Committee Hearing, February 21, 2008

-- having an impact on their families.

Sure.

Okay. 170 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Would you still stay around?

Yeah. I will be around. If I'm not here, I'll be out in the hallway.

Thank you. The Chair calls on Mr. David Fattah and Tracey Gordon. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Tracey, you're familiar with this process. You come at 10:00. You stay until 6:00.

Yup. And I'm going to do ten minutes on this. Good afternoon, Councilwoman Tasco. Thank you for holding these meetings, and welcome and good afternoon to you, Councilwoman Sanchez. I just want to comment that if we can't trust a Mayor, whether he's incoming or outgoing, then we elected him, he was the Chief Executive Officer of the City, and I would wonder why he's not here testifying, along with his 171 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Managing Director. I'm not here representing any particular group. I'm coming here as a parent, a parent who was born and raised in Philadelphia and, unfortunately, when I was married, I was in a very abusive relationship and had to leave, and without the support services that I got from the City, I would not have been able to take my four children to a safe haven, go back and get my college degree from both Community and Temple with honors and -- (Applause.)

-- not to mention be comfortable working a 9:00 to 5:00, knowing that my children, who all were at the time ten and under -- I had an infant at one point and that had to go to a provider, and I was very, very, very leery about leaving my kids, because I was his housewife and, you know, I have certain dietary rules and certain things that I want my kids to be exposed to, and 172 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 in this environment where you don't know -- volunteers is one thing, but when people are working around my children or anybody's child or grandchild, I want them to have a criminal background check and I want them to have child abuse clearance and I don't want them to be pedophiles and all that kind of stuff. This is a serious -- this is a blemish on the City of Philadelphia. This is a contradiction to Mayor Nutter's campaign that he wanted us to restore safety in our neighborhoods and he wanted to graduate more kids. When you suspend 300 truancy programs -- and you know for a fact that this was the first year that I ever received a letter that told me that, Your son was absent on this day and we didn't get a note. My kids are hardly ever absent and I had to think, because I'm like when was he absent, and that was as a result of this truancy program and the partnership with the School District of Philadelphia. 173 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 (Applause.)

And I think -- to fund parks is great and to fund recreation is great, but when you don't fund for a parent -- a lot of us are single parents, male or females, and a lot of us are struggling to work from day to day. A lot of us got to take two jobs. You cannot be efficient on your job when you don't know where your child is. (Applause.)

And $21 million is cents when it compares to the safety 16 of our children. 17 (Applause.) 18

I'm a community 19 leader as well. Okay? Studies will tell 20 you -- we don't have to do no more 21 studies. Between the times of o'clock and o'clock is when our children between the ages of and are introduced to drugs, pre-marital sex, crime. That's a study that's been done. 174 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 You go over the Youth Study Center and most of the kids, I will guarantee you, that are in Youth Study Center have never had the chance to be in a program that after-school programs provide, and for us to be dillydallying over $21 million, it is a disgrace. (Applause.)

It is a disgrace. And I took off from my job and I wrote a letter, and I know they say I have a big mouth, but I'm going to continue to have a big mouth, because how in the world could you tell a parent that they got until March the 1st to find an after-school program? How in the world are you going to tell -- (Applause.)

By the way, I've worked for one of the subsidiaries of Safe and Sound and I do believe -- this is my own opinion -- that it must be like a personal vendetta, because Safe and Sound always was synonymous with Naomi 175 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Street, and it never -- when you say Safe and Sound, let's talk about the good things. I worked for -- I ran an after-school program. In one week, one week, I recruited 100 and had to turn almost 50 to 100 families away. I was over capacity, but I said we were going to make this work. And this was in Southwest Philadelphia. I have Hispanic families that was in that program. The parents could not even speak English from Dominican Republic who would bring their little kids to me, and I would have a six-year-old translate to their mother and the mother translated back to their child, because they needed a safe haven, because they had come here from Dominican Republic, come to work and they didn't have to worry about an after-school program because the after-school program was in the school that they attended until 6 o'clock. And not only that, not only that, we fed -- we not only fed those kids, they partnership with 176 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 programs like Spirit Puppet where they came in and taught the third and fourth graders not only how to write a play, produce a play, direct a play, they created their own super sized puppets and performed the play and performed it for the Paul Robeson months later to preserve those -- we had Drexel University coming there and teach those children and bring their families in and teach them what to eat and what not to eat. These programs are good, and this was all for free. The public school system every other week, half a day or -- you can't take those many days off at work and then -- (Applause.)

