Sleep patterns and social disparities

by Suzanne Bohan

November 1, 2013

Only those living in neighborhoods that are part of gang territory can understand the challenge of getting a good night’s sleep. Gun shots going off at all hours aren’t uncommon, residents have told me, and after sundown road racing and squealing tires break the quiet. For many, anxiety never fully recedes that a stray bullet will strike their home or someone will break in, even if they have an alarm system.

A novel new study, reported in the The Stony Brook Statesman, shows just how hard it is getting those recommended 8 hours. Dr. Lauren Hale, associate professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook, analyzed the relationship between sleep patterns and economic, social and health disparities.

Hale found that the more socially disadvantaged an individual is, in terms of income and education, the more likely that person will report a sleeping problem. She compared African-Americans and Caucasians.

Blacks are twice as likely to be short sleepers when compared to their white counterparts. A 2007 Chicago-based study similarly found that African-American men get one less hour of sleep per night compared to white males.

High school graduates are 40 percent more likely to be short sleepers, compared to college graduates, the study reported.

Losing one hour of sleep, night after night, has a substantial health effect. The National Institutes of Health said sleep deficiency is linked to many chronic health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity and depression. It also leads to more injuries and accidents.

The NIH gives strategies for getting a full night’s rest, although the list doesn’t address the unique challenges faced by these neighborhoods.

Health disparities

Don’t Hammer with Facts to Shift Thinking – Share Stories

by Suzanne Bohan

October 31, 2013

Colin Powell speaking on “Meet the Press,” using a story to dispel a common myth about Muslims.

As a journalist covering climate change, I would invariably hear from skeptics of climate change. They didn’t believe the facts that virtually every credible scientist is certain of – human activity is releasing enough carbon dioxide and methane to dangerously warm the planet. And no amount of discussion really makes any difference, as we’ve seen play out on news pages and news shows.

I see a similar trend in the current topic I’m researching – health disparities between the wealthiest and poorest. The essence is some people dismiss the idea that social and nonprofit supports for the poorest areas are justified – that America is the land of opportunity for all, and everyone is responsible for their fate. While there’s truth to that, they also ignore the enormous obstacles from birth on facing those born in poor areas – especially if you’re black or brown – obstacles with which wealthier or middle-class people never contend. Examples include poor school quality, limited access to good food and safe parks, and chronic stress from living in unsafe neighborhoods, to name a few.

Social scientists puzzle over the phenomenon, and a Boston Globe article titled “How facts backfire” noted that people often form opinions based on beliefs. These beliefs “can have an uneasy relationship with facts,” Joe Keohane, the writer, noted. “And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept.”

At an Oct. 2013 conference in Los Angeles, Maya Wiley, the founder and president of the Center for Social Inclusion, showed a powerful way of getting around this cognitive dissonance. She used the example of Gen. Colin Powell on a “Meet the Press” interview sharing a story about a soldier’s death to dispel the fabrication that President Obama is Muslim and, more to the point, that therefore being Muslim is bad.

Below is the transcript of that 2008 interview with Tom Brokaw, during which Powell explains his endorsement of Obama’s presidential bid. And here’s the link to the video (scroll to minute 4):

“I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the (Republican) party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave.

And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards – Purple Heart, Bronze Star – showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.

Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way.

Powell didn’t use facts to persuade viewers, Wiley emphasized. He told a story with universal resonance, and invoked patriotic values to chide those who would judge people based on their religion.

“He takes you there gently and emotionally,” Wiley said. ‘And what he’s done is he’s humanized one of the most demonized segments of our society and he’s blown (the prejudices) apart. I say you humanize first, and then go out after the wedge issue.”

Health, Health disparities

Coaches turn recess into fun, constructive classroom break

by Suzanne Bohan

February 28, 2013

Kids and Playworks coaches playing roshambo.
Photo courtesy of Playworks.

The kids obviously adored Coach “Trell” as she strode into an elementary school in San Pablo, Calif., jumping around her and asking questions. The coach, Shantrell Sneed, was with Playworks, an Oakland, Calif. nonprofit whose mission is to turn recess into a constructive, fun and healthy experience.

When recess is largely unsupervised, conflicts arise on the schoolyard which interrupts class time as teachers work to resolve altercations. Or kids get bullied and traumatized.

