Giving Children Skills to Stay Out of Gangs

“OK, let’s have the fight,” says Sister Anne Regan.

Two 8-year-old boys start arguing. They go back and forth, getting nowhere fast.

“You shut up.”

“No, you shut up.”

Regan, directing the role-playing, finally steps in.

“Who can tell me the first step when I have a problem?” she asks the boys and girls seated around her in a semicircle.

“You identify the problem,” a girl answers.

The fight--and Regan’s intervention--is a small but integral part of Making the Right Connections, a six-week summer program at 10 South-Central Los Angeles Catholic parishes. The program, known as MTRC to its staff, aims to keep more than 800 young people between the ages of 7 and 14 from joining gangs.

Identifying the problem in a dispute is the first of six steps for “fighting fair,” part of a lesson in conflict resolution Regan is teaching to children at St. Francis X. Cabrini parish in Watts.

The program is trying to tap into the same feeling of belonging and closeness that many gang members feel among their “homeboys.”

“The idea is that this desire, this need to connect is so great within us, that if we can’t do it in a healthy, holistic, positive way, we’re going to do it in a negative way,” said Dan Drass, the program’s executive director.

Drass said the program targets the younger brothers and sisters of gang members, who might be likely to follow in their older siblings’ footsteps.

“So we said, ‘Hey, it’s too hard to work with gang members,’ ” Drass said. “Let’s get their younger brothers and sisters in a project and try to help build their self-esteem so that they can make a decision not to be involved in gangs.”

MTRC also hopes to reach other children identified as “high risk,” who may not have a relative who is a gang member but live in neighborhoods with high levels of gang activity, and therefore high levels of violence.

“When I lived in South-Central during the Watts riots there was violence, but it was violence with a purpose,” said Sister Diane Smith, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, who with Drass founded Making the Right Connections last year.

“Now I see a tremendous amount of violence, but it has no purpose. It’s almost like genocide,” she said.

The program runs five mornings a week and features social, cultural and academic activities based on the “Mission: SOAR” (Set Objectives, Achieve Results) curriculum developed by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

On a typical day, the children will participate in a game of dodgeball, make friendship bracelets out of colored strands of yarn, eat sloppy joes, listen to a guest speaker and have a lesson on conflict resolution.

Guest speakers provide the children with positive role models. Past visitors include representatives from the American Red Cross, Olympic gold-medal gymnast Peter Vidmar, and the UCLA University Express, a theater group that performs skits on the importance of education.

The children also take field trips to introduce them to the world outside their neighborhoods.

Parishes receive up to $20,000 each for the program and can accommodate as many as 100 children, although several have only 50 or 60. Drass said Making the Right Connection is supported this year by grants totaling almost $135,000 from 11 foundations. He added that the program, although run in Catholic parishes, cannot be explicitly faith-based because it would be disqualified for many foundation grants.

Consequently, MTRC concentrates on activities that stress the positive connections in the community as a counterpoint to the tremendous pull gangs represent.

Teresa Medina, an MTRC teacher at St. Patrick’s parish at the corner of Central and Jefferson, has experienced the pull firsthand.

Medina, 22, grew up near St. Patrick’s and was once associated with a gang. She had just entered seventh grade and was feeling lonely and unsure of herself when she became friends with a girl who was in a gang. She noticed that people in gangs were feared and respected.

She took the name Cupid as her placaso, or gang name. She didn’t last long, however. “You have to act tough, and I’m not that tough.”

Medina, who will graduate next year from Cal State Los Angeles with a degree in psychology and wants to go on to medical school, thinks the program is helpful for kids who are in the position she was in.

“I don’t know if it’s going to have any long-term effects, but now, it makes them think a little bit,” she said.

Drass pointed out that not everything in the program is specifically devoted to gang prevention. After the six-week session ends, each parish will continue to hold monthly gatherings to create an ongoing sense of community among the youths.

As part of building the sense of community, the older children in the program are encouraged to pay special attention to the younger children. The point of the practice is not lost on Martin Garcia, 14, one of the oldest boys in the program at St. Patrick’s.

“It’s nice, ‘cause you can teach little kids what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said. “That’s why we talk to the little kids, and make them feel good, so they won’t feel left out.”

Others directing gang prevention programs aimed at the same age group say programs like MTRC can have a positive influence.

“We believe very strongly in these types of programs,” said Steve Valdivia, director of Community Youth Gang Services, which runs a similar program.