-- the Administration is going to tell Welfare to Work, you get off welfare because we're tired of you on welfare. Well, those Welfare to Work mothers have children and somebody got to take care of those children. And the programs -- and 177 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 the applications that we have -- by the way, I had 100 people signed up. It's this thick. Them parents filled them out. I had the lady that was Hispanic couldn't even read it. I had the six-year-old sit there and translate the entire -- because they needed those programs. So for us to be dillydallying around here for $21 million is a sad blemish. And as far as the Administration goes -- and we welcome it, a new day, a new way, whatever. You know what I mean? How in the world are you going to have people graduating when the parents don't even know where they kids is? And I'm telling you, I'm a community -- I'm in my community every day. I look out my window. I'm the noosy neighbor. The kids that don't go to after-school programs in my community are the ones that are either now in jail or now they're getting out of jail and 178 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 saying, Ms. Tracey, I'm trying to do the right thing. The kids that had supervision, whether the supervision was your mother said, You better not leave out this house until I come home, or they had them in music programs, those are the kids on my block that are now in college, graduating from college. So $21 million is chump change compared to what we need in these programs, and it is really a shame. (Applause.)

Thank you very much.

It is a shame. And then lastly I will say, we got one of the worst graduation rates in the country. The City of Brotherly Love, the worst graduation. And we're going to suspend the truancy program. The truancy program, them parents was going out in bad neighborhoods, knocking on them doors, you know, taking a chance of being assaulted by the children. The parents 179 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 who may be on drugs or knew they was wrong, maybe the kid wasn't going to school because they was being abused. And we are in the beginning stages of a serious Blood/Crip gang problem, and we better get more after-school problems, because we are getting ready to get just like Los Angeles is and just like Trenton is right now. And I just ask you, Councilwoman Tasco and every Councilperson that's here, $21 million is cents when it 14 compares to what our kids need. This is 15 crazy. And Mayor Nutter, as educated as 16 he is -- he has a daughter, Olivia. She 17 the one that put him on the map with that 18 commercial. She has. She put him on the 19 map. 20 (Applause.) 21

That girl, I bet you she in an after-school program. And from what I heard, that she got on the bus and went to her mother's job and was with her mother. How many of y'all can 180 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 bring your kids to your job and sit them there until you get off work? It's unfair, and we need to just stop playing these games. And that lady gave some statistics. How come we sent back money -- we should have never sent a cent back to DPW. That's a blemish on the community. That's a blemish on the City of Brotherly Love. And we need -- and, yes, he had to reverse that. He had to reverse that because he knew that the people that he doing the most damage on is the ones that was voting for him. It's a shame. (Applause.)

Thank you very much.

I don't mean to holler at y'all, but I'm passionate about this. And I will for the record say my kids are grown, so that it ain't about Tracey's little kids. My youngest is 16 and he finds after school things to do. He had to go outside the county to do it, 181 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 but I'm working on that in my district. He had to go to Yeadon to find a basketball, because my district is having some problems. But the bottom line is, one graduated from college, one a year and a half in college, one just got out of a school and now she's in a program, somewhat like a Safe and Sound, that has not only given her a stipend, but given her money if she completes it every year to further her education. This program is a jewel. We should not run it in the ground. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Mr. Fattah? Thank you very much for your testimony, Ms. Gordon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Sister. 182 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 I'm going to spare you that. Don't get nervous. Giving honor to God. I really appreciate you having this hearing, Ms. Tasco. Lady Sanchez, I think you just got elected here. We're glad to see you down here. I haven't been down here in a while. , and his crew. And I kind of predicted -- of course, Ms. Blackwell. The new crew came, it's going to getting a little bit more exciting down here. I haven't been disappointed, because this is indeed a passionate issue. I'm from the House of Umoja. For those of you who do not know, the House of Umoja has three basic functions as we see them. One is that we have a residential situation for young people. We have had this situation for some time. We have 15 young men that we have gotten and we try to encourage to go to school. 183 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 We call it our truancy prevention program. The other thing the House of Umoja does is that we deal with conflicts and we try to stop violence in the neighborhood and violence in the schools. In terms of the neighborhood, we've been very fortunate. We were able to resolve some serious conflicts in the last three or four years. We've added some groups in our neighborhood so that the schools could move a lot more easily. The other thing we do, we have about 13 schools that we look and take care of. We have people working there, and I work -- and some of them what they call is emergency response, and I'm going to talk a little bit about that before I leave, if I have the opportunity. But I can understand how you feel. I really can. For example, this thing called a suspension letter, it's kind of like a school suspension, but usually if we get a suspension, there's a 184 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 reason to it, you did something or you didn't do something, bingo here it go. I remember very clearly that we got such a letter and it was around Christmastime. These letters came around Christmastime to about 200 providers such as myself who take care of children. Now, usually around Christmastime you expect a Christmas card. Now, I've been sitting here today. My mind has been blown to hear that this letter was mainly some type of accounting malfunction like they had at the Super Bowl, only nobody said, Excuse me, here's your money back, we was just jiving, don't panic, Dave. But the main thing I'd like to say to you before I leave is, one, I think that somebody owes some folks an apology and some children for sending out such a letter around Christmastime, and that should be dealt with. Secondly, I'd like to testify on behalf of Sayre High School. Sayre 185 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 has a Beacon program in its high school and we've been able to use that in terms of the gathering place in the midst of situations where kids have been killed. A year ago from today a child was killed trying to get to Sayre School, and he also had a gun laying next to him. We went into Sayre and talked to the children and were able to get this resolved. One of the things we did, we had two serious meetings. Councilwoman Blackwell was kind enough to be at one. We started a Safe Corridors in one, and we asked the Beacon program and the Home and School Association if they could just get one of the groups to that meeting that have been shooting around the school, we think perhaps we would convince them to stop and maybe our children could get in and out that school without further bloodshed. This was accomplished. We went to these kids a year 186 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 ago today, on February the 29th, the last day of Black History Month. The kids at Sayre University, at Sayre -- it's now a high school, excuse me, not a university, but they act that way -- signed this document. This is called an Imani Pledge.

