Ford grant to UW aids youth programs

Researchers from the UW are helping the Ford Foundation locate youth programs in low-income neighborhoods across the nation to fund.

Since last January, Sharon E. Sutton, architecture professor and director of the Center for Environmental Education and Design Studies, and her team have been working on a project researching national youth service programs in low-income neighborhoods with a $265,000 grant given by the Ford Foundation. The money covers personnel and benefits, office expenses and supplies, travel and meeting expenses, tuition and subcontracts to other institutions.

With the huge amount of data collected so far, the team has extended the project until Dec. 31, instead of the original Oct. 31 deadline.

"The goal of the study is to make recommendations to the foundation of the types of programs that they should fund," said Sutton. "Defining community service has been a bit of a challenge, because groups can be paid, unpaid, and range from washing cars to long-term investments."

Joining Sutton to make up the research team are professors Jeff Hou and Susan P. Kemp from the UW, as well as researchers from the University of Michigan, City University of New York and the Girl Scouts USA.

The main criteria for finding programs include location in a densely populated, large city, and programs they are at least one year old, recognized as exemplary by other groups, committed to "social justice" and are community-based, working to improve youth self-concept.

"The only programs we contacted were by referral. Fifty percent of these programs have returned back to us, which is a very good success rate," said Sutton.

The programs are wide in variety of their focus, ranging from programs that work toward environmental sustainability by planting trees in urban areas and organizing large clean-ups, to programs committed to political activism that organizes neighborhood and school-based campaigns to fight social injustices.

According to Sutton, these groups don't fit just one category, but the main objective for everyone is to address problems in their communities and work to improve them, all the while "bringing a cultural and esthetic dimension to them."

The only programs the group has had difficulty representing has primarily been in the middle of the country and in the southern United States, where there either aren't as many active programs or they don't fit the criteria.

Sutton said she struggles with this, because she wants to guarantee that this is truly a national study, but with the deadline slowly approaching, this has been a challenge.

Sutton said she wants to make sure that people realize that adults are active in these youth programs as well, with 27 the age cut-off for the youth participating in programs. Parents are constantly working with the youth, but make sure to give them their independence.

"Parents are mainly involved in the governance of the programs, making sure everything runs smoothly. But that is usually as far as it goes, because the adults really want to give the kids their own voice," said Sutton.

The most important message that Sutton wants the general public to grasp from this study is not to give into the typical stereotype of low-income youth. She believes from this research she can slowly start to help build a better, more representative opinion of this group.

"In general, there is a very negative opinion of low-income youth in the media; most people believe they are always up to no good," Sutton said. "There are very few reports about the good things, and many about the bad. Our hope is to amplify their accomplishments and eventually to change that misrepresentation."