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MAY 2013, VOLUME 3, NUMBER 4
 

IN THIS ISSUE 

Primary Prevention: Part II 

Understanding FERPA 

Forum Feature: Boston 

Updates 

Announcements & Upcoming Events 

• Training opportunities 

• Funding opportunities 

News & Views 

• Reports 

• News 

• Other resources 

PRIMARY PREVENTION:
 PART II 

Part two of our interview with Dr. Howard Spivak 

and Marci Hertz of the Division of Violence 

Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention, continues the conversation on 

prevention. Part one was featured in the April 

2013 issue and explained the need for primary, 

secondary, and tertiary prevention. 

Forum cities are directed to use evidencebased solutions. How should we think about 

the role of evidence? 

Research on violence prevention and reduction is 

not always "clean and shiny" because the 

methodologies for studying some of these things 

are not yet adequately developed. The evidence 

base is not one thing. For instance, there is a 

body of evidence on certain programs or 

interventions that are effective. But there is 

evidence that addressing certain risk factors can 

lead to improved outcomes. If these risk factors 

are addressed by an approach that has not been 

evaluated, then one can be comfortable, because 

we know from evidence that such risk factors are 

FORUM FEATURE: 

BOSTON 

Teens from the Boston Youth Fund work on a mural. 

Summer is full of opportunity for Boston youth. It's the season that 

revives one of the city's longest-running and most successful 

economic and workforce development programs—the Boston 

Summer Youth Employment Program. 

Boston has found that youth who work summers are likelier to 

stay in school, graduate, and continue their education or 

vocational training than young people who do not work. 

In summer 2012, the Mayor's Summer Youth Employment 

Program organized funding from state and local government 

entities, philanthropic groups, and private businesses to place 

10,000 Boston teenagers in entry-level jobs ranging from staffing 

daycare centers and camps to cleaning beaches, working in 

hospital labs, assisting at banking data centers, and selling 

refreshments at Fenway Park. It's a remarkable number that 

reflects the city's dedication to engaging kids in meaningful, 

sustainable, and practical ways. Cemented firmly in the 

community's vision for youth, the program is a top priority for 

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. 

"The summer jobs program in Boston has been going on since 

th 1960 b t d ri th l st 20 f th Me i
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

important. 

Additionally, some things have not been 

evaluated, but we know from experience they are 

very important to violence prevention efforts. For 

example, there is no research evidence showing 

coalition building leads to violence reduction. But 

we know from years of working on such efforts 

that without coalition building, nothing else 

happens. 

How can cities use the evidence base in 

research to most effectively address 

prevention? 

There is no one-stop shop, although the Forum is 

trying to create a resource where cities can start 

and then link to relevant resources. Other 

resources are available through the Striving To

Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere (STRYVE) 

Web site. STRYVE is a national initiative that 

takes a public health approach to preventing 

youth violence before it starts. It helps us 

understand programs and how to maximize 

implementation support for scaling up. We are still 

determining how to implement programs and 

plans to make them sustainable and how to 

understand the synergistic interactions of various 

components. 

Cities can use knowledge about risk and 

protective factors to create logic models for 

successful efforts. The connection between the 

plan and the factor has to be real—does the 

prevention activity have some effect on building 

resilience or protection? We know mentoring 

affects school performance, since low school 

performance is a risk factor for delinquency. Ms. 

Hertz encourages cities to look at data on risk 

and protective factors in their communities and 

ask which ones are problematic and what assets 

are available to mobilize. 

Data is very important in making plans that have 

a chance to improve outcomes. One reason to 

include health departments, noted Dr. Spivak, is 

because they collect data really well. There are 

many data sources linked to health that are not 

being fully tapped, such as emergency room data, 

which has better information on injuries than does 

police data. Some work is being done in this area 

so injury data can be shared with police to identify 

and intervene in hot spots. 

Continue Reading 

the 1960s, but during the last 20 years of the Menino 

administration it has grown substantially in several critical areas: 

career understanding, job-readiness skills, plus new specialized 

programming to reengage youth who have dropped out of school 

and youth who are court and/or gang involved," said Conny Doty, 

Director of the Mayor's Office of Jobs and Community Services. 

Though the most noticeable aspect of the program occurs during 

summer when Boston youth start new jobs, the planning and 

behind-the-scenes work that has made the program a success is 

a year-round undertaking. The job application process begins 

each February through the city's Hope Line, where youths ages 

15 to 17 can register for the program by phone or online. Other 

programs that hire older youth continue through spring. Much like 

the adult labor market, these kids are not simply handed jobs. 

They must complete applications and compete for positions. 

However, long before that happens, there is extensive 

preparation: locking in employers, obtaining detailed job 

descriptions and supervision structures, and ensuring supervisors 

are familiar with the Massachusetts Work-Based Learning 

Plan, which assesses the youths' work-readiness skills and 

measures progress. 

