An Award Winning Project!

At  his National Project Safe Neighborhoods conference, the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, presented the the Department of Justice Project Safe Neighborhoods Most Outstanding Community Involvement Award 2010 to the Youth Intervention Network in Antioch, Ca, 
The project in Antioch was nominated for this Award by the US Attorney for the of Northern District of California, Mr. Jospeh Russionello. This award distinguishes the Youth Intervention Network as a national best practice in developing effective community collaborations addressing the problem of youth violence while successfully recruiting, training and mobilizing community volunteers. Noteworthy elements of  the Youth Intervention Network are:

1. The  High Performing Community Collaboration framework - as developed by Emerald Consulting.
2. At risk indicators identified through individual analysis of more than 8,000 youth with legal safeguards to protect privacy.
3. The involvement of a high number of volunteers who do the actual support-work for the kids and their families. At present more than 100 volunteers have invested more than 20,000 volunteer hours, and completed approximately 100 hours of training each.
4. The application of "Dialogue for Peaceful Change" (DPC) as the so called 'software' of the system to enhance effective cooperation between involved agencies as well as the quality of the interventions, made by the volunteers in different roles.

As an effect of this award, a number of new communities showed a strong wish to have this approach replicated in their communities as well. Meetings with officials from the US government are supporting the idea that more cities in the USA can apply this approach. In the meanwhile it is also important to enlarge the group of involved people in Antioch itself. When Antioch can be sustained, the enlargement is possible. We are working on that!
Iris Archuleta, Jaap van der Sar
For more information: jvdsar@stichtingoikos.nl