Targeted Outreach - Governor's Office of Crime Control & Prevention ...

Appendices 55
procedures. A new member orientation was added and
new members were required to bring a parent with them
to meet with staff members. Staff also participated in a
training program on how to respond to various emergency
scenarios. Because the Getting Out program is separate
from the rest of the Club, most activities do not take place
on site. Therefore, the Club did not have to make major
changes to accommodate it.
Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County: The
Brandenton and Palmetto Clubs
Goals
The goals of Targeted Outreach at the Bradenton and
Palmetto Clubs, as reported by staff, are:
• To help youth be successful in school and keep them
out of the justice system;
• To provide a good, positive atmosphere for youth to
grow stronger; and
• To make a difference in the lives of troubled youth.
No staff person mentioned gangs, reflecting the preventive
approach used by the Clubs, who tend to recruit youth from
elementary schools, prior to their involvement with gangs.
Gang Problem
According to police personnel, there are five gangs in
Manatee County, mostly territorial Hispanic gangs.
Reportedly, there is more gang crime in Bradenton than
in Palmetto, the two areas in which the Clubs are situated.
Gangs in the area are most prevalent at the high school
level, among youth age 14 and up.
History and Development of the Initiative
In 1996, the executive director submitted a proposal to
BGCA for funding to implement GPTTO. A key objective
was to help the organization refocus on its mission to serve
all youth, including those exhibiting negative behaviors.
When the Clubs received funding, they held a communitymobilization
meeting with law enforcement personnel and
school representatives. In light of the anticipated demands
of targeted outreach, a director of operations position was
created. This staff member’s primary responsibility is to
respond to the increased paperwork and cross-Club cooperation
that results from GPTTO.
The main obstacle to getting GPTTO off the ground was
getting buy in from staff. They had to change their perceptions
of gang youth, and to agree to work with them. At
the beginning of GPTTO, the staff’s attitude was “we don’t
deal with gang kids, we deal with good kids.” But the executive
director and director of operations emphasized that
the mission was to work with all kids, and eventually the
staff came around.
The Club also found it very difficult to secure outreach
coordinators; they had hired and lost two to three people
before they hired the current coordinators. The Clubs also
found it challenging to develop relationships with law
enforcement. Palmetto had at least three different police
liaisons in the year prior to our interview. Still, Palmetto
had more luck building a relationship with the police
department than did Bradenton. As a result, Bradenton
has focused almost exclusively on schools. Schools were
easier for both Clubs to form relationships with, largely
because several schools had former Club employees, and
in one case the principal was a former board member.
Recruitment and Referral
At the time of our visit, the recruitment process consisted
almost exclusively of school referrals and the inclusion of
current Club members. The school referral partners cultivated
by the Manatee County Clubs have been able to supply
them with more than 50 youth per Club. Club staff
took advantage of these relationships and met with teachers,
principal, and counselors, and ate with kids in the
cafeteria as part of a recruiting effort.
Teachers and principals from elementary schools indicated
they refer youth who have no after- school supervision,
need social development or peer relationship skills, and
need good role models.
The relationship between police and the Clubs has not
been as strong as the Club would like, a situation that can
be attributed to staff turnover among police. We met with
a police officer who was new to the Club board and who
felt that the development of a relationship was promising.
Staffing, Intake and Tracking
The outreach coordinator at Palmetto stated she seeks to
involve kids who are in trouble. To determine a youth’s
needs, she sometimes asks the youth directly, or asks
another Club employee to whom the youth may have
opened up. Sometimes she gets information from the
teachers or other school personnel who referred the youth.
The Bradenton outreach coordinator stated that she looks
for kids in trouble based on “the area that they live in, kids
with unsupervised time, behavior problems and low
grades, from low-income and single parent households.”
She asks kids directly what their needs and interests are,
but lets the parents fill out the first two pages of the intake
form that identify risk factors.
The outreach coordinator at each Club had a case load of
50 kids, for whom she was responsible for completing all of
the intake and tracking. The outreach coordinator is also
responsible for outreach to youth, contact with school, parents
and police. The director of operations reviewed all of