Three primary groups collaborating to manage the jobs program 

are the city-run Boston Youth Fund, which places approximately 

3,000 teens in nonprofit jobs around the area; the Boston Private 

Industry Council (PIC), whose employer canvassing and recruiting 

of employers placed more than 2,660 youths in financial services 

and healthcare positions last summer; and Boston's philanthropic 

community—most notably the State Street and John Hancock 

corporate foundations, which provided nearly 2,000 young people 

with jobs in 2012. State Street Corporation's Youth Violence 

Prevention effort added an additional 600 jobs in neighborhoods 

experiencing street violence and gang activity and a variety of 

smaller programs added the other summer employment options. 

The Boston Youth Fund, the largest of the program providers, 

connects low- to moderate-income public school kids with various 

nonprofit organizations. For court- and gang-involved teens and 

young adults, Youth Options Unlimited (YOU), a city-operated 

initiative, hosted an intensive 7-week program where youth 

worked in teams on various community projects. In 2012, such 

projects included working on an organic farm, landscaping, public 

building upkeep, and park maintenance. Along with providing 

transitional jobs to court-involved youth, Y.O. Unlimited also offers 

decision-making workshops, reentry guidance, and education 

opportunities. 

Another specialized program that creates productive work 

scenarios for youth from neighborhoods experiencing street 

violence is State Street's Youth Violence Prevention (YVP) Funder 

Learning Collaborative. They raised nearly $1 million for youth 

wages from more than a dozen private foundations, which helped 

300 to 500 additional youths work on community service projects 

to improve their neighborhoods while acquiring and learning solid 

job-readiness skills. 

Along with their vital role in the Summer Youth Employment 

Program, the Boston PIC's skilled career specialists offer job 

preparation workshops, sponsor mock interviews with human 

resources professionals during school vacation week, and 

schedule a job shadowing day every February. This gives 

participants an opportunity to explore possible careers and 

industries of interest and provides an advantage for youth after 

UNDERSTANDING
 FERPA 
industries of interest and rovides an advanta e for uth after

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost every Forum city has indicated that 

facilitating and ensuring information sharing is a 

top priority. After all, to make sound data-driven 

decisions, good data needs to be available and 

accessible. But everyone reading this article has 

likely experienced frustration trying to share data 

and get up-to-date information on an ongoing 

basis. This logjam stems in part from the multiple 

state and federal laws and regulations governing 

privacy of information, which includes the Family 

Educational Rights and Privacy Act, better known 

as FERPA. 

FERPA, first enacted in 1974, is often cited as a 

major barrier to student data sharing. The Act 

was passed to protect the privacy of individual 

student education records and requires written 

parental consent—if a student is under 18—or the 

consent of a student who has turned 18 or 

entered a postsecondary institution at any age 

(i.e., eligible student) before personally 

identifiable information from a student’s education 

record is disclosed by educational institutions, 

except as permitted by FERPA. FERPA 

requirements apply to institutions that receive 

funding through the U.S. Department of 

Education (ED). 

FERPA in Today's World 

Although FERPA has not changed much since it 

was first enacted, the world in which it operates 

has evolved significantly. Changing technology, in 

particular, has created substantial challenges for 

organizations and individuals trying to interpret 

and work within FERPA's framework. As Dale 

King, Director of the Family Policy Compliance 

Office (FPCO), remarked, "When FERPA was 

passed, email didn't even exist, nor the integrated 

data systems that jurisdictions now have." Things 

like videos, online classes, tweets, longitudinal 

records, and open source classes complicate how 

to define an "education record," which is what is 

protected by FERPA. 

And clearly, lots of people are looking for 

guidance. The FPCO receives more than 1,000 

calls each month, along with more than 1,500 

emails, from students, parents, and school 

officials. "What's contributing to the volume," 

noted King, "is the desire to learn how to apply 

FERPA to the current world." 

Continue Reading 

UPDATES
 

OJJDP Announces Reorganization
 

p g yo 

graduation, when landing a job is crucial. 

The city's target to hit the 10,000 jobs mark again could be more 

difficult this year. "We have several major impediments to 

achieving that number," said Ms. Doty. "The largest is that last 

year nearly 1,600 jobs were supported with state funding and as 

of now, the legislature has not funded the program." However, the 

program could still receive state funding, said Ms. Doty, as 

Massachusetts has a pending supplemental budget. Ms. Doty 

expects most of the philanthropic foundations, whose support 

made another 1,600-plus jobs possible last year, will be on board 

to match that number this year. 

"One of biggest challenges is having enough high-quality 

supervision, and late funding adds to this issue," said Ms. Doty. 

"Right now, the nonprofits that want to hire additional youth this 

summer with government funding need to be hiring the 

supervisors who will oversee teen workers. Not knowing the full 

number of youth to be hired in mid-May means some people who 

would make excellent supervisors will take other positions." The 

timing may force a scramble to fill supervisor spots when school 

lets out and work begins. 

