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Taking pulse of Santa Maria's youth: New programs aim to connect high school students with city leaders

Santa Maria Times - 1/25/2019

Jan. 25--Aiming to get a better pulse on the issues of concern to Santa Maria's youth, the Mayor's Task Force on Youth Safety is set to launch two new programs in the next two months that will connect area high school students with city leaders.

The programs -- which include a Youth Advisory Board that would meet regularly with the mayor and a Student Leadership Program that would link participating students with different city departments -- are the new crop of programs that grew out of Mayor Alice Patino'sTask Force on Youth Safety.

Established in 2017, the task force is a collaborative made up of elected officials, local community-based organizations, schools, members of the faith community and local law enforcement that looks to develop strategies for reducing gang violence and reaching at-risk youth with city-sponsored programming.

Other programs that have come out of the task force include summer youth programs and WorkReady, a collaboration between the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce and Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley that organizes mentoring and paid summer internships for at-risk students.

Dennis Smitherman, a management analyst with the Recreation and Parks Department, said the Youth Advisory Board -- which will have its first meeting sometime in February -- has long been an ambition of Patino.

In late 2018, Smitherman said he and Patino visited Santa Maria and Pioneer Valley high schools to talk to classes about the advisory board, which hopes to have several kids from each grade level.

"It's going to be great to learn about those issues that teens are facing coming from their perspective versus an adult perspective," Smitherman said. "We don't always see -- we're really excited about the program and think it's going to be extremely beneficial for the teens and our city."

School administration at each high school will collect names of those interested in participating and city officials hope to hear from any student willing to donate their time, he said.

"We're asking for volunteers to be able to commit an hour or two around lunchtime once a month to share what they've gathered from their classmates [and] concerns or feedback regarding the city," Smitherman said. "Whether it be about specific instances or policy, we really want to hear from those teens."

In addition to the advisory board, a Student Leadership Program based on a program run by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce is slated to launch in March. The program will include eight to 12 students learning about the function of various city departments by visiting at least two departments on one Friday each month.

The goal is to help those participating develop new leadership and career skills, mostly revolving around job readiness and communication.

Students will be able to get involved by being referred by their schools or by filling out an application that the city will release next week, Smitherman said.

The initial advisory and leadership pilot programs are scheduled to run through the end of the school year in June.

"We're hoping, of course, that there's enough interest and we're getting enough feedback that we can start again when school starts in the later summer or fall," Smitherman said. "We'd love to see the programs run the whole school year from August to June."

There was no hard number on how many youths will be involved in each program, he said.

"What we're hoping for is strong representation from each grade. Our goal is at least three from each grade, so a dozen would be a great start."

Razi Syed covers Santa Maria City Government for Lee Central Coast Newspapers. Follow him on Twitter @razisyed

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