Coalition Working on Master Plan to Tackle Youth Problems : Santa Clarita Valley: Service agencies, churches and educators are creating a 20-year blueprint covering topics from prenatal health care to keeping youths away from gangs.

The problems of youth--from gang-banging to drunk driving--have been the topics of countless studies and endless conversations. But now a coalition of service agencies, churches and educators in the Santa Clarita Valley is trying to solve the problems by working together.

They are formulating what they call a “Youth Master Plan,” a sort of 20-year blueprint for the city’s youth that will cover everything from prenatal health care to keeping youths away from gangs.

Advocates of the plan said that by working together they can make the effort more than just another set of unused guidelines and forgotten proposals.

“Our church by itself cannot address all the problems,” said Gary Sumner, youth pastor at Grace Baptist Church for the past 10 years.

“The city’s parks and recreation department can’t deal with it by themselves. The Sheriff’s Department can’t. The business community can’t. It’s going to take an integrated effort on all their parts to deal with these.”

The plan is modeled after a similar undertaking in Claremont, where projects such as a youth center to keep teen-agers from drinking and driving already have gotten under way. Organizers of the Claremont effort said they were one of the first small cities in the country to devise such a plan. Ten to 15 cities have expressed interest in duplicating it.

Leaders of Santa Clarita businesses, schools, churches and nonprofit organizations are right now trying to determine what the area’s needs are, said Edward Redd, chairman of the master plan committee.

Several local youths also have been recruited.

The steering committee that will oversee development of the plan began meeting in November and asked residents this week to contact city officials if they wanted to participate. Public meetings will also be scheduled between now and February, when the actual plan is to be drafted.

Sumner said he wants the plan to address the children of two-career and single-parent families. He said these children are often alone for much of the day as parents commute to and from Los Angeles. And when parents are around, they often are too tired to take an interest in their children’s activities.

So some youths turn to drugs or gangs.

“Traditionally, we’ve always been a conservative area, but now a lot of people are moving in from other areas to our valley,” Sumner said. “There’s also a disintegration within caused by a change of values.”

Sumner suggested parenting classes and support groups--both as a preventive measure and for those with troublesome children--as options to include in the Master Plan.

Students at Placerita Junior High agreed that the city needs to offer more recreational activities and facilities to youths, both as a diversion and as a way to keep teen-agers away from gangs. Suggestions included an ice-skating rink, a larger mall and additional sports facilities.

“We need more groups that aren’t costly so everyone can get into them,” said Joanna May, 13, who was on her way to an after-school ballet and tap-dancing class. Many of her classmates said they were going home to empty houses and had no plans except homework.

But Bonita De Amicis, a member of the Santa Clarita Anti-Gang Task Force, said she hopes the master plan will make young people aware of the programs that already exist. For example, she said, more youths should take advantage of a Friday Night Live program that offers dances and other activities. She said young people also should help think of activities that would appeal to their peers.

City Manager George Caravalho said the idea of a master plan surfaced in casual conversations more than a year ago. Recruiting community leaders to take part began about six months ago. He said that despite a tight budget, the city would be willing to make a substantial investment in the plan because it might save money in the long run.

“I think we’re spending a lot of money reacting to the problem on things such as law enforcement, absenteeism (from school), and putting police and security people on campus,” he said. “What we have to say is we’re going to make an investment in these people so they become taxpaying citizens.”

Sumner said that his church might not be able to provide much money, but that he thinks many congregants would volunteer their time for projects. Redd said he hopes local businesses can be persuaded that contributing to the plan would be beneficial.

Advice for the master plan came from Anne Henry, one of two people in charge of the Claremont plan. She said larger cities such as Seattle have hired experts and prominent officials to draft such plans. But Claremont wanted one based on input from anyone interested.

Henry said Santa Clarita has an advantage over Claremont because it already knows what most of its problems are. But, she said, it will have a tougher time solving them.

“The problems there are probably more advanced than Claremont’s are,” she said. “Ours were more focused on prevention, not intervention. Santa Clarita will have to do a little bit of both.”

Claremont spent $100,000 to remodel and reopen a building used as a teen center in the 1960s, which opened at the beginning of this school year, Henry said. She said about 300 to 400 youths have been at the center after recent football games.

And a pool of volunteer doctors is being established to handle prenatal and early childhood health care for young women.

Organizers in Santa Clarita hope that by developing their master plan they will get youths interested in the process of implementing it, something that has often failed with other efforts, Redd said. If that happens, he said, the plan has a much greater chance of success.

“Kids say this is not a youth-family community,” he said. “I’d like to change that perception. We have to show the youth in this community we care about them.”