Helping Teens Becomes Civic Affair : Drug, Suicide, Pregnancy Information Pooled in ‘Juniper’ Project

Two years ago nobody thought Lynn Tagge would be able to pull off her idea of getting many of Escondido’s city and community agencies to work together against drugs. Not even Tagge herself.

After all, how could a few people successfully spend thousands of hours “networking,” with every phase of the community to develop a common ground so hundreds of civic groups could cooperate and share information?

“It sounds kind of goody two shoes,” Tagge said as she explained her plan, which she calls the “Juniper Commitment.”

But Juniper has now become a “hub” of information for more than 200 local civic groups who both give and use information concerning problems such as drug abuse and teen pregnancy, Tagge said.

Without any public funds and independent of any government, Juniper in the past two years has worked to coordinate efforts to fight these problems.

“We don’t prejudge anybody,” Tagge said. “(Some referral agencies) can get into trouble by referring someone to a certain agency because they come off as endorsing that agency.

“Juniper is sort of like a potluck. People bring what they have and take what they need.”

An example of something that Juniper has accomplished is a program being undertaken by the Escondido Union High School District and two local family and substance-abuse agencies.

Through a Juniper meeting, the agencies got together with the school district

and are now working with a handful of high school students and their families who have substance-abuse problems, Tagge said.

This kind of cooperative effort has appealed to other communities in this county and other counties where Juniper organizations are being founded.

Residents in Fallbrook, Poway and Point Loma are developing Juniper models to combat their drug problems.

In addition, a San Diego County Board of Supervisors task force has made the implementation of a Juniper model on a countywide basis as one of its priorities for the coming year.

Studied Elsewhere

Juniper also is being studied by Orange County officials who may implement the plan there.

And a U.S. Department of Education consultant said she is recommending Juniper to communities across the nation because of its effectiveness in Escondido.

“The way Escondido has brought so many different groups together is what is so unique,” said Stephanie Soares Pump, a consultant for a department of education in Portland, Ore. “They have ended up with a wide variety of civic groups which is very, very rare. I don’t know of any group like it in the country.”

Last October, Juniper helped sponsor a two-day crime prevention exposition at North County Fair that was attended by more than 90,000 people, Tagge said.

“We had federal, state and local law enforcement officials there, and it all came out of one of our meetings,” Tagge said.

Commitment Has Swelled

Run primarily by Tagge and Escondido residents Pat Reno and Art McCullough, Juniper has swelled from a small parent-teachers organization to its current 200-group membership.

A 43-year-old mother of one, Tagge said the roots of her four-year involvement in Juniper began when she first heard of drug use in schools.

“I was naive and had had a pretty sheltered life, but when I began hearing about 6th-grade drug addicts, I was shocked,” she said.

“I worried about my son, and I thought I might not be able to watch him all the time, but if I hold hands with everybody in Escondido, maybe I can help people and they can help me.”

Reno agreed.

“I never knew anyone in school who died, but my kids do. That shocked me.”

Juniper dropped its affiliation with the Escondido Union High School District in 1985 because the stigma of being a school/drug organization was too confining, Reno said.

“When you just center your focus on a school issue or a drug issue, it’s always easy for someone to say, ‘Hey, that’s not my problem,’ ” Reno said.

“(Also) there are a lot of other problems such as dropouts, absenteeism, alcoholism, juvenile detention and teen suicide,” Reno said, noting some of Juniper’s priority issues.

“We had to get the whole community in on this,” she said.

The group takes its name from the Juniper tree that, “grows in every climate, comes in every color and has very deep roots that are quite impossible to kill.”

Extension Sought

Like the roots of the tree, Juniper’s members have sought to extend their reach throughout Escondido.

Since the group changed its focus two years ago, the volunteer, non-profit organization has grown rapidly by developing contacts, attending every civic meeting imaginable and by word of mouth, Tagge said.

“I never expected Juniper to be as successful as it has,” Tagge said, adding that she receives about 150 calls a month requesting Juniper’s specialty-information referral.

Acting as a clearinghouse for anyone needing information in Escondido, Juniper has slowly begun getting local groups to not only to seek them out for information, but to seek each other out.

“Different groups will come to our meetings, and one will say to another, ‘Oh your doing that, well hey were doing this so maybe I can give you this and you can give me that,’ ” Tagge said. “Before, nobody knew what the other was doing.”

Nancy Parks, a frequent participant in Juniper’s monthly meetings, said Juniper works because it helps organizations without trying to change how they operate.

“They figure out what the need is, and then they figure out a way to help,” said Parks, a resource specialist for the McAllister Institute, a substance-abuse recovery center that serves Vista and Escondido.

Referrals Are Plentiful

Parks said she has received many referrals through Juniper and has been the beneficiary of cooperation with other city agencies by belonging to the organization.

But she said she is still amazed at the community cooperation fostered by Juniper.

“Why it works I don’t think anybody can really say,” Parks said.

She said Tagge is a big reason for Juniper’s success.

“Lynn’s energy is amazing,” Parks said.

An Escondido resident for 18 years, Tagge loves things she says other people call weird.

For years, she poured over scores of theoretical mathematics books and came away with the idea that large problems can only be solved through communal efforts.

“Like a problem, I take things in a logical order. I find out where people want to go, and I help them get there,” said Tagge, who used to be a consultant for two small business firms before Juniper consumed her life.

Tagge has used what others say are her incredible powers of persuasion to convince people that Juniper can and should work.

“Lynn’s famous words are, ‘What can I do to help you,’ ” said Laura Speigel of the Escondido city Community Services office.

“Then, she goes out and does it,” Speigel said.

Leadership Praised

Rev. Dick Thompson, who is helping organize a Juniper model in Point Loma, said Tagge has the leadership qualities necessary to run a program like Juniper.

“I would say that Lynn enjoys being a communicator; she is a very generous and committed person, said Thompson who is from the Community Presbyterian Church on Point Loma.

Tagge said her rewards for putting in thousands of free hours have been through compliments from the community.

However, she says anybody can do what she is doing.

County officials, who are studying Juniper, agree.

“I think the Juniper model has the possibility of being implemented in several cities in the county,” said Melinda Newman, county drug program administrator of the County Department of Health Services.

Newman said a $50,000 allocation for a countywide Juniper model will be studied by supervisors for the 1987-88 budget.

“I think it’s good that it has taken off in Escondido,” Newman said. “It shows that people can unite among themselves.”

Thompson said Point Loma is in the process of selecting who will run their Juniper organization.

“There is a need for this because the kids who go to my church tell me that drugs are very available,” Thompson said, adding that only through a community effort like Juniper can drug and other social problems be solved.

Chuck Kinney, an organizer of the Juniper branch in Fallbrook said drug awareness was a catalyst for its implementation there.

“An Ideal Plan”

“This plan is ideal because it allows us to use all the resources in our community,” Kinney said.

Though Tagge is happy with Juniper’s success, she said similar funding will be needed in Escondido because, “We can’t run (Juniper) from my pool table and remain professional much longer.”

“I feel like a rubber band that just keeps getting stretched,” she said.

McCullough said Juniper will hold a fund-raiser in June so the operation can move its headquarters out of Tagge’s crowded home.

“I think this proves that there isn’t anything we can’t resolve,” she said. “People are always willing to commit when they see others commit.”