So Playworks coaches organize play during recess so it promotes physical activity, conflict resolution, friendship and improved academic performance – which research shows all ultimately help the students live longer, healthier lives.

One game Coach Trell taught was roshambo — the “rock, paper, scissors” hand game. As kids defeat rivals, they accumulate “cheerleaders,” and all shout out the final winner’s name. One student asked if the winner got a prize.

“Yes, you get the entire class as your cheerleader as a prize,” Sneed said.

Playworks launched in 1996, and with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation it has expanded into some 15 cities and trained more than 100,000 kids in healthy play and conflict resolution. And principals are grateful for the results. The one at the San Pablo school told me that before she brought in Playworks in 2010, about five children a day were sent to her office for discipline issues. A year later is was down to just a few a week, said Alicia Azcarraga, principal of Riverside Elementary School.

A 2011 study of eight Bay Area Playworks sites found when implemented successfully it improved the school climate, supported better academic achievement, contributed to feelings of safety on campus, and improved relationships among students and between students and adults.

Schools pay some of the cost for the program, in part to ensure their commitment to its success, and fundraising by Playworks covers the rest.

Playworks is another example of the many brilliant programs underway by numerous organizations around the country to reduce disparities in health. And not by providing more medical care, which largely only addresses diseases after they arise, but by improving the communities in which people live.

Health, Health disparities

New laws reform high school discipline practices

by Suzanne Bohan

February 28, 2013

Youth in California speak in support of high school discipline reform.

This hasn’t gotten much notice, but a “listening campaign” in California communities by a major nonprofit led to a swift – in legislative terms – enactment of five new California laws to reduce high schools suspension and expulsion rates. The long-term result is fewer incarcerations and healthier lives.

“None of us had that on our radars,” said Daniel Zingale, who headed the campaign. “I’d never heard about it being an issue.”

Zingale, a policy expert with deep roots in Sacramento, now works for the California Endowment on the nonprofit’s statewide team. In September 2010, Zingale and his staff held community meetings in each of 14 communities selected by the California Endowment to join its new $1 billion, 10-year initiative to put these areas on a far healthier, more hopeful track. Hundred showed up at each meeting.

The state team asked audience members what they would change to improve the prospects for young people. Nine of the communities independently named reversing the high levels of school suspensions and expulsions for youth, particularly blacks and Latinos.

As more and more communities raised the issue, the meeting organizers shook their heads in astonishment.

“It completely came from the ground up, and they were right,” Zingale said. In the following months, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education caught wind of the nascent movement in the Endowment’s communities to reform school discipline. It did its own analysis and found that that California suspends 400,000 kids a year, more than those getting a diploma.

We’re suspending more kids than we’re graduating in a year,’” said Zingale. “Amazing.”

During his or her lifetime, the average high school dropout will cost taxpayers $292,000 in lower tax revenues and incarceration costs, and that doesn’t include health care costs.

Zingale began educating lawmakers about the issue.

In the spring of 2011 seven bills were introduced by several lawmakers that made it harder to suspend or expel students for nonviolent offenses, and to offer more counseling and other supports for kids who are acting up.

To support the bills, youth from the 14-neighborhood initiative circulated a petition, gathering 15,000 signatures to deliver to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.

They also went to Sacramento to testify in support of the bills. Others attended a day-long hearing in Los Angeles.

Russlynn H. Ali, assistant secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the LA hearing. She told the audience that her office had recently launched an investigation into school discipline practices nationwide.

“Time after time, students for the very same offenses, with the very same offense histories, receive very different punishments,” she said. “It’s both about what we tolerate, and of whom.”

After suspension, students didn’t feel as connected to the school or that there were adults on campus who cared about them. High school provides a critical opportunity to get guidance and support from adults to steer them to a better future.

In September 2012, Gov. Brown signed five of the new laws. These made it harder to suspend or expel students for nonviolent, non-drug related offenses, and pressured schools to provide support services to youth acting up, such as counseling. One also provided a path back to high school for those in the juvenile justice system.

In a victory press release, Dr. Robert Ross, the CEO of the California Endowment, praised the youth who raised the issue and doggedly advocated for it. “You came together. You pushed. You were smart and strategic. And you would not give up,” wrote Ross.

