Turning Points : Mountain Retreat Works to Alter Course for At-Risk O.C. Teens

Tears trickling down her cheeks, Rita is letting go. The tough, 16-year-old homegirl they call La Dura--the hard one--is shedding the armor of the street she has worn so comfortably so long. So great is the weight falling off her back that her knees buckle. Two adult counselors at this mountaintop camp hold her.

The silence is interrupted by the sniffles of other teen-agers in the room. A moment later, the veterano counselor turns away from Rita--whose real name and those of other minors in this story have been altered.

“It’s hard, it’s hard,” he says to the Orange County teens, many of whom, like Rita, are on probation for stealing, robbing, possessing drugs. “But leave it here. Don’t take it back down, because you’ll have to carry that weight forever if you do. I know. I’ve been there.”

The words of the veterano , Ysmael (Smiley) Pereira, seem to be sinking in: Heads bob forward into hands raised to wipe away tears.

This is why they were asked to come here, to learn how to shed the weight of years of living a chaotic life on mean streets. Many of the 52 youngsters, ages 13 to 17, are from gangs, primarily from the poor neighborhoods of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Buena Park and Fullerton.

They have been identified by the Orange County Probation Department as being at high risk of getting locked into a life of crime. This weekend is meant to turn them off that path, to show them a higher road. The program, called Come Together, is the first organized by the department. It is modeled after a Los Angeles program where inner-city kids have been going for 20 years.

About 45 adult volunteers went with the youths to the Barley Flats camp, nestled in the mountains north of Pasadena. Many of the Orange County volunteers are from the Probation Department, some from gang and drug prevention programs in L.A. and Orange counties.

Several of the counselors came from the same chaotic lifestyles as the kids, among them Jessica Valencia, 18, of Santa Ana. After losing a brother and a close friend to gang violence while living in L.A., Valencia moved to Orange County to help make the break from gang life. A veteran of a camp experience while living in L.A., she became involved in the Orange County program to help others. The week she returned from serving as a counselor, though, there was a new and tragic reminder of gang violence in her life: Another of her brothers was killed, this one in a drive-by shooting in Santa Ana. To increase the odds of breaking the cycle of violence that has engulfed many of the teen-agers at the camp, the counselors will continue to work with them for the next year.

The first group follow-up session--which will focus on setting goals--will be Saturday at an Anaheim high school.

“We no longer want to talk to Chango or Butch or La Dura. We want to get inside of the real person,” said Leo Cortez, a 20-year veteran counselor who worked with the youngsters at the camp.

The goal of Come Together is to ignite a psychological domino effect so that these kids can “break,” one counselor said.

The “breaking point” is where they start making realizations about the root cause of their behavior. It’s the point where they take the first step toward a better life.

When the Orange County teens came down from the intense weekend camp in the Angeles National Forest last month, many left behind years of psychological strain--and carried away the possibility of change.

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The teen-agers arrive at the camp Friday afternoon, after a bus ride from Anaheim High School that takes nearly two hours on winding roads. Left behind is the asphalt, the litter and the heat of the urban world. Here, there are cool breezes, pine trees and rocky hillsides.

Used to being free to do as they please in the streets, the possibilities seem endless in the wilderness, away from rules and structure. But the first of many realizations kicks in: they are wrong--there will be lots of rules.

The counselors deliberately provoke emotional responses by treating the teens like children--and strictly disciplining them. Extra chores are assigned to anyone who goes outside camp guidelines. If they don’t want to play by the rules, counselors wait until they do. Which means on the first night, camp activities are halted and everybody is kept up until 2 a.m., waiting until someone confesses to the graffiti on the bathroom wall.

To instill a sense of order and self-discipline, a campground government is formed. The teens are divided into five groups; each offers a candidate for mayor. Craig, the 16-year-old who wins the honorary title, is on probation for armed robbery.

On Saturday, the teens spend the morning outdoors.

