Aspiring to Serve

Just a year ago, Marco Ramos candidly acknowledges, he “had nothing planned out” for what he would do after graduation from Nathaniel Narbonne High School. When he heard about a new academic program opening at the Harbor-area campus, he applied, mainly because it included a job four afternoons a week.

But now, after spending the past few months in the school’s fledgling Human Services Academy, Marco is preparing for college, his sights set on a career as a juvenile probation officer.

“I like working with kids, tutoring them, passing down my knowledge, listening to them,” Marco, 16, said one recent afternoon at the after-school program that employs him and three of his classmates.

Those are encouraging words to the founders of the Human Services Academy. Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the academy seeks to attract high school students--especially low-income minorities--to careers in youth and family services, mental health and programs for the elderly.

Designed and sponsored by the Mental Health Assn. in Los Angeles County, the academy began in February with just 16 juniors but plans to add 110 in September and to include 240 students in grades nine through 12 by the year 2000. Founders envision a program of five main components--work-based learning, classroom education, student and family support, mentoring and community service--that will steer students to community colleges or universities and, for some, graduate studies.

If fund-raising goes well, the Narbonne High project could be duplicated at five other high schools in Los Angeles County within 10 years and could help ease an acute shortage of bicultural workers in human services.

“In dealing with people at their most vulnerable and sensitive times, it helps if you have a common culture,” said Richard Van Horn, the Mental Health Assn.’s president and chief executive officer. He came up with the academy idea as a way to broaden cultural diversity as well as draw future workers to the human services professions.

He cited a recent United Way survey of 54 Southern California human service agencies, in which 52% cited a large need for bilingual workers and 44% said they need more bicultural workers. A 1995 report by the U.S. Public Health Service found that one in every four people seeking help for substance abuse or mental health care nationwide is a minority, yet only one in 12 professionals in those fields is a minority or bilingual.

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School officials see an additional reason for embracing the new academy. It gives them another tool for motivating and encouraging pupils like Marco--good kids who are average or better students but who lack a plan for their futures.

Several districts have reported success with the academy concept--a specialized “school within a school” that prepares students for work in a particular field. Students usually spend at least part of each school day with other academy students and one or more teachers who work with them throughout their high school years.

Los Angeles Unified has close to 50 such academies, ranging from law and justice to fashion design to graphic arts. They are funded by private grants from their respective fields and by the district, which provides classroom space, books and teachers.

Van Horn said the Human Services Academy will cost about $1.6 million over three years, including the school district’s services--worth about $800,000--and contributions from the Mental Health Assn. The Arco Foundation became the first corporate donor, picking up the tab for the students’ jobs this past semester. Among other private gifts was a pledge of $315 million over 10 years from an anonymous donor.

“These kids will have an enriched curriculum added to the regular core of high school courses,” Narbonne Principal Patrick Donahoe said of the students in the developing Human Services Academy. Four newly hired academy teachers will work on the curriculum over the summer.

“We see these kids doing an awful lot of reading and writing, working on communications skills,” Donahoe added, “And when they leave here, they are going to have a plan.”

Narbonne seemed an ideal place to start the new academy, Van Horn said.

He cited the school’s track record of supporting various innovations aimed at motivating students and its proximity to Harbor College, where academy students will enroll in at least one course next school year, and to Cal State Dominguez Hills, one of only two California state universities offering a human services degree.

In addition, the high school is not far from many Mental Health Assn.-affiliated agencies in San Pedro, Wilmington and the Harbor area, where students will spend time exploring their chosen field.

Finally, the school has a large minority and low-income population--about 85% of its 2,700 students are minorities and 40% qualify for its free or reduced-price lunch program.

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The academy’s work-study component, in which students work at a social service agency from 2 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, provides an important source of income and proved to be an incentive during recruitment, Van Horn said.

Students work at nearby youth programs, the Toberman Settlement House in San Pedro or at a center for the elderly.

The job experience also gives students a ground-floor acquaintance with human services work. The field includes such occupations as psychotherapists, social workers, substance abuse rehabilitation counselors, probation officers, child care workers and a range of other jobs that involve working with youths, families or the elderly.

On Fridays, students spend the afternoon in a classroom with Academy Project Director Gustavo Loera, learning more about the field and talking over the week’s work.

“Yesterday, a kid went sort of crazy and started beating up on other kids,” David Kushner, 15, recounted at one of the Friday sessions.

“What did you do? How did you handle it?” asks Loera.

“We separated him from the group and helped him settle down. It took about 10 or 15 minutes,” David replied.

Other students talked about helping with evaluations of new clients, encouraging residents at a home for the elderly to participate in activities, sitting in on a group counseling session and honing their “active listening” skills.

At the Harbor City Boys and Girls Club’s after-school program one afternoon, Marco, David and classmate Gabriela “Gaby” Carranza, 17, use playacting to demonstrate how their elementary school-age charges can resolve playground conflicts.

“It took a while to get control,” Gaby said of her first few weeks on the job. “But I really like working with kids, and now they are fine. They have really opened up to us.”

For Marco, the job with the Boys and Girls Club has enabled him to build on his own strengths and experiences in providing a role model for the youngsters in his charge.

“I grew up in the projects, and all of my friends got into gangs. I didn’t,” Marco said. “My parents were a lot of help. They always listened to me . . . and now I’m good at listening too.”