TAKEWAY: This is another powerful example, in addition to several others in this series of blog posts, that portray the stunning results from truly listening to what ordinary people want to improve their lives and health.

Health, Health disparities

LA residents advocate for second chance for ex-offenders

by Suzanne Bohan

February 28, 2013

Vanessa La Blanc at the Lorenzo construction site in August 2012. She’s so impressed her supervisors that they want her to stay for the entire project; She left prison two months earlier, after never working a full-time job.

This is Vanessa La Blanc, 34. This photo was taken on Aug. 24, 2012, and it’s on a construction site in South Los Angeles where a remarkable construction project is underway. It represents a win for the developer, the community, and former convicts like La Blanc who want a new start.

On June 18 – two months earlier – she’d been released from prison in Chowchilla after serving 13 years on a robbery conviction. It stemmed from a crime in South Los Angeles she committed. She grew up there, leaving high school in 10^th grade and joining a gang, which she said became like family. But Vanessa grimaced when asked about the “Jungles” tattoo on her arm, which is a daily reminder of her former life.

She was 20 when she entered prison, and at first she was just bitter. But at 27, Vanessa had epiphany. “Do I want to remain caged up all my life, around all these miserable people?” she asked herself.

The answer became obvious when she began devoting herself to getting out as soon as possible and learning all she could while in prison. She particularly credits an instructor in one class, “Mr. Ed Hamilton,” she said, with teaching her skills that landed her current job.

Vanessa La Blanc pointing at the Los Angeles skyline.

After Vanessa got out of prison, her parole officer referred her to the UAW WorkSource Center’s Prison Reentry Incentive program. After she completed it, the program paid for 120 hours of job training and also asked an organization called PVJOBS to assist in her job search. PVJOBS contacted GJM Engineering, a plumbing contractor, who gave Vanessa a chance, hiring her to inspect pipes on a major construction project in South LA. Vanessa was hired on a short-term basis, and she so wowed her supervisors with her work quality and professionalism that they’re keeping her on for the 12 months remaining on the project. Workers on that project receive a minimum of $11.95 per hour.

And it was the work of South LA community advocates that helped ensure she had a chance for such a job.

Here’s how that unfolded: Several nonprofits funded advocacy training for residents in South Los Angeles who objected to the conversion of a former health care facility into high-end condominiums most residents could not afford. The project was dubbed “the Lorenzo Project.”

After organizers and locals spoke at city meetings and ran campaigns, the developer agreed to create a community clinic, support small-business development in the complex, set aside one-third of the construction jobs for locals and another 10 percent for “at risk” residents such as Vanessa, and 5 percent of the 900 apartments will be priced for low-income tenants. City planners in early 2011 approved the revised proposal.

Here’s a link to an LA Times article on the successful outcome, posted on the website of SAJE, or Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, which led the effort in partnership with other nonprofits and foundations.

After a full-day’s work on the construction site, Vanessa heads to an evening job as a janitor at a Farmer’s John meat packing plant.

“Definitely my future is brighter,” she said.

TAKEAWAY: Community organizing yields remarkable results, including securing good jobs for ex-offenders looking for a new start in life.

Health, Health disparities

Another teen dream lifted up in Del Norte

by Suzanne Bohan

February 27, 2013

Benjamin Thomas stands with his mother, Michelle Thomas, along the coast in Crescent City, Calif.

Benjamin Thomas, 18, once felt like most other Del Norte County youth: He wanted to exit the scenic but economically depressed county right after he graduated.

“The teenage dream is to get out of here as fast as possible,” the high school senior said.

But like Makenzy Williams, whose story is described here, Benjamin joined a youth project organized and funded by the California Endowment as part of a countywide initiative. And that completely changed his outlook.

The Los Angeles nonprofit in 2010 invited Del Norte County in Northern California to join a 10-year social experiment in community transformation, one that’s committed to leaving residents healthier and far more hopeful about the community’s future.

Del Norte was once an economically robust area, when the logging and fishing industry were strong. But those jobs have disappeared, and many now live at or near poverty and suffer more health problems than the average Californian.