Despite the toughness of their lives, they have a chance to be kids: to run around, to play, to sing. There are traditional camp activities as well as group and individual counseling.

Former gang members-turned-counselors talk about the decisions they made as teens that nearly ruined their lives. A performance artist does a skit on the cycles of living in an alcoholic family and the results of not confronting it. From the sessions, the kids learn how to think about choices--gangs or spirituality, drugs or education, crime or integrity, sex or abstinence--and the consequences of making decisions.

To build trust, group members must learn to rely on each other to complete tasks, such as going through an obstacle course blindfolded.

The groups work together to create a musical skit to perform after a dinner of barbecued ribs with all the trimmings. Each group picks a song--from a

selection offered by the counselors: songs like “Stand by Me,” “That’s What Friend’s Are For,” “Respect” and “We Are Family.”

Late in the evening, after a two-hour dance with a live band, the teens gather in candlelight around a table. A bowl of water and towels are on another table. With the guidance of the camp’s spiritual leader, Brother Modesto Leon, they take turns washing one another’s hands. The ceremony is meant to be an outward display of humility, of giving of oneself and of offering thanks.

Sunday morning, tired and the bravado from Friday faded, the teens are pushed toward new self-understanding.

Counselors encourage them to role-play, to let the counselors serve as a stand-in for a person in their lives they need to address.

Sixteen-year-old Janet pleads with her father to stop beating her and then forgives him.

Jim, 17, asks his dead cousin to take away the guilt of having given him drugs and then forgives himself.

Adriana, 15, asks her godfather to stop killing himself with alcohol and then understands him.

Marcela, 16, asks her dead father to explain why he left “Daddy’s little girl” for drugs and then lets go.

And Rita, the 16-year-old known as La Dura, tells her close friend who died violently a year ago that she doesn’t want to die like he did. Answers the friend in the voice of a counselor: “Live! Rita. It’s too late for me, but you can live.”

By the end of the weekend, all but a handful of the teens have let down their guard and shared deeply personal experiences.

When they climb aboard the buses for the trip home, they share closeness and optimism they did not have before.

“We try to get them to see the bigger picture.” says Dan Gaither, an ex-gang member and director of a gang prevention program in Los Angeles. “There are certain guidelines that we give them that they can apply for the rest of their lives. . . . This is something that even adults should go through,” he says. “Go up a mountain and leave some baggage up there.”

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Leon, a Catholic brother of the Claretian Missionaries Order, has been managing the camp lease at Barley Flats for 20 years. In 1975, he secured use of the facilities from the federal government for $1 a year. Through youth programs such as his Soledad Enrichment Action in East Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Probation Department, Leon raises funds to keep the program alive.

He agreed to make the facilities available for an Orange County version of the program three weekends a year for at least five years.

In exchange, Michael Schumacher, Orange County’s chief probation officer, agreed to raise enough money to pay for the repairs of the campsite’s boiler. A $14,000 federal grant and $2,500 from the Probation Community Action Assn. secured the slots.

Los Angeles-area veterans of the camp program gave a helping hand at the first Orange County session, but next time, Schumacher says, he hopes his department can run the show on its own.

A key component of the program is the continuing contact with the teens.

During a girls-only talk session on Saturday, a young woman blurted: “This isn’t like the real world. When we go back down on Monday, everything is going to be the same.”

Counselors hope that won’t be the case.

“The idea was not to have them go up the mountain and break down, and say how wonderful that is,” says camp director Sharon P. Latona. “The idea is to have a long-term commitment with the kids. This is to show them that there are adults who care and who will follow through.”

“A lot of these kids missed their childhoods because they’ve been exposed to violence and death,” says Sandy Swallow, a 15-year Probation Department counselor and camp coordinator. “This is something where they can get underneath that hard-core exterior and be kids again.”

“It’s bringing them to a tranquil, serene environment to do some soul-searching,” Swallow says. “But it is also a place where we hope we’ve given them some skills so when they go back down the mountain, they can lead better lives.”