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Model Neighborhood Program
In 1991, County Supervisor Mary King and
the former Chief Executive Officer of ACMC developed the Model
Neighborhood Program as a County and City partnership with
Highland Hospital to reduce crime and revitalize the community.
Toward that end, the Foundation has linked existing community
agencies to provide positive alternatives for at-risk youth
through activities which include health
career training, health education, and mentoring support.
As part of the program, students from Frick Jr. High School,
located in the Central-East District of Oakland,California,
were adopted as the target population for the following reasons:
- High Foster Home Placement - 40% of its
student body lives in foster group homes or with foster
parents while others live with grandparents, aunts or uncles.
- Low-Income, Minority Youth - The entire
Frick Jr. High School student body is comprised of 85% African-American,
10% Hispanic, and 5% Asian. The majority of the studensts
at Frick are from low-income households.
- Drop-out Rate - The county-wide drop-out
rate is 14.1%, with Hispanics having the highest drop-out-rate
of any ethnicity (24.3%) followed by African-Americans (21.9%).
- Youth Unemployment - The county-wide
youth unemployment rate is 13.9% compared with state-wide
rate of 25.1% and national rate of 19.5%. However, minority
youth in the county have a 40% unemployment rate.
- Risk Behaviors - The environment in which
these youth live and go to school is conducive to behavioral
tendencies such as alcohol/substance abuse, violent/criminal
acts, smoking, poor nutrition, exposure to sexually transmitted
diseases, and teenage pregnancy. Moreover, these inner-city
youth are at risk for increased infant deaths and low birth
weight infants resulting from unintended pregnancies and
the behavioral tendencies mentioned.
Program Description and Strategies
The Model Neighborhood Program was designed
to meet the needs of the target population by providing a
year round, continuous youth development program with activities
that advocate for the health, safety, and well being of youth
and contribute to their quality of lives. These activities
include:
- Health
Career Training - The program's strategy to
reduce the rate of youth unemployment in the county is to
offer job training to its youth while exposing them to the
various fields in health care. Students are selected to
rotate through areas such as laboratory, radiology, cardiology/EKG,
dietary/nutrition, women's urgent care unit, interpreter/translations
services, and administration. The students receive bus passes
and minimum wage stipend for their training. The health
career training allows youth to develop good work ethics
and to provide them with valuable skills to enter the work
force.
- Health Education - The program's strategy
is to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy and low birth
weight babies; to make youth aware of good health practices;
and to promote safety in any environment by providing health
education sessions to students that address topics such
as family planning, personal hygiene, conflict management,
stress management, self-esteem, and nutrition. In addition,
students are offered a class on safety training and CPR.
Providing youth with information about the risks associated
with poor health practices empowers them to make appropriate
decisions for their own well-being.
- Mentoring Support - The program's strategy
to reduce the rate of youth drop-out is to recruit professionals
from the health care industry, as well as in the business/corporate
community, to serve as mentors who could provide guidance,
nurturing and companionship to students. Through the relationships
established between mentors and students, the students learn
to recognize the importance of staying in school, as well
as their potential to achieve.
The program is primarily funded by the City
of Oakland and works with youth from three middle schools:
Frick, Calvin Simmons, and Elmhurst.
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