Progress on ‘Youth Action Plan’ Satisfies Organizers : Churches: Grass-roots group cites cooperative spirit after meeting with Santa Ana officials on programs to help troubled youths and make neighborhoods safe.

A grass-roots group representing 15 church congregations countywide left a meeting with city and school officials Tuesday satisfied that a youth plan drafted by the group in May will come to fruition.

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“There was a real good spirit of cooperation in the meeting. Overall it was very positive,” Andy Saavedra, a co-chairman of the Orange County Congregation Community Organization, said after the gathering with Mayor Daniel H. Young, the city manager and other officials of the city and school district.

The organization first released its “youth action plan” at a May meeting that packed St. Anne Catholic Church with 1,000 residents. Group leaders called on the school district and city to help create job opportunities, after-school programs and family support for troubled youths and increase safety in troubled neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, Saavedra said the group learned that Santa Ana police had juggled shifts to provide a greater presence outside schools at busy times and that a city-funded anti-gang program will receive more staffing and better equipment.

“We’re just really happy with the continuing cooperative effort,” said Tory Tomberlin, an organization member.

About a dozen community organizers from churches throughout Santa Ana attended the meeting, which offered them a chance to press city and school officials for firm commitments.

Police Chief Paul M. Walters agreed to meet with the group within three weeks to discuss community policing, and city staff members discussed plans for spending $150,000 recently added to Project PRIDE, the city’s anti-gang program.

The money will go to expand the program’s curriculum, start a Friday night event for teen-agers and launch more PRIDE clubs in which parents can participate, said Lorraine Lazarine, the city’s council services manager. It also will go to buy cellular phones for staff members who run the PRIDE clubs, held at intermediate schools after hours, because members of the Congregation Community Organization are concerned about security at the sites.

Other private businesses and public agencies have come forward in recent months to contribute to the youth action plan:

* The Orange County Bar Assn. has volunteered to work with the organization to set up summer job internships with local law firms. The program, dubbed SELF for Summer Employment With Law Firms, is modeled on one in St. Louis, said Donna Fouste, bar association executive director. It will begin next summer and be open to students entering their junior and senior years of high school.

* The Santa Ana Unified School District has applied for a $25,000 grant to expand homework centers at four elementary schools, open them to children from parochial schools and hire tutors, said John Bennett, an assistant superintendent.

* City officials have been facilitating meetings between the county and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange to find a building for Taller San Jose (St. Joseph’s Workshop), an educational and vocational training center for troubled youth scheduled to open in 1995. City officials and Taller San Jose organizers said Tuesday that the group is on the verge of signing an agreement with the county to lease a building at Broadway and Civic Center Drive.

The program hopes to begin serving 50 teen-agers by early 1995, offering everything from a high school education to help filling out job applications and tips on neatness and interviewing, said Judy Gorsuch, administrative assistant for Taller San Jose.

“This is for kids that really have been disconnected from existing support systems,” she said.

* Catholic Charities has vowed to work with Congregation Community Organization in implementing support services for families of troubled youths, and ultimately hopes to set up a family support center in Santa Ana, said Judy Mader, director of Catholic Charities’ outreach program. Mader said Catholic Charities just hired a parent outreach coordinator who will attend parent education classes at five Santa Ana parishes and offer additional counseling to parents.

The organization drafted the four-part youth action plan after sending surveys to more than 10,000 families.