Scuba Program Teaches Troubled Youths to Meet Life’s Challenges

It was the lobsters that got him.

“They told me that when you’re underwater hunting lobsters and you see two antennas poking out of a crack, you can reach in and grab him,” said Danny Flores, 16, a participant in a new city-sponsored program that teaches troubled kids how to scuba dive.

“But if there’s only one antenna sticking out, that means you can’t reach in,” Danny said, “because the lobster is keeping one eye behind him, and there might be a big eel back there.”

The Youth Quest scuba program, run by Bridge Focus, a Van Nuys-based community service agency, was made for San Fernando Valley teens who ordinarily couldn’t afford scuba lessons. Funded with $150,000 from the city of Los Angeles’ Community Development Department, the goal of the yearlong program is to teach about 60 youths like Danny--a gang member from Sun Valley who was expelled from regular school for peddling alcohol and carrying a knife--that there’s more to the world than can be seen at street level.

“When [Danny] walked in here two months ago, he was hip, slick and cool--full of himself, full of attitude,” said Youth Quest Director Jan Barros, standing at the edge of the Cleveland High School pool in Reseda, where Danny recently completed his last pool dive in preparation for his first open-water dive off the Channel Islands.

Now, Barros said, “he gets here early, stays late and helps pack up the equipment.” His teacher says his grades have improved from Cs to A’s and Bs, and his school attendance has increased, too. “And he’s talking about getting a job at a dive shop,” Barros added. “To earn money. To keep diving. He’s challenging himself.”

Danny remains a gang member, but lately, he said, he hasn’t had much time for “those fools I used to kick back with.” It’s taken him two years to complete the ninth grade, but he said he’s finally ready for 10th-grade work at the county-run alternative school he attends in Van Nuys. The dive instructors are in touch with his teacher and his mother, and the program requires that he stay in school. He’s got to prove he can stick to something.

So far, he’s stuck like glue.

“I don’t have time for anything else,” Danny said Friday, the day before his first open-sea dive was scheduled at Santa Cruz Island. “Like right now, I’m supposed to be calling the weather service to find out about this weekend,” he said. “Then I’ve got to get back to Bridge Focus and tell everybody. And if the weather’s good, then I’ve got to go home and get my stuff and get ready.”

The group of six young divers with whom Danny had been training since December needed sunny skies and swells under 2 feet, but didn’t get them. So they’ll try again this weekend.

Program organizers don’t ask youths for money, equipment or experience--just commitment. They must promise to come every week to one of the two city-owned pools--at Cleveland High School or the Hubert H. Humphrey Recreation Center in Pacoima--where volunteer instructors, using discounted rental scuba gear, conduct in-the-water sessions. And they must also promise to attend a weekly class to learn the written material to pass certification tests.

“The way this thing is set up, they got to learn about the physics and physiology of diving,” said Brent Madden, a volunteer diver who is producing a documentary about the program. Madden, who owns an underwater video production company, talks to the kids about dive-related career possibilities.

“The classroom stuff can be boring,” Madden said. “But they get through it. Actually, they’re doing quite well. When they first get here, there’s a lot of ‘I’m really cool, I need to look good.’ But they get over it. They learn everybody’s the same in the water. And the first time they put a regulator in their mouth, they realize they better pay attention to how the thing works or they’re never going to dive anywhere.”

The program, which was funded in September, offered its first class in December, said Barros, a diver and Bridge Focus employee. Barros and Michael Gonzalez, another Youth Quest staff member, began recruiting kids at schools and recreation centers, showing photographs of marine life, talking sharks, fish, mussels, snails--and telling the lobster story that lured Danny.

Barros said she and Gonzalez seek youths who are “really ready to make a change. We want the ones who have had difficulties and want to make a change. All we need is for them to show some interest, to ask questions.”

Danny didn’t know how to swim and had never been on a boat before, but after Barros and Gonzalez came to his school pitching the program, he dove in. He had problems at first with the classroom part, but quickly caught on. He also taught himself to swim.

The program is designed to keep youths involved over the course of the year. Those who obtain their certification could be recruited as assistant instructors, said dive instructor Darrell Walker.

“For them, this could be an intro to marine biology, or video work, or dive store jobs, or instructor jobs,” Walker said. “A lot of the kids ask me how can they get into commercial diving, or get a job teaching at a resort. I’ve got a lot of contacts, and I’ll help them, if they want it.”

Mario Lozano, 15, of North Hollywood, one of Danny’s scuba classmates, hopes to become an assistant instructor. As he buckled on his equipment and prepared to jump into 12 feet of water at the Cleveland pool, he explained the drill.

“We’ll do a quick review of everything we’ve learned so far,” Mario said. “We’ll practice ‘buddy breathing’--where you’re in the ocean and you pretend you’ve run out of air in your tank, so you got to share regulators. And we’ll practice how fast you go up and down. Like, you can’t go up faster than 60 feet per minute, to let the nitrogen out of your system or you can get the bends--that’s when bubbles form in your blood. We’ll practice taking off our BCD--buoyancy control device--and putting it on, underwater.”

Mario, whose 16-year-old sister, Justine, is also a participant, said he’s a little surprised at how much information he has soaked up over the past few months.

“I learned--I really want to do this. I want to see all these things they talk about, under the water. Why not? This whole thing has opened up my eyes.”