Berks providers of youth programs join forces to prevent violence

Apr. 21—The organizations working to help prevent youth violence in Berks County are stronger when they work together, a panel of community leaders say.

More than $4.3 million in state grants to reduce violence and promote prevention has been awarded to six local organizations: Berks Community Action Program; Center for Children's Law and Policy in partnership with The Village of Reading, EducationWorks and Empact Solutions; Olivet Boys & Girls Club; Penn State University; Reading Hospital; and The Salvation Army of Reading.

Representatives of the recipient agencies and others working with youth joined Thursday morning for a virtual forum on the work underway in Berks.

The informational meeting was hosted by Berks Alliance, a community development group associated with the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, and moderated by Dave Myers of the Alliance.

"There's lots of organizations," Myers said, "and the significant thing, I think, in my mind for a lot of this is the collaboration, the importance of collaboration."

As a single organization, the Olivet Club can't do it all, said Chris Winters, Olivet president and CEO.

"The reality is, during the pandemic, we learned that we cannot operate in a vacuum," he said. "There's a lot of people that come to the table every day to make sure that we're serving kids of this community appropriately in a way that we can try to start fighting back."

Olivet received $607,300 for the organization's Safe Haven Project, which offers emotional and mental health programming for at-risk youth. The new program, Winters said, undertaken in partnership with West Chester University and BCIU, will be available at the club sites.

Winters said the club also is looking to expand its services and programs, including anti-violence initiatives, in Reading and throughout the county.

"Some of those issues that you saw, some of those crime statistical numbers that we're hearing in the reports," he said, "you're seeing those in boroughs and municipalities. Olivet needs to be prepared in the future to work on those initiatives."

Of the 308 victims of violent injuries, including 186 with gunshot and 112 with stab wounds, who were treated at Reading Hospital between Jan. 1, 2021, and Nov. 27, 2022, only a third had Reading addresses, said Jennifer Barney, trauma injury prevention outreach coordinator for Tower Health.

The victims were overwhelmingly male with 256 compared to 51 females and one unknown, she noted. Most were young adults with the majority falling into an age rage of 18 to 24, Barney said, about 10% died of their injuries.

Reading Hospital, which operates the only trauma center in the county, received $193,000 to implement a violence recovery program that provides community education and resources, and addresses emotional, mental and physical healing with trauma-informed care.

Mental wellness and youth programs are key to helping prevent violence among the county's young people, many panelists said.

"The mental health piece is big," said Stephen Fains, director of community engagement for BCAP.

BCAP received $800,000 to implement a family assistance and support program for teens with an emphasis on mental health, communication skills, perception and morals. The program helps kids to recognize and properly handle their emotions, he said, noting sadness, fear and other emotions can be masked as anger.

In addition, Penn State received $1.62 million for a violence intervention and prevention program for Berks youth, ages 14 to 21; the partnership that includes The Village received $830,600 to support the implementation of a community diversion program; and the Salvation Army of Reading received $261,700 to expand its violence prevention program with a focus on after-school programming.

Radarra McLendon, founder of The Village of Reading, said the group started a teen cafe in partnership with Reading Area Community College and West Chester State University to provide social activities and free mental health services.

The state funding is being used, in part, to create a resource hub within the cafe as a safe walk-in where young people can be connected to resources.

McLendon said the organization works with teens on building emotional intelligence and learning social skills such as conflict resolution.

"We know that all of the gun violence isn't necessarily gang related," she said. "We know sometimes it's just off of what young people perceive as a beef or conflict."

Edna Dipini-Garcia, founder of Rize, a program that seeks to empower youth through the arts, also spoke as part of the panel.

Rize works with several of the other agencies to prevent youth violence and is active in the Berks Youth Prevention Roundtable, formed last year.

A collective of youth organizations, students and youth activists, the roundtable was created to protect all kids from violence, she said.

The students who show the greatest success in school are those who are involved in youth programs such as those offered by the Olivet club, Reading Recreation Commission, Hispanic Center or other organizations, said Dr. Jennifer Murray, Reading School District superintendent.

It can be hard to organize so many partners, she noted, and though all the organizations do good work, coordination was sometimes missing in the past.

"But it really seems like it's coming together," Murray said. "It's like a machine where you have all these gears, and you just need to get the gears operating together. And I think that's what the difference is that I'm seeing over the past year."

Murray said the funding is being used effectively.

"We're building this comprehensive plan or system that we're all working together for," she said. "And we still have a lot of work to do."