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Looking for VRI solutions: Council, mayor weigh options for social services program

Chattanooga Times Free Press - 2/4/2018

Feb. 04--Chattanooga's mayor and city council are looking for a way forward after the impasse over the Violence Reduction Initiative social services contract.

Council members support the administration's idea of taking the city's anti-gang initiative in a new, youth-focused direction.

And Mayor Andy Berke acknowledged council members raised concerns about details of the proposed contract before and after they declined to vote on it Jan. 16.

They all agree cutting the gang pipeline by keeping at-risk youth from getting into lives of drugs, crime and violence is crucial.

Now they're talking with each other, trying to see what else they can agree on.

"[The] council raised a number of proper issues," Berke said Friday. "We want to have a discussion with them about how to address them, knowing the choices and options that we have."

Berke said the VRI contract would be "one piece of many, many things we're doing to try to point young people away from gang culture in a positive direction."

Council Chairman Jerry Mitchell said Berke called him last week to talk things over.

"I think he wanted a little bit of space" to do some reformulating, Mitchell said. "It's not the council's job to solve the problem; it's the administration's job to bring us a solution and we can say yes or we can say no. There are council people who want to help, but we've got to come up with a protocol."

The council rejected the proposed new contract with Father to the Fatherless (F2F) after complaining they'd been given too little information and too little time to consider it. F2F has been part of the VRI since the beginning and won the contract as the main social services provider for 2017.

It was one of only two nonprofits to respond to the city's request for proposals for the social services contract.

The proposal called for shifting the focus of the VRI away from rehabilitating adult gang members to mentoring and educating youngsters to steer them away from gang life.

F2F's mentors work in six Hamilton County schools to provide a consistent adult male presence to teach boys how to become the right kind of men. The volunteers are highly praised for their dedication.

But the proposed contract had few specifics of what F2F would do beyond its existing mentoring program and a reference to offering family counseling. It didn't mention any connections with established agencies related to child protection, mental and behavioral health, employment and job training or other social services, nor with the school system.

None of the people named as case workers in the F2F proposal appear to be licensed social workers, and several appear to have been repurposed from other positions. The F2F Facebook page lists Aaron Anderson as assistant director, but the proposal calls him the case management lead. Patricia Hollands, who is listed as case management director on Facebook, is director for social services on the proposal. And Robert Smith, who is the court liaison on Facebook, is listed in the proposal as a part-time caseworker.

F2F Executive Director April Boozer said Friday she could not comment on the program or the proposed contract.

Council members said they had asked repeatedly last year for F2F's figures on job training and placement, education and other services for adult gang members, but had never been given any information. In 2015, the Times Free Press reported that F2F's internal records belied the city's claims of how many adult gang members were in school or job training or had gotten jobs.

Councilman Anthony Byrd said after the Jan. 16 no-vote that he wasn't willing to award a two-year, $600,000 contract to an agency that couldn't show its programs were working.

But Troy Rogers, the city's public safety coordinator, says F2F has a heart and a passion for the mission of saving young people. He said the organization had plans for wraparound services for up to 50 young people referred by the police department, schools and juvenile courts.

"This work is like no other," Rogers said. "Poverty, untreated mental illness, illiteracy and a fatherless home -- those are the four pillars of socioeconomics that are breaking the backs of the African-American male. You can't throw money at the problem. We've got to have people who are willing to give their life to save another."

Byrd agrees, but said it's not enough.

"Father to the Fatherless is doing an awesome job. There are some kids out there that really depend on those men who go to the school and help them out," Byrd said.

"But that's not everything. They say it takes a village to raise a child. We're going to have to create that village from the east side to the north side to the south side, to fix this problem. It's a long goal because we have long-term damage from deep-rooted causes before we can fix the gang problem."

Byrd has called a public meeting for Thursday in the council chambers, hoping everyone from gang members to community leaders and neighborhood residents will come together and talk.

Other council members said F2F should be part of the solution, but can't be all of it.

"They're our kids, and they're worth everything we can do for them," said Councilwoman Carol Berz, a professional mediator/ counselor who largely oversaw creation of the Family Justice Center, a one-stop-shop for social services.

"Rather than discuss individual entities, what we should be doing for the sake of our youth is looking at the strategic plan that addresses a problem," Berz said.

"This needs to be better thought out. I see F2F playing a large role as part of wraparound services. You're trying to address every challenge the youth has and the answers come from a variety of sources. Centralized case management is integral to the success."

Councilman Darrin Ledford said the schools are "an intricate and vital piece to this puzzle" and must be involved.

"Its very important to me we get this right," Ledford said. "This VRI needs to be living proof the love in our community can impact the young people of our city."

He said based on what the council saw of the F2F proposal, "I think there's a better plan out there, and this council is willing to stand up and say we can do better."

Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.

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