June 7, 2023 Breaking News, Latest News, and Videos

Addressing Youth, Family Violence: Santa Monica Fund Set Up To Support Prevention:

A private donation of $50,000 will help start a Youth & Family Violence Prevention Fund in Santa Monica in response to the City’s three shootings in five days, officials from the City, school district, and SMC announced Tuesday.

The funds will go to Santa Monica’s Cradle to Career group who will take the lead through an inter-agency collaboration to address youth and family violence.

SMMUSD Superintendent Sandra Lyon said the school district was committed to a collective impact approach to help youth and their families.

“As we all recover from these events and incidents, one of the things we try and do at first is ask why did this happen,” Lyon said. “Then in the next days and weeks we try to figure out how we can make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

Lyon said issues such as domestic violence and mental illness were not isolated to Santa Monica, adding “as a school system, we cannot address those issues by ourselves.”

“As superintendent, we do what we can within our school in order to make sure that our students and our families are properly cared for,” she said. “What we’re talking about is a societal issue, it’s a community issue, and it’s an issue that’s going to take a collective approach in order for us to support students in need and families in need.”

Irma Carranza, of the Cradle to Career Group, reiterated the importance of a collective approach.

“We came together as a community about two and a half years ago when we had the death of Richard Juarez here at Virginia Avenue Park and the suicide of Matthew Mezza following soon after that,” Carranza said. “We had to come together as a community and almost do a reflection and evaluation of what we’re missing in our community. Clearly what the community wanted and asked for was for everybody, all the different partners in Santa Monica, to come together and take this on with what’s happening with our young folks in the community.”

The Cradle to Career group has produced and released Santa Monica’s first Youth Wellbeing Report Card in October 2012.

“Over the last year and a half we’ve been gathering all the different data from different institutions and different resources to take a look and see what the data is telling us,” Carranza said. “We have testimonies from parents and youth and what they’re feeling. We also wanted to go ahead and have data and tell us where the gaps are, where we may be falling short.”

Carranza said the Cradle to Career group was currently focused on addressing areas of concern within its partnership.

“What the data tells us, as a city, we’re actually doing a really good job in many areas, but we’re falling short in some areas,” Carranza said. “One of those areas is older youth (under the age of 24). Another thing that is happening is a lot of kids are kind of self-medicating through alcohol use, or other forms, and the data is confirming there is something going on in older youth, but there’s also something going on as early as entering kindergarten. The collective work is about addressing all those gaps and where we’re falling short.”

Jonathan Mooney, consultant and facilitator of Cradle to Career, said it and its partners were looking to solve an entrenched problem.

“The events of the last week are a reminder of the tragic plague of gun violence, not just in California, but in this country,” Mooney said. “They are a reminder of the critical and urgent need for mental health services and to take that seriously as a community, as a country. They’re a reminder of the critical need to work with young folks 18 and older, and how we don’t have a system to work with young folks in that age demographic. It’s also a reminder that social problems don’t just have one route, or one solution. They are multi-faceted. Subsequently it’s not one entity or one organization that can solve those problems. What we’ve learned over the last week is that individual institutions and entities did whatever they could to mitigate and prevent a tragic loss of life.”

The Cradle to Career community partners include the City of Santa Monica, Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District, Santa Monica College, Boys & Girls Club, Center for Civic Mediation, Community for Excellent Public Schools, Childcare & Early Education Task Force, CLARE Foundation, Community Corporation, Connections for Children, Family Services of Santa Monica, Lifelong Learning Community, the Male Violence Prevention Project, OPCC/Sojourn Services, Pico Neighborhood Association, Pico Youth & Family Center, Saint John’s Child & Family Development Center, Saint Joseph Center, Santa Monica Police Department, SMMUSD PTA Council, among others.

For more information on Santa Monica’s Cradle to Career initiatives or to make a donation to the Youth & Family Violence Prevention Fund, visit www.santamonicayouth.net.

in News
Related Posts

SMC Fashion Show Comes Back After Three Years

June 6, 2023

June 6, 2023

The Event Will Showcase Each Designer’s Creative Vision By Zach Armstrong The Santa Monica College Fashion Program is bringing back...

City Of Santa Monica Offers Financial Assistance For Child Care To WGA Writers

June 6, 2023

June 6, 2023

Program Provides A $350 Stipend For City Youth Programs To Santa Monica Residents By Dolores Quintana  Santa Monica City Councilmember...

SMC to Host  “Carnival — Melodious Maximus,” Live Theatre Performances

June 6, 2023

June 6, 2023

The Santa Monica College Musical Theatre Workshop Is Hosting the Events The Santa Monica College Musical Theatre Workshop is gearing...

(Video) The Grand Opening Ceremony For Made With PRIDE Marketplace Speech From Santa Monica Mayor Gleam Davis

June 6, 2023

June 6, 2023

The Made with PRIDE Marketplace is located on level one in Center Plaza in Santa Monica Place which is located...

(Video) Deputy Under Secretary of the Army Visits SMC to Discuss Student Veteran Opportunities

June 6, 2023

June 6, 2023

Deputy Under Secretary of the Army Mario Diaz visited Santa Monica College to talk with student leaders on how to...

Felony DUI Arrest Made After Severe Crash

June 5, 2023

June 5, 2023

A Volkswagen Jetta Veered off the Road, Into a Pedestrian Shortly before midnight on June 2, the Santa Monica Police...

Santa Monica City Council Takes Action To Criminalize Catalytic Converter Theft

June 5, 2023

June 5, 2023

After Historic Rise In Catalytic Converter Thefts, The New Ordinance Passes Unanimously By Dolores Quintana In the Santa Monica City...

(Video) A First Look At The Made With Pride Marketplace In Santa Monica

June 5, 2023

June 5, 2023

We were at the ribbon cutting ceremony and the official opening this morning. Made With Pride is located at 395...

(Video) Rents in Santa Monica Dipped in May

June 4, 2023

June 4, 2023

May’s dip negated a gain seen the previous month. @smmirrornews Rents in Santa Monica dropped during May #realestate #santamonica #californiarent...

Former Waymo CEO Purchases Santa Monica Canyon Home

June 4, 2023

June 4, 2023

John Krafcik Settled Into a Modern Twist on a Classic Mid-Century Compound John Krafcik, former CEO of Waymo, has found...

New Business and Personal Lines Property and Casualty Insurance Paused In California

June 2, 2023

June 2, 2023

Allstate and State Farm Say Currently Insured Homeowners Will Not Be Affected  After State Farm announced a pause on new...

(Video) Mayor Karen Bass Speaks At The Memorial Day Ceremony At The Los Angeles National Cemetery

June 2, 2023

June 2, 2023

This was the first ceremony that had been held in person at The National Cemetery since 2019 and before the...

Film Review: The Little Mermaid

June 2, 2023

June 2, 2023

FILM REVIEWTHE LITTLE MERMAIDRated PG135 MinutesReleased May 26th With today’s technological developments, a live-action The Little Mermaid is not only...

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Has Appointed A New Superintendent

June 2, 2023

June 2, 2023

Antonio M. Shelton, Ed.D. Appointment Will Be Effective July 1, 2023 In a late afternoon press release, The Santa Monica-Malibu...

Clerk Charged With Selling Alcohol to Minor

June 1, 2023

June 1, 2023

The Incident Was Part of a Minor Decoy Operation The Santa Monica Police Department issued a citation to a clerk...