Officer Michael Barry uses judo to help teach Ansonia High School students discipline.
The Human Relations Club at Ansonia High School uses ice cream as an ice breaker to open students’ minds about new types of people.
The two programs are among several in the city that try to keep teens out of the juvenile justice system.
Now, a federal grant will help Ansonia leaders bolster these programs and look at new ways to help keep the city’s youth out of trouble.
In October, Ansonia received a Title V Delinquency Prevention Program grant for $84,215, to focus on youth ages 10 to 17.
The two-year grant will be used in for several different programs, said project directors Eileen Ehman and Eileen Krugel.
The bottom line is that the programs and projects funded with the money must try to lower the rate of Ansonia youths getting arrested, having discipline problems at school, or engaging in other dangerous behavior.
“The goal is to not duplicate services, to make this money go longer and farther,” Ehman said Monday.
Ehman is the school district’s grants manager. Krugel is the city’s grant writer.
The Problems
A variety of different organizations track trends in the Valley dealing with teen drug use, arrest data, poverty levels, and participation in school activities.
One of those groups is the Valley Substance Abuse Action Council, which conducts a survey of student needs in the Valley every two years.
According to the latest data:
- 65 percent of Ansonia High School students had reported they have tried alcoholic beverages. 10 percent of those said they did so because of problems at home.
- 34 percent of Ansonia High School students had reported they skipped at least one day of school.
- 37 percent of Ansonia High School students said they had used marijuana or hashish
- 50 percent of Ansonia High School students said they had been bullied.
Click here for the Valley Substance Abuse Action Council’s full report, which includes data from all the Valley towns. The Ansonia information was broken out for the grant application process.
The state Department of Education also tracks disciplinary data in every school and every school district. There were 852 disciplinary incidents in Ansonia in 2008-09, according to the latest data available.
Most of those incidents — 742 — were school policy violations. But about 100 were for “serious” offenses such as drugs, fighting and threatening behavior.
Click here to browse discipline data at any Connecticut school or district.
How The Grant Works
In order to apply for the grant, the city had to first study the problems and existing programs in Ansonia. The city formed a “Prevention Policy Board” in July.
The Prevention Policy Board has 21 people on it — ranging from police officers to officials for Valley service organizations such as the YMCA and TEAM Inc.
The group met twice before applying for the grant — and will meet about two times a year to oversee the grant delivery.
In August, the Prevention Policy Board issued a “Local Delinquency Prevention Plan” to outline how it wanted to use the grant money, and address some of the problems listed above.
The article continues after the plan.
AnsoniaDelinquencyPreventionPlan
THE PLAN
The “Local Delinquency Prevention Plan” outlines problems, and proposes actions that address specific areas of need for youth.
Need: Employment — Ansonia youth have few job opportunities
Plan To Address Need: Create a youth jobs program to help give teenagers skills, and get them internships.
Need: Mentoring
Plan: Pay a stipend to someone to research the mentoring programs available in the city and the region, and help students who need mentorships with the programs that already exist.
Need: Recreational programs
Plan: Provide scholarships to students who can’t afford to join recreation programs. The scholarships will complement ones that are already being given out by groups like the YMCA.
Need: Family Support and Mental Health Programs
Plan: Help the Parent Child Resource Center to bring its “Valley Kids Belong” program to Ansonia schools. The Parent Child Resource Center has run the program at Irving School, with a Connecticut Health Foundation grant. The Title V grant will pay for program costs while the Connecticut Health Foundation grant will pay the staffing costs for the program.
Need: ‘Diversion Programs’ such as the early morning judo classes run by Officer Michael Barry at Ansonia High School. (Click here to read a story about Barry’s program)
Plan: Fund an anti-bullying program and multi-cultural programing provided by Ansonia’s Human Relations Club at the Ansonia High School and Ansonia Middle School.
Need: Lack of Transportation
Plan: Pay for youth involved in recreation programs to take the Valley Transit bus to and from the programs. “We don’t want kids to miss out on an opportunity because they can’t get there,” Krugel said.
Need: Communication
Plan: Update a “Youth Yellow Pages” with phone numbers and information about services for youths in the Valley. The Valley Community Foundation paid for a first yellow pages in 1999. It hasn’t been updated since. The grant will help pay for the printing costs of new books. Krugel said the information will also be listed on the city’s website, and be updated as it changes.
