RESCUING REBELS : * Programs across the county are aimed at keeping teen-agers out of serious trouble while helping them develop self-esteem.

Parents don’t like your clothes and hairstyles. You make friends with alarming people. You talk back, ditch school, break curfew, insult the police.

You are a rebellious teen-ager. And while psychologists say a certain amount of your rebellion is healthy, many experts agree that risks are greater now than they have been in the past.

“The stakes are so much higher now than when we were kids. Assault weapons, crack cocaine, AIDS, violence, drugs, sex,” said Matt Hardy, senior deputy district attorney for Ventura County. “Now, in each one of those major categories, you’re talking about the results being death.”

Across Ventura County, adults and teen-agers struggle to find a balance between freedom and risk for young people. But increased gang activity and violence, substance abuse and teen-age pregnancy have pushed public and private organizations countywide to provide funding for programs that not only keep young people out of serious trouble, but help them develop self-esteem.

“We have been getting the stories (of violence) from L.A., surveys and reports in each local community,” said Lonnie Miramontes, director of community services for El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, a Latino advocacy organization. “We have a crescendo of voices--cities, counties, parents, kids, teachers--all saying the same thing: ‘Blame doesn’t work. We need to do something for kids.’ ”

The work begins, many experts say, with adults, who must begin to view young people--even the troubled among them--as valuable members of society, who can and do make a contribution.

“Some adults are under the impression that they never were teen-agers, they never T-papered a house or broke a window,” Miramontes said. “The problems have to do with adults in the community. Young people don’t ruin a community. We create the atmosphere. The community needs to get together when bad things happen.”

Something to Do

The incident that seemed to coalesce the city of Ventura last year, according to Debbie Solomon, public relations supervisor for Ventura’s Parks and Recreation Department, was a drive-by shooting at a baptismal party in Cabrillo Village that killed two teen-agers.

“This incident horrified everyone and made the community realize we are all at risk,” Solomon said. “And it mobilized us to shift our resources to deal with the problem.”

Countywide, the nonprofit El Concilio, provided through Project Pride, this summer offered recreational activities to about 1,500 youths.

Individual cities in the county are trying, despite recessionary budget cuts, to keep young people active.

In Camarillo, for instance, the Sheriff’s Department offered a pair of free, two-week camps this summer for boys 12 to 16 years old.

“We need more programs and more volunteers,” conceded Detective Jeff Matson, youth officer with the Camarillo Police Department. “If you can keep these kids busy, a lot of them will stay out of trouble. But everyone is so pinched for funds, it’s hard to keep up services.”

In Ojai, teen-agers can drop into the city-sponsored gymnasium or the Jack Boyd Community Center to work out, play games or meet with friends. Thousand Oaks has an active teen center. And Moorpark recently allocated city funds for youth services programs.

But among the cities, Ventura is a step ahead. Within the past year, the city has created a series of programs that might serve as models for the county. Four city-sponsored drop-in recreational centers, two started this year, involve 200 to 300 youths a day. All services are free and all programs target at-risk youths.

At the West Park Community Center, a recreational center for teen-agers and children as young as 6, offerings include fitness equipment, weights (donated by local merchants) and classes in exercise, karate, modeling, gymnastics and cooking. Junior leadership programs and education on substance-abuse prevention are also offered.

Using advice from a committee of young people, the center’s director, Roberta Payan, puts together fund-raisers for the homeless, sports tournaments, aerobics, karate, cheerleading classes and softball and flag football games.

Cultural excursions occur regularly: “Anything that takes these kids out of the neighborhood,” Payan said.

At the other end of town, the East End Boys & Girls Club offers volleyball, dances and a basketball tournament for youths 13 to 18 years old, with prizes offered by local music stores.

The Ventura Department of Parks and Recreation has within the past year turned a meat-packing plant and a refrigerator warehouse into two popular drop-in centers for youths, one in the Cabrillo Village section of Ventura and the other in the Westview Village housing project.

At the onetime refrigerator warehouse, now housing the Westview Community Center, youths play games and sports, receive help with homework and learn arts and crafts. Field trips, barbecues and outdoor sports are all offered.

Jenise Heck, director of the Westview Community Center, said she is convinced that the centers make a difference in the lives of the young people who attend.

“One of our staff is into model airplanes,” she said. “I walked in one day and here’s six or seven big macho 17-year-olds putting together little balsa-wood airplane models and obviously enjoying themselves. Sometimes they just need something useful to do and someone who cares about them.”

Landing a Job

Last year, Armando, a 17-year-old active gang member in Oxnard, spent the summer gangbanging and crashing parties. In recent years, he said, he’s been arrested for fighting, public drunkenness and breaking the curfew that was a condition of his parole.

