Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
School of Social Work
Non Technical Summary
There continues to be a national to local crisis among inner city, especially minority, youth in terms of school completion,occupational preparation and success, and involvement in the juvenile justice system (Annie E. Casey, 2014). The Mayor ofSaint Paul, Minnesota in his 2014 State of the City Report (Office of the Mayor, 31 March 2014) touches on this in his generallypositive report on how his city is responding to this set of youth problems. We are implicated in this relative success, havingworked with the City of Saint Paul, Parks and Recreation Department (P&R), for seven years, building its capacity to effectivelyand positively engage all of the City's young people and especially those of color who use its public recreation facilities (VeLureRoholt, Baizerman, Rana, & Korum, 2013). Without naming us, the Mayor was referencing our work, among that of others.This work is now at an especially crucial point, with broad and deep structural, personnel, and programmatic changesbeginning at P&R. The City's goal is to create and sustain a more responsive, viable, and effective range of caring responses toall its young people, and especially to those at highest risk to poor school, employment, and other life-chances. We continue tohave an important role in this transformation of policy, structure, programming, and practice. We are now accepted by P&Rmanagement and many workers, including the new Community Youth Workers and Youth Work Trainers, as having practiceand scholarly knowledge which is "practical" and fits their needs and wants.The importance of this project lies first in the continuing invitation to our continued involvement contributing to thistransformation (Weber, 2012). Second, there are no examples known to us in the literature and in folklore of such very long-terminvolvement by university faculty and students in the practical work of a municipal public agency, and in the policies, structures,processes, training, and practice of the agency, the "system," and its managerial, supervisory, and direct service staff. Therecontinues to be much to learn about what is our mutually beneficial relationship. Third, public agencies as formal bureaucratictypeorganizations are difficult to change in the direction of more effective client service from both the client and agency points ofview, both by insiders and outsiders. Part of this difficulty may be the length, amount, and type of time given to this effort by bothparties. The importance remains to be understood and has potential for direct policy recommendations. Taken together, thesethree topics are important in this case and more generally to other municipal to federal public agencies, and the efforts ofuniversity facility and students to enhance public services, especially to high-risk youth.Important too are the youth who could benefit from more effective public after-school youth programs and services. It isin these informal learning environments that young people have opportunity to master the "soft skills" of non-violentinterpersonal relations, among other learning, and how these are crucial for lowering their risk to poor life-chances in school,work, and family.In at least these four ways, the proposed project is important to theory, practice, and people - in the pubic realm, inuniversities, and in the potential positive, necessary, and morally grounded relations between "town and gown."At this stage in the work, foci include organizational structure, organizational culture, policy, programming, and practice.But not each alone. Rather, attention is on the reciprocities between and among these, and our work uses all of these to "movethe agency forward," toward better service to all the city's young people. Continued importance is given to using whateverspace(s) can be found or opened to invite and push this larger change agenda - whether socially normative direct practice withyoung people and/or position descriptions and/or hours of operation at local recreation centers. It is theorized that any"movement" in a pro-youth direction will ultimately lead to more quality youth service, even when the direct line fromorganizational change to change in youth service is neither direct or measurable.
Animal Health Component
90%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
90%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
1. Continued weekly meetings will be held among Parks and Recreation workers, management and universityconsultant/researcher to think about and think through possible and practical polices and actions to move P&R towards its goalof better serving all young people.2. Continued focus in weekly and biweekly meetings in training, practice, and supervision on the reciprocities between youthdevelopment and community development, providing scholarly theory to guide P&R decisions, and to collect examples of suchfrom P&R work.3. Select recreation staff will be trained in basic principles and practices of community youth work at the beginner topractitioner levels using scholarly and professional sources, while documenting this work.4. Select recreation staff will be trained in basic youth work practice with all youth, and especially with those at high risk tolimited life-chances, based on scholarly literature and practice wisdom from Saint Paula and beyond.5. More effective (indirect) community youth work practice on behalf of high-risk youth will be accomplished through ongoingconversations and training with management and workers using scholarly and practice wisdom sources.6. More effective direct youth work practice with high-risk youth will be accomplished by recently trained workers.7. Develop acceptance by P&R top and mid-level managers of the value of our continued involvement in organizationalcultural change towards youth work with all young people.8. Develop the new position of P&R programmer through theorizing and training in more and better community-based workwith neighborhood groups.9. Support ongoing relations with Saint Paul Police, local police precincts, and police juvenile unit to reduce tensionsbetween them and local youth in or near neighborhood recreation centers.10. Continued active publishing of the work in scholarly and professional outlets in several fields, including youth work,community work, recreation, and organizational change (municipal public agency) and public administration, with contracts inhand with Lyceum Press and in appropriate professional and scholarly journals, and presented at appropriate community,scholarly, and professional venues.Taken together, all of these ten objectives will serve to reorient P&R towards a local community-based strategy of programmingfor young people (and others) from all neighborhood groups, and towards more consistent, higher quality, and more effectivedirect work with youth and indirect work on their behalf, with local human services, schools, and police - the organizations whichdeeply effect the everyday lives of community young people.
Project Methods
Overall, a participatory action research (PAR) philosophy and methods will be used to engage youth workers, top-to-mid levelmanagement staff, and community members in self-reflective, collective, and collaborative dialogues and discussions abouttheir practice and strategies to offer better service to all the city's young people. Participatory action research is a process that''attempts to help people investigate and change their social and educational realities by changing some of the practices whichconstitute their lived realities'' (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998, p. 21). As a professional development model, PAR is an ongoingtraining that is situated in the learners' practice and is learner-driven and learner-centered. Data will be collected in the form ofmeeting notes, group decision, and actions. Agency records will also be used, as will specially designed work sheets and othersimilar tools of data collection. Ongoing group and individual conversation and group analysis of data collected will provideinformation about how the work is received, whether and how changes are implemented, and the effectiveness of these.