The transformation initiative – called Building Healthy Communities – works on multiple fronts to forge lasting changes. And one of those fronts is community organizing – that is, getting citizens together to identify issues that need fixing, and then training them to professionally research and present a solution. Armed with those skills, the community organizers then invite those with the power to change the situation to a public meeting, where they present their research and their demand. And a yes or no answer to the demand is expected at the meeting.

In February 2012, Benjamin joined the Sunset Student Organizing Committee, which was guided by a community organizer working for the Building Healthy Communities initiative. Sunset High is an alternative school, with about 100 students. They then chose their top issue, and one that could be quickly remedied: The lousy lunches served at school.

The big day came on May 15, 2012. School district officials, including the superintendent, arrived at Sunset to hear the organizing committee. “I was extremely nervous,” said Benjamin, who as leader had to open the presentation.

But the jitters didn’t last long. He began to feel the conviction of his words.

“There was a really powerful sentence and I looked out at the crowd and they were looking at me,” Benjamin recalled. “And I was like, “They’re listening to me. They’re not here to listen to some principal. They’re here listening to me! Yeah.”

Other students described the school’s regular offerings of frozen processed burritos, corn dogs, pizza, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets. They only had a salad bar one day a week, and it often ran out and had just a few toppings. In comparison, the youth told the officials, at the larger high school, Del Norte, students every day had a fresh salad bar with many toppings, and multiple freshly-made hot entrees.

And 84 percent of the Sunset students qualify for free or reduced–priced lunches, as they come from low-income homes. For some, students said, the school lunch may be the most nutritious meal they get all day.

At the end of the hour-long presentation – which starts and ends on time in respect for others’ schedules – the school officials said yes. Within a week Sunset lunches vastly improved.

After experience, Benjamin became more respectful toward authorities, and with his new skills talked to a school official directly about another issue and got a positive resolution. That wouldn’t have happened before, he said – he just would have vented and gotten frustrated. Benjamin also now has a zeal for improving Del Norte and Crescent City, the seat of the county. Because he knows he has the power to do so.

After college, he wants to return to Crescent City and become a community organizer, or take some other civic leadership role.

“Every time someone asked where I was born, I always wanted to say it was somewhere else,” Benjamin said. “And now I say ‘Here. I was born here.’”

“And now I see that I want to change Crescent City and make it a place that everyone can be proud of to be part of.“

Health, Health disparities

What’s your social rank? Status can influence welcome into a doctor’s office

by Suzanne Bohan

February 27, 2013

Dr. Stephen Hwang is a general internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and researcher in its Centre for Research on Inner City Health. He wrote a new study assessing discrimination in doctors’ offices on socioeconomic status.

Family physicians’ offices in Toronto more frequently rebuffed people of low socio-economic status seeking first appointments, even when there is no economic incentive to do so, a new study found. All Canadians have universal, publicly-funded health insurance.

In 2011, researchers called nearly 400 family practice offices seeking a first appointment,

posing as either a newly-transferred bank employee or a welfare recipient. In both cases, the researchers told the receptionists that they had either no health problems or that they had diabetes or low back pain. The pseudo-bank workers were able to secure an appointment 23 percent of the time, compared with 14 percent for the lower-status pseudo-welfare recipient – 50 percent better odds of getting in for the higher status caller.

“This impairs access to primary care, and we don’t think this is acceptable,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, a physician with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto in a statement.

The study was published online Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In a Feb. 27 article in the Toronto Star by Theresa Boyle, Hwang was quoted as saying, “The most likely explanation is that people working in doctors’ offices may be unconsciously biased against people of low socioeconomic status.” He added that it was the physicians’ staff that demonstrated a reluctance to schedule lower-status patients, not the physician. So it could have reflected staff bias, or could have been due to the physician providing direction to staff on new patient acceptance, Hwang said.

“I’ve always been struck by the fact that many of my patients who are marginalized say that they have been treated poorly by health-care providers in the past, simply because of their position in society,” Hwang said in the article.

I’m posting this news on a Canadian study to cultivate more empathy for what happens to people lower on the socioeconomic ladder in the United States, where the reimbursements for their care is almost always lower than for wealthier patients given the hodgepodge of medical coverage options. I’ve heard first-hand peoples’ reluctance to schedule a visit to a doctor, because they fear being treated disrespectfully.