This summer, through a local gang-intervention program, Armando was placed in a full-time position doing trail clearance for the state parks.

“The job kept me out of trouble,” he said. “I am not starting anything. I just go to work, come home, kick back, go to sleep and get up again to go to work.”

In response to the Los Angeles riots, $960,000 was allocated in June to Ventura County as part of a federal emergency urban aid package approved by Congress and President Bush. With that money, the county was able to double its jobs programs for youths, according to Pam Macias, coordinator of the Summer Youth Employment Program for the Ventura County superintendent of schools. The program is targeted primarily at youths from low-income households and youths with disabilities.

The program offered 835 jobs this year--with the greatest number going to Oxnard and Ventura youths, Macias said.

The only problem was that there were nearly 1,400 eligible applicants.

“Every year we have more kids and more jobs than we have money to offer,” Macias said.

According to city managers and other officials, most cities in the county provide little more than federally funded jobs, since there are few city-funded programs.

But in Ventura, the recently formed Community Gang Task Force started a separate Youth Employment Education Program to bridge the gap, using $10,000 set aside by the city.

“A job legitimizes a kid and puts money in his pocket,” community center director Payan said. “A job earns respect from other kids.”

The program, targeted at those active in gangs, teaches the basics of dress, work ethics, interviewing and “job survival” skills. The teen-agers then work 100 hours in a city-sponsored, paying job. Forty teen-agers were involved in the program this summer, with job placements at various locales, including a golf course, Catholic Charities, public works sites and the Boys & Girls Club.

“To a youth who’s never had a job before,” Solomon said, “it really opens the door. They learn they can make it in the real world.” Work experience, references and support, she said, have led to other jobs for many participants.

The work itself was more challenging than the typical summer youth job. One teen-ager, for instance, was an interpreter for clients at Catholic Charities, and another filled a clerical position at Ventura College.

Because of its success, the program will now be offered year-round.

Listening to Youths

“All the people in gangs have problems--family problems, financial problems, dropout problems,” said April Duenas, who graduated from Channel Islands High School in June and now attends Ventura College. “I feel that a lot of times the teachers oppress the students; a lot of times the teacher puts down the students. Instead, they should encourage us to stay in school and go to college. Our dropout rate is very, very high.”

Duenas is not alone in her belief that young people need to be taken more seriously. And many of those who share her views are adults.

El Concilio’s Miramontes says that giving youngsters a voice should be every community’s top priority. “In five years, 10 years, these kids are going to be the adults, doing the jobs. What are we doing to prepare them?”

During the past five years, Miramontes said, El Concilio has sought to give youths a voice by forming ongoing regional task forces in every city in the county. Members of city government, local businesses, churches, schools and young people from each community meet regularly to study and discuss the needs of each community’s young people. The task force then recommends a course of action to improve the outlook for youth in the community.

El Concilio also plans several youth conferences in the fall to gather young people’s views and convey them to the larger community.

“There are conference workshops on preventing youth violence and the consequences of joining gangs--how it affects them, their families, the community,” said Jose Luis Vasquez, youth services coordinator for El Concilio.

Elsewhere in the county, program directors are trying to include young people in decision-making. At the Community Center in Ojai, for instance, a committee of seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students advises the adults on their likes and dislikes regarding food and entertainment. In Ventura, youths propose and plan the activities for the drop-in recreational centers.

This sort of approach is crucial to the development of young people, Miramontes said. “We have to let the young people express themselves and take part in decision-making,” Miramontes said, “or we’re not preparing them for the world.”

Norma Rosas, a recent graduate at Channel Islands High School, agrees.

“We need to talk--not only read, listen and answer questions,” Rosas said. “We want you to listen and support us not only as students but as human beings.”

Loving and the Need to Be Loved

Youth on youth:

“We need sensitivity from the teachers. We need love because a lot of us don’t have the love we need in the world.”

Norma Rosas, June graduate from Channel Islands High School, Oxnard

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“In the gang, we’re like a family.”

Danny Boy, member, Ventura Avenue Gangsters

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“No matter who you are, if you are put into an environment that is depleted, that has no money and no love you cannot grow.”

Nick Crisosto, senior, Channel Islands High School, Oxnard

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Adults on youth:

“A lot of kids in trouble are not bad kids, but they want to look scary.”

Mary Ann Morales, membership specialist, Tres Contados Girl Scout Council

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“Schools, city, probation and law enforcement, church organizations and of course mom and dad--we all need to realize a lot of youngsters are at risk and do something about it.”

John Martin, director of recreation, city of Ojai

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“We enforce every law that we can when a gang member is involved, whether it’s curfew or possession of a can of beer up to more serious crimes. We intend to do that until they change their ways.”

Jon Ainsworth, lieutenant, Simi Valley Police Department