A kickball game held last Thursday that put teens against USM “celebrities” is just one of the examples of activities offered through the Parkside Youth Empowerment Program. The program was created as a collaboration between the Parkside Community Policing Center and USM’s Department of Social Work.
The program began this spring through the social work department as part of a class titled “Community Practice with Adolescents.” A similar program used to be available through the School of Nursing. The class is taught by social work professor Michelle Vazquez Jacobus, and begins every Thursday with an hour and a half long lecture, then students spend the afternoon one-on-one with teenagers from the parkside community (the area around Deering Oaks Park).
Susan Burns, community services coordinator for the Parkside Community Policing Center helped Vazquez Jacobus arrange for USM students to be mentors, and also helps with the activities. The center works in the parkside area with “a mission to improve the quality of life and increase the perception of safety,” Burns said.
Workers at the center talk to area residents about issues, try to build the community, and serve as liaisons to give referrals for services needed by those in the community. The center is run and supported by area police; two officers and one civilian coordinator are assigned to the center. Burns said one of the pluses of this is that police officers get to know the people in the neighborhood.
Each USM student in Vazquez Jacobus’ class has mentored one teen each semester. Evan King, a transfer student from the University of Rhode Island, was in the class this semester and really enjoyed the experience with the teens.
“I joined because I wanted to get more experience with teenagers. It opened up a lot of new doors,” King said.
Teens chosen to participate in the program have all “faced a great deal in their lives. They have been identified by neighborhood agencies or school social workers as kids who could get a lot out of being with a weekly mentor,” said Vazquez Jacobus.
The teens chosen are from King Middle School and are between 13 to 17 years old.
Vazquez Jacobus said that the area around the school, “is the most densely populated square block in Maine, and also the most richly diverse. There are 51 different languages spoken in the school.”
Teens and their mentors have participated in activities including roller-skating, hanging out in the park, arts and crafts, community parties, and fund-raisers such as car washes. The culmination of the semester-long relationship between the students and teens will end in a fund-raiser supported trip to a Six Flags theme park.
Vazquez Jacobus said the experience of working for an end goal will hopefully serve as a metaphor for the teens’ lives. She said that it can “help them come up with a goal they chose, and work to achieve it.”
Burns feels as though “the community has really benefited from the enthusiasm, dedication, and commitment of the USM students.”
Along with the social work class, Parkside Center is also an official USM clinical site for the School of Nursing, and has had both social work and sociology interns. Vazquez Jacobus hopes that more classes like the one she is teaching will become available at USM. She believes that “Service Learning,” integrating a practical aspect with lectures, “is the only way to make any kind of material meaningful.”
“Since we are a public university in Portland, we have to integrate with community members,” she said.
Vazquez Jacobus would like to see more attention and regard to the types of classes that provide actual experiences. She thinks that the class has gone very well and, “the flexibility to deal with the chaos that is life and the teenage life is really an experience.”
Burns agrees and said, “Learning happens on both sides.”
Staff Writer Natalie Frye can be contacted at [email protected]