HISTORY
OF YOUTH ALIVE!
Public health
activist Deane Calhoun is the founder and Executive Director
of Youth ALIVE! She was inspired to work on preventing youth
violence when she discovered in the mid-80’s that
gun violence had become the leading killer of young people
in this country and that Oakland had the highest rate of
gun homicide of any city in the state of California.
Through the creation
of Youth ALIVE!, Ms. Calhoun combines innovative and effective
approaches to preventing gun violence and youth violence:
Placing youth at the center of youth violence prevention
efforts.
Ms.
Calhoun believed that young people living in neighborhoods
with high rates of violence are experts in identifying both
the causes and also realistic solutions to violence. She
felt that giving them a leadership role in this effort would
also provide a positive alternative to the violence around
them. This belief is the basis upon which she founded the
Teens on Target peer leadership and education program in
1989 with the Oakland Unified School District in California.
The TNT members are “urban messengers”. The
program gives them the opportunity, for the first time,
to carry solutions to their peers, community leaders, the
media and policymakers.
Two
years after she began the TNT program, Ms. Calhoun formed
the non-profit public health agency Youth ALIVE! with a
founding Board of Directors dedicated to preventing
youth violence and building youth leadership in California
communities. The Board was made up of trauma doctors,
pediatricians, a firefighter, a former banker, a police
chief, a foundation representative, non-profit leaders,
a school administrator, and lawyers, including one who had
been shot.
Framing gun violence as a
public health issue.
By compiling data that substantiate the
enormous health care costs caused by gun violence, Ms. Calhoun
and the Teens on Target members help policymakers
understand that gun violence is more than a criminal justice
issue, left to be treated in police stations or hospitals
after it happens. As the former Director of the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention David Satcher said about
violence, If it’s not a public health problem,
why are all those people dying from it?
The public health model calls for changing the conditions
in the environment which cause the health problem to begin
with. Often called “going upstream”, it means
identifying the cause of the problem and working with others
to fix it, instead of just resuscitating the victims “downstream”
after the catastrophic event—such as a shooting—has
occurred. In the case of youth violence, it means limiting
access to guns at the manufacturing, distribution and retail
sales level, holding those who profit accountable for their
damage, and at the same time building youth leadership and
positive alternatives to violence.
Focusing on reducing access to guns.
Ms.
Calhoun and the Teens on Target members worked
effectively for a ban on residential gun dealers in Oakland.
Prior to the ban, there were 115 dealers in Oakland; now
there is only one.
Conducting original research to bolster and support
policy changes.
Youth
ALIVE! has produced original research papers on tracing
the origin of illegal guns used by youth, and on the effectiveness
of the agency’s peer intervention program, Caught
in the Crossfire, for hospitalized victims of violence.
Developing
broad-based, multi-sector coalitions comprised
of law enforcement, health, education, and social service
sectors as the best method to develop and enact policy changes.
Ms. Calhoun worked with the Coalition to Ban Assault Weapons
to provide expert testimony to the California state legislature.
The coalition was made up of doctors, teachers, law enforcement
and community members, and was led by now-President of the
California State Senate Don Perata. The ban, the first of
its kind in the nation, was passed in 1989.
Creating
model policies at the local level which,
because of their success and effectiveness, then spread
to become statewide. Ms. Calhoun, through Youth ALIVE! and
in partnership with the city council, Oakland Police Department,
city attorney’s office, trauma doctors and the Alameda
County Health Department established Oakland as a city that
needed and was willing to develop, enact and enforce regulations
on access to firearms. The city enacted a ban on “Saturday
night specials” and residential gun dealers, because
of the work of Ms. Calhoun and others. With the efforts
of other partnering organizations including the East Bay
Public Safety Corridor and local, state and national gun
violence prevention organizations, plus local and state
legislators, these policies were passed in other cities
in California and then were enacted as statewide policies.
Ms.
Calhoun has combined her interests in health care, youth
and underserved populations throughout her career. She founded
a health center in Wisconsin, developed youth programs in
public housing in Washington DC, ran a domestic violence
shelter in California, and conducted health policy research
and advocacy on numerous issues. She received her MA from
the University of Wisconsin in Urban Affairs, with a focus
on urban health planning. In 1995, The California Wellness
Foundation awarded her the Peace Prize for her work to prevent
youth violence.
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