News
Guns
Champions for Youth
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A boxing camp in honor of
Portland coach and five-time
Golden Glove champion Chuck
lincoln aims to connect youth to
year-round support. Charleen
lincoln, one of lincoln’s six
children is pictured here with Roy
Pitman, longtime wrestling coach
at Peninsula Park community
center. lincoln was a key figure at
the storied knott Street gym,
coaching champion boxers
including Ray lampkin, delray
Penn, Andy Minsker and Phil Ryan.
Penn is coaching at the three-day
camp underway this week at
Ryan’s gym on NE 83rd and
Russell. donations to the Chuck
lincoln’s corner will support gym
memberships, equipment, travel
and academic tutoring. Find out
more at
www.chucklincolnscorner.org
PHOTO BY HELEN SILVIS
stance abuse, mental health diagnoses, arrest records and
deaths. They looked at hospital records from 2006-2007,
then wove in data from the five years before that period and
the five years after.
Seattle’s effort, which cost $150,000, is a first for local
municipalities. Since the 1990s, the federal Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention has been hamstrung in
conducting research into gun violence by Republicans in
Congress, backed by the National Rifle Association.
Conservatives most recently doubled down against fund-
ing studies on the causes of such violence after the Sandy
Hook massacre in 2012, in which a mentally disturbed
young man gunned down 20 little children and six adults.
It was the bloody slayings at Sandy Hook that prompted
members of the Seattle City Council to think about funding
their own study without federal dollars. Last June they
became the first municipal government to take that plunge,
and the surprising findings are already prompting a short
list of policy options, according to Burgess.
In an interview Monday with Marcie Sillman at KUOW,
Rivara said early childhood education and counseling inter-
ventions for victims of gun violence are the best policy
tools to minimize shootings.
In the radio interview Rivara described a 30-minute
“intervention” that Harborview staff conducts with hospi-
talized victims of drug and alcohol abuse before they are
released that has been shown to reduce their rate of sub-
stance abuse by about 50 percent – similar interventions
might help prevent shootings, he suggests.
Rivara said early childhood education in particular has
been shown by many studies to reduce violence in chil-
dren’s lives.
“We think that it is by affecting their early trajectory –
instead of a trajectory where they go down a path of school
failure and drop out, association with other dropouts and
delinquent kids — you have a trajectory instead that is
school success.
“These kids are prepared for school, successful in school
and therefore complete school, and therefore don’t drop out,
they have decent jobs and therefore don’t need to be
involved in crime to live,” he told Sillman.
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The Box
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to live is fundamental.”
The City of Seattle “banned the box” last
year, limiting the use of criminal history in
hiring for anyone who works at least 50 per-
cent of the time within city limits.
“Employers cannot advertise or imple-
ment any policy that categorically excludes
individuals based on their conviction or
arrest record. This means job advertise-
ments that specify “no felonies” or “clean
criminal history required” will not comply,”
the law states.
“Employers can inquire about arrests, but
are prevented from taking a negative action
based solely on an arrest, as it is not proof
of unlawful conduct.”
‘Giving everyone in our community a fair
chance at a good job and a stable place to
live is fundamental’
The Seattle law provides steps in the
employment process in which interviewers
are legitimately allowed to question appli-
cants about their legal history, and specifies
the limitations on employers’ access to the
information and how that information is
used based on new federal Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity Commission guidelines.
The Portland organizing effort received a
big boost this week as the City Office of
Equity and Human Rights Director Dante
James announced the box has been removed
from City job applications.
“Our Governing for Racial Equity (GRE)
conference has prompted a major equity
victory,” James reported in the office’s
how to be leaders in their communities.
“We want to give kids an opportunity to
do meaningful work in the community, and
see that the things you do, with the people
who look like you in your community, are
also very valuable. That’s an incredible les-
son.”
Other programs will bring youth and adults
together to work on placemaking projects
such as the Big Bang of Peace street paint-
ing on North Killingsworth Court and the
Plaza del Sol street painting in Rockwood.
“Culture doesn’t stand alone,” Timarchi
says. “By definition it needs an exchange
between different generations.”
The Big Bang of Peace just secured its
official city permit, so the painting will go
ahead from July 18- 20.
STRYVE also has trained adults as com-
munity health workers specializing in
violence prevention. The workers all have
deep roots in the communities they serve.
And Stavenjord hopes that more long-time
community members, with experience over-
coming violence, can be trained to become
part of the solution.
“This is not just a job,” she says. “It’s not
just a program. It’s more than work, it’s our
passion. We all bring that heart to the work
we do.”
Promoting reading is also part of the
work. STRYVE is working in all four
neighborhoods to place books in Little Free
Libraries for children to take and read. That
means finding residents who will agree to
site the library boxes in their front yards,
quarterly newsletter Tuesday.
“Questions about criminal background, if
relevant to the position, would be asked
later in the hiring process,” he wrote.
“City Human Resources leaders, after
attending the GRE Conference, took to
heart the chilling outcome that these types
of questions can have on former offenders
during the job application process. OEHR
applauds the decision and hopes the change
will attract a more diverse pool of appli-
cants to City jobs.
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STRYVE
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13 youth are murdered every day in the
United States, making it the second leading
cause of death for all young people aged 10-
24. Worse, homicide is the number one
cause of death for Black youth. In fact, the
Centers for Disease Control says youth vio-
lence should be seen as a public health
crisis.
If we want to prevent the damage done by
violence, we have to look at the root causes,
says Stavenjord, and work with the commu-
nities most affected to make changes to the
environment.
Multnomah County Health Department
was one of four local health departments
that won a share of a $4.5 million grant
from the Centers for Disease Control to
tackle the problem. Other programs are
based in Boston, Massachusetts; Houston,
Texas; and Salinas, California.
With training and support from STRYVE,
about 50 youth will work as interns through
the county’s SummerWorks youth jobs pro-
gram. Youth started work in mid June and
will continue through August working on
several community change projects.
Raffaele Timarchi, who coordinates the
SummerWorks program at Multnomah
County, said the YES interns are learning
The Centers for
Disease Control says
youth violence should
be seen as a public
health crisis
Some of the interns also worked for the
program two years ago, interviewing youth
on the street to find out what problems they
experience and whether they have been
exposed to violence. Those street interviews
helped STRYVE staff to formulate a plan
based on nationally recognized best prac-
tices.
But the YES program is just part of
STRYVE's work in Multnomah County.
planting strips or other shared spaces,
Stavenjord says.
“We are building 150 little free libraries to
support lifelong literacy and celebrate the
150th birthday of Multnomah County
Libraries. And we are looking for additional
book donations if anyone would like to
help.”
Stavenjord says books that feature Black,
Latino and other diverse families in stories
of everyday life are particularly welcome.
“We really want books that have charac-
ters who come from communities of color,”
she says. “There are a lot of books that place
people of color in a historical or educational
setting, but not necessarily books who just
happen to have a little kid who slays drag-
ons, for example.”
One survey showed that of 3,200 chil-
dren’s books published in 2013 just 93
featured black leading characters, and 57
featured Latino characters. Locally,
STRYVE has received 4000 book donations
but just under 100 represent communities of
color.
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July 9, 2014 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3