Raising awareness against teen violence

The Drew Hildebrand Teen Benefit Fund, through its many initiatives, will focus on raising awareness against teen violence. Youth on youth violence is under reported. Many teens won’t report being victims to their parents, teachers or police, as they fear being branded as a ‘snitch’ among other things. More action and concern is needed to end teen violence, and we hope this Fund will help raise awareness and action in our communities.

Youth violence appears to be the product of many contributing factors, including:

• Media outlets that glamorize violence
• Schools and other services that sometimes ignore violence
• Families where there is stress and violence
• Institutional systems such as our child welfare system, that are often over-burdened
• Educational and agency systems that don’t involve youth in decision-making
• Racism, homophobia and ignorance
• Lack of information about violence and its effects

We agreed that there is no magic bullet to stop youth violence. It seems that the precursors to violence need to be addressed first. We need to ask some hard questions:

Why is the media so obsessed with violence?
Why are our children dying?
Why are parents over-burdened?
Why are we trying to conform so much that we are willing to destroy another schoolmate?
Why do we want to mimic people who are criminals?
Why are so many of us still being abused–systemically, publicly, emotionally and physically, and why are we allowing it?

Asking questions is just the first step for us. More than anything, what evolved from our discussions is that our voices must be heard on the issue of violence.

The seeds of anger and violence are planted when individuals are ignored or belittled. We ask you to listen and learn:

1. Involve and engage us

• Include youth in committees, boards and councils at decision-making levels
• Ensure that all relevant institutions like schools, agencies, and organizations have youth representatives in an advisory role and that their voices are respected and their recommendations acted upon
• Advertise agency and community meetings so that youth want to come and be a part of the process
• Make youth aware of what is going on in schools and their communities
• Give more support to activities, drop-ins, programs and services that involve youth
• Ensure that there are youth centres in all regions
• Implement policies that engage youth in our government

2. Treat us as people/citizens

• Make sure that our voices and views are heard and taken seriously in all forums
• Ensure more transparency in institutions, including schools, and child welfare agencies. Service providers need to explain to youth what is happening and why.
• Make youth more aware of our rights and choices
• Create more opportunities for youth involvement in the community (the more you know, the more you want to do)
• Support our efforts to be more independent and demonstrate our potential
• Create opportunities to help rebuild trust between adults and youth in order to break stereotypes and start change

3. Teach relationship and living skills

• Initiate peer mediation education to build and repair relationships in youth conflict
• Make available social skills, anger management, self-help and life skills programs in schools, group homes and other institutions
• Teach violence prevention techniques and anti-violence education, beginning with young children

4. Promote sensitivity to multiculturalism and diversity

• Provide education and training for and about youth, beginning at a young age (e.g. race relations workshops)
• Introduce more initiatives that bring youth together for multicultural experiences in their communities (e.g. junior kindergarten class attends multicultural week activities; youth in care hold events about being in care, homelessness, poverty, etc…)
• Celebrate all cultures and groups throughout the year

5. Create a system that cares

• Gear systems toward helping kids believe they are worth something
• Properly screen those who come in contact with youth
• Ensure youth are involved in decision-making and in hiring of new staff
• Provide hands-on simulated training for staff and youth workers
• Ensure that all staff and caregivers who are providing services for youth take sensitivity workshops on how to deal with different kinds of youth

6. Support good parenting and care initiatives

• Make parenting education a mandatory part of the school curriculum and widely available to everyone
• Make youth and parents aware that abuse can be an ongoing cycle and a pattern
• Educate the public about violence – what it is, what abuse is, the different forms of abuse, the effects of abuse

7. Celebrate us

• Recognize the struggle that many youth face
• See the potential of ALL youth (the ones who are faltering are the ones we need to try harder to help)
• Stop seeing youth in a group as a gang
• Encourage youth to believe in themselves even when no one else does
• Provide more opportunities for kids to be recognized as valuable and valued members of society.

The young people who participated in the discussions met together in 6 regions in Ontario: Kenora, London, Manitoulin Island, Ottawa, Thunder Bay and Toronto. Altogether 80 youth participated, with ages ranging from 13 to 24.