TAKEAWAY: This study is a wake-up call for doctors (and patients) to remain vigilant for hidden biases – which compromises treatment.

—

Boyle, Theresa. “Doctors appear more likely to take on wealthier patients, study finds,” Toronto Star, Feb. 27, 2013.

Health, Health disparities

Poor housing endangers health

by Suzanne Bohan

February 27, 2013

We had to laugh when we saw this offering on a mountain roadway in the Klamath Mountains in Del Norte County in Northern California. I was with Melissa Darnell, a community organizer working with a major privately-funded initiative to vastly improve the health of county residents over a decade.

This one is a serious fixer-upper that’s probably beyond a cost-effective restoration, but it’s emblematic. A couple of days earlier we’d visited a woman in another Del Norte community with major decay in the doublewide mobile home where she and her family lived. Holes in the floor were covered with plywood, and the home had other obvious signs of major damage.

Many live in mobile homes in the region. For that reason and others, unsafe, unhealthy housing is a significant issue. Annual rainfall is around 75 inches, and mold and fungi – both asthma triggers – grow readily in leaky homes.

In Del Norte County:

26.8% of low-income residents report mold in the home₁
45% of children reported suffering an asthma attack₂
35.7% of adults reported suffering an asthma attack₃

Another challenge in the region is there’s no homeless shelter for displaced individuals or families in this cold, wet climate, in part because of strong community resistance.

The initiative that Darnell is working for is on a quest to raise the health of Del Norte residents, especially children, by improving myriad social and living conditions. And housing is among them.

Among the solutions:

Creating a housing collaboration among public, private and nonprofit entities to offer financial literacy, credit counseling, pooling of resources and the assessment of policies that hinder home ownership.
Strengthening or developing offerings for home health assessments.
Promoting understanding about homelessness and alleviating fears about sheltering homeless families, with the aim of establishing a temporary shelter during inclement weather.

TAKEAWAY: Costly and common illnesses such as asthma are strongly linked to substandard housing.

—

California Center for Rural Policy; “Rural Poverty and its Health Impacts: A Look at Poverty in the Redwood Coast Region.” Rural Health Information Survey, 2006
California Department of Public Health; “Asthma in Children and Adolescents in California Counties, 2003”
California Department of Public Health; “Asthma in Adults in California Counties, 2003”

Health, Health disparities

Hmong garden quickly thrives in Crescent City

by Suzanne Bohan

February 26, 2013

A one-acre garden in Crescent City tended by the local Hmong residents.

This garden was a delightful site in Crescent City in Del Norte County, especially when the back story emerged. In the spring of 2011, it was an empty one-acre lot. But someone lent the land so the small Hmong population in Crescent City could grow a community garden they’d long wanted. About 600 Hmong live in Crescent City.

Several months later it was a thriving oasis.

Another view of the garden.

All it took was the land along with some supplies and a new fence, and the Hmong residents took over. By August it was yielding plants important to Hmong culture for foods and medicinal uses. A local company, the Hambro Group, lent the land and provided water and fertilizer, and the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities initiative covered other costs, such as the fence.

The gardeners planted mustard, cilantro, cabbage, beets, corn and much more on 24 plots. They also grew many medicinal plants, such as those used to help women regain energy after delivering a child. ₁

It was a wonderful example of giving people the resources, and they’ll quickly take the initiative to create something outstanding. And given the difficult history of the Hmong, this kind of asset creates one more element around which to form a real community. Since August 2012, when I took these photos, the garden relocated to another lot, and I’m told it was tilled and planted just as quickly. I’m waiting for photos to the new site to add to this post.

The Hmong, who aided American forces during the Vietnam War, paid a high price. Many died, and when the war ended the survivors and their families were driven from their homes in the Laotian mountain villages into Thai refugee camps. There they often waited years to immigrate, with most yearning to come to America.₂

—

1. Atherton, Kelley. “Growing their Greens,” Sept. 30, 2011. The Triplicate.
www.triplicate.com/News/Local-News/Growing-their-greens

2. Magagnini, Stephen. “Special Report: The Forgotten People.” Sept. 12, 2004, Sacramento Bee.

Health, Health disparities

Youth outlooks brighten in Del Norte County

by Suzanne Bohan

February 26, 2013

Makenzy Williams inside the Youth News Network studio in Crescent City. The program changes her thinking about the challenged community.