To gauge how things look from an employer's point of view, the 

Boston PIC asks organizations that participate in the program to 

respond to an extensive survey. "Overall, the responses from 

employers are quite positive—so much so that in recent years the 

PIC has tried to get more nuanced responses and gradations of 

positives," said Ms. Doty. "The proof this effort is effective is that 

the majority of businesses ask for additional youth the following 

year, even during the recent recession." 

Hands-on experience, self-confidence, self-reliance, and 

educational persistence are more than job perks for Boston teens 

who have participated in the Summer Youth Employment 

Program. The cultivation of life skills like these opens the door for 

youth to begin building productive, successful careers. 

NEWS 

& VIEWS 

Report 

Disconnected Mothers and the Well-Being of Children: A

Research Report 

Urban Institute, 2013 

Many circumstances disconnected mothers face pose major risks 

to children's development and potentially serious consequences 

for children. The authors describe potential interventions to help 

disconnected families increase and stabilize family income, 

enhance parenting skills, and support children. 

http://www.urban.org/publications/412815.html 

News 
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OJJDP has completed its reorganization. Office 

Administrator Robert L. Listenbee made the 

announcement in a keynote address at the 

Coalition for Juvenile Justice annual conference, 

May 3, 2013. Learn about OJJDP's new 

structure. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS 

& UPCOMING EVENTS
 

Training Opportunities 

The National Children's Alliance will host its 

annual Leadership Conference in Washington, 

D.C., June 2–5, 2013. Discussion topics will 

include creating trauma-informed child-serving 

systems, screening and assessing trauma, 

developing effective advocacy programs, and 

community partnering. 

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at 

Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute is 

accepting applications for its Washington, D.C., 

Multi-System Integration Certificate Program. 

The program is designed for leaders in juvenile 

justice, child welfare, and behavioral health. 

Applications are due June 20, 2013. 

Funding Opportunities 

The Center for Mental Health Services, 

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 

Administration (SAMHSA), is accepting 

applications for fiscal year 2013 Safe 

Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) State 

Planning, Local Education Agency, and Local

Community cooperative agreements. The 

program's purpose is to create safe and 

supportive schools and communities by building 

partnerships among educational, behavioral 

health, and criminal/juvenile justice systems. By 

implementing this program, SAMHSA expects to 

achieve an increase in the number of children and 

youth who have access to behavioral health 

services; a decrease in the number of students 

who abuse substances; an increase in supports 

for early childhood development; improvements in 

school climate; and a reduction in the number of 

students who are exposed to violence. 

Applications are due July 1, 2013. 

Chicago's Black Legal Community Meets to Stem Youth

Violence 

During a meeting at the University of Chicago, African 

American judges and legal experts talked about violence and the 

growing number of teens involved in the criminal justice system. 

The focus was on shifting the antiviolence approach to one that 

views the problem as a social matter—not simply a criminal 

justice issue. 

Overbrook: School Mergers Raise Concern for Youth

Violence 

The district's plan to close 23 schools citywide—three in the 

Overbrook community—will be effective June 30, redirecting 

students to other city middle and high schools. Overbrook High 

School will see an influx of students from various neighborhoods, 

which teachers fear could initially cause an imbalance. "More 

students would be victimized, not just physically but sexually as 

well," said Overbrook High teacher Bonnee Breese. 

Chicago Center Brings Meditative Mindset to Combating

Youth Violence 

Chicago's Shambhala Meditation Center has always taught ways 

to pursue inner peace. Now the center is pursuing outward peace. 

At the Youth Congress on Peace, instructors applied Buddhist 

principles to the city's youth violence problem. 

Attorney General Outlines Initial Steps for Response to 

Children's Exposure to Violence 

On April 12, Attorney General Eric Holder outlined action items 

for implementing recommendations of the National Task Force on 

Children Exposed to Violence set forth in the "Report of the

Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed

to Violence." 

Other Resources 

Strengthening the Economy for Children and Youth 

The President's Fiscal Year 2014 budget will support children 

and youth, increasing access to high-quality early childhood 

education, forging partnerships with communities to help them 

rebuild, strengthening families, and making schools safer. 

Global Youth Justice Launches 250 Youth Justice Web Sites 

In conjunction with the American Bar Association, Global Youth 

Justice helped local youth courts in 41 states launch 250 Web 

sites on May 1 to promote juvenile justice diversion programs. 

More than 1,400 communities and tribes worldwide operate a 

youth justice program associated with local peer, student, youth, 

or teen courts. 

The National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention Newsletter Contact Us is prepared under Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention (OJJDP) Cooperative Agreement No. 2012–MU–

Send questions or feedback about the newsletter to FX–K009 with Development Services Group, Inc. 
NFYVP@dsgonline.com or subscribe. 

The views, opinions, and content of this newsletter are those 

of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views, 

opinions, or policies of OJJDP.