths and the amount of devastation from the recent earthquake in China were greater than the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, which registered slightly higher on the Richter scale. It apparently all boiled down to the difference in communities and infrastructure, both "protective factors."
The animated trainer also acted out why telling a child "no, no, no" and giving him long explanations won't keep him from danger.
"We don't just work on the kid, but also the environment," in a community sense, he said.
Participants also viewed and then discussed a "date-rape" video before taking a trolley tour of Weed and Seed neighborhood revitalization strategy-designated neighborhoods. Wrangham said it is more effective to learn about risk factors for adolescents' drug usage "instead of just punishing them."
Alton Youth Development Strategy Partnership coordinated the event in partnership with the Alton School District, Alton Weed and Seed Strategy, Arms of Love Pregnancy Resource Center, Chestnut Health Systems, Madison County Health Department, Riverbend Youth Ministries, Senior Services Plus, St. Clare's Hospital, Family Learning Center and Alton YWCA, among others.
The collaborating groups want to formulate a plan to reduce the factors and thereby encourage positive youth development, beginning with a media marketing effort.
Subcommittees of the Alton Youth Development Strategy Partnership will meet again today, said Jennifer Weller, AYDS grant coordinator, who works for the Alton School District.
Weller said community risk factors that contribute to youths' drug usage "impacts all of us."
"We are trying to get people to understand as a community member or service agency member, it's everybody's problem, and the only way to reduce substance abuse is to collaborate and work together," Weller said. "Part of the activities today is for people to understand what their role is. The bottom line is, if people in the community are using substances, it affects you. It affects you in how the community looks and what the crime rate is. It relates to everyone's safety, welfare and overall heath."
Midway through the program, participants took 20-minute tours of some inner-city problem areas that Weed and Seed, police, Nuisance Abatement Task Force and others had targeted to fight crime and improve the neighborhoods.
The "tourists" rumbled through old streets on a Bluff City Tours trolley that attracted the attention of neighbors, some staring and some waving.
Among the streets it traveled was Ridge Street and Central and Highland avenues.
Bruce Bertolino, site coordinator for Weed and Seed, led the tours.
He was happy to point out the new Hellrung Park, a former "pit" that hid illicit drug use and sales and prostitution.
"It used to be 16 feet lower than it is now and surrounded by houses," he said.
Bertolino said the focus of the park's renovation was to involve residents, such as the decorative tiles bearing neighborhood children's handprints, so they will feel "ownership" of the property.
"This is a way to add protective issues to the neighborhood," he said.
Bertolino said the entourage could view negative factors for themselves, not pointing out some obvious eyesores, such as broken windows, tall weeds, and trash and beer bottles lying here and there. Besides Hellrung, other high points were the Community Learning Center and 56-house Hampton Place and Hampton Extension development.
The brick and sided houses stand out from the older ones, their neat lawns, flower beds and some vegetable gardens perking up the neighborhoods.
Sgt. David Goins of the Alton Police Department told one man on the bus about Highland Avenue, on which the trolley was traveling.
"This was a depressed area where we had a lot of drugs and shootings," he said, then pointed to an open lot that had been overgrown with trees, where suspects would flee from police. Neither Goins nor Bertolino said all of the problems are gone there.
With related goals, another session called "Building Community Bridges: Booster Session" will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. June 10 at Saint Clare's, with goal of a multi-denominational, faith-based approach to strengthening youth and preventing substance abuse in youth.
Call Weller for more information at (618) 474-2245.
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