Makenzy Williams, 17, felt like many youth in scenic but economically depressed Del Norte County.

“I wanted to get out and stay out,” she said of the Northern California county, which includes Crescent City.

The Triplicate, the local paper, even recently mentioned the common sentiment. “. . . Del Norte youth carry a common motif of not liking Crescent City and wanting to move away — ASAP,” a July 30, 2012 article stated, quoting a camp counselor at a new youth leadership academy aimed at turning around that mindset.

The Klamath River flows through Del Norte County.

Roosevelt elk rest on a coastal bluff in Del Norte County.

Del Norte, which borders Oregon, is stunning country. Pristine rivers crisscross the land, lakes abound, and its western edge faces the Pacific Ocean. It’s filled with towering redwood and fir forests, many of them now state and federal parks. The area draws many sports fishers as well as kayakers, campers, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

But job opportunities are now few — although several decades ago the once-thriving logging and fishing industries promised good-paying, lifetime work for able-bodied workers. Currently, a job at the unionized Safeway is among the better positions around, one local said.

“It is sad how much it lacks in opportunity for those who live here,” Makenzy wrote in a recent email. “There are a lot of extremely talented young people here, but they have no way to express it.”

Del Norte had been heading on a downward trend since the sharp decline in timber and fishing industry jobs — with youth fleeing and the economy struggling and along with its schools. Substance abuse is a major issue, and many disease rates are higher than average for California, as is depression. Unemployment is also above average.

The county leaders for years have worked hard to reverse the tide. So they were thrilled when they learned that the California Endowment, a Los Angeles nonprofit, decided to invite them to join an ambitious, 10-year, $1 billion initiative to transform ailing communities into ones headed toward a far better, healthier future. (The initiative is described in here.)

A poster describing the youth leadership and news training programs.

Cultivating youth leadership is essential to its success, as they’re the ones with the energy, enthusiasm and long-term stakes to push for lasting change. So the Endowment largely funded a two-week Y.O.U.T.H. Academy in Del Norte last summer, with contributions from several other organizations as well. And the Endowment fully funded the subsequent 8-week Youth News Network program, which taught youth news-production skills such as interviewing, videotaping and editing. Participants also earned an $800 stipend.

Teaching communication skills was a key goal of the news production training, in addition to instructing them in practical skills that could expand job options while creating also important stories about the community.

“If you can’t communicate effectively, you’re not part of the decision-making process,” said Ron Gastineau, a newly-elected city councilman in Crescent City who oversaw the youth leadership and news production programs. “That’s what happened to a lot of them. It opened up their eyes and increased their confidence.”

It changed Makenzy’s life, and did develop her confidence in taking a leadership role. “By the end of the summer, I found myself directing my group, making decisions, and seeing them come to me for guidance,” she said. “That is something I had never thought I’d be capable of doing, but I loved it.

“I also learned that nothing is impossible,” Makenzy said. “With work, and sometimes it can be a lot of work, anything can be accomplished.

Last summer, when I first met her while she was in the program, she also said, “It’s good to meet people who are serious about what they’re doing, people who want to make a difference in their community. I thought they just didn’t care.”

She’s not the only one inspired by the changes the initiative is bringing. Other youth expressed similar sentiments.

Makenzy has decided to pursue a military career, and in June hopes to leave for the United States Air Force Academy. Part of her would like to stay, though, and help develop a youth center, something modeled after the acclaimed Youth Uprising center in Oakland which she visited during the summer program.

“I love Crescent City, I really do,” Makenzy said. “But I also think leaving and coming back is the best thing to do for myself, and perhaps I can bring back my new experiences and ideas to the community.”

TAKEWAY: In economically distressed areas, quality youth leadership training is key to creating a new future.

Sleep patterns and social disparities

Don’t Hammer with Facts to Shift Thinking – Share Stories

Coaches turn recess into fun, constructive classroom break

New laws reform high school discipline practices

LA residents advocate for second chance for ex-offenders

Another teen dream lifted up in Del Norte

What’s your social rank? Status can influence welcome into a doctor’s office

Poor housing endangers health

Hmong garden quickly thrives in Crescent City

Youth outlooks brighten in Del Norte County

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