"Whereas, in 1974, the youth in the City of Philadelphia took the bold step to ensure that following generations would not have to experience the self-destruction and agony of gang warfare. We honor them for this and for keeping their word. "Whereas, inasmuch as our ancestors, parents, teachers, caregivers, elder community members and others that have shed blood that we might acquire an education, we give our word to refrain from fighting during school, after school and inside of school, and we encourage those that we know to do the same. "Whereas, we too are a proud generation and we want to succeed. "On this day, I" -- and they 187 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 sign their name -- "sign this document to let it be known wherever it needs to be known that I care deeply about our community and will do all in my power to return us to our traditional greatness. " And we're going to send a copy of this to people that like to send suspension letters. And I'd like to commend the children that are here today and young folks. It's our thing here today we want to promote the welfare, safety and your aspirations. It's good that you're here to see and begin to get your lessons in life to find out that this is no easy job. I'd like to thank you for this opportunity. If you want to see this and sign this and send it to us, we have a festival once a year. Over 5,000 young people have been involved with this process, and we would like to give you the credit you deserve for helping to try 188 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 to make this City safer and that we can move forward in peace and prosperity. Thank you very much. )

Good afternoon.

Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.

I'll do that.

Please. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilwoman, members of Council. I'm Cheryl Weiss. I'm the Executive Director of Diversified Community Services. We're based in Point Breeze, Councilmanic District No. 2. We have several contracts with Safe and Sound that include a Beacon at the Vare Middle School, various after-school programs in public schools and the Adolescent Violence Reduction Partnership. So at any given time, we're serving about 450 kids on a day. 189 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 I want to applaud the City Administration for restoring the funding for the after-school programs, but at this moment, it is at best difficult to know what this means since we've had no 7 communication. Prior to the Mayor's announcement, we sustained cuts as follows: We lost the truancy prevention program that's been referenced that was across the board. We lost an after-school program for at least 30 kids at our new social service center. We took a $20,000 budget cut in our Beacon program, and I just found out this morning that another one of our programs has about $9,000 left, which means that I will close it down, throw 40 kids out and lay off five staff. The point here is that if I seem a little uncertain, I am. This entire process has been managed abysmally. There's been no single point of contact or communication. The notification that we've received has 190 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 been, at best, contradictory. One day I have a program; the next day I don't. I run a business, albeit a non-profit one, and I need to be able to run my operation in a rational way. To underscore that point, just now, about an hour ago, although this is not related to Safe and Sound, we are finding out that the Department of Human Services on the community-based prevention side is e-mailing around to directors and others to find out how I can make cuts in a program by Sunday. I have a signed contract with the City of Philadelphia. That's an outrage to me. And I agree with the woman before me. I have a letter from the City of Philadelphia. I think that should be good enough and not have to make cuts like this. Let me also respond to this notion or the comment referencing the letter that Safe and Sound sent out in mid-October. I received a copy of that 191 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 letter, and the letter was quite specific. It said if you are opening up new programs or expansion programs, you might be skating on thin ice. The programs I'm referring to here are not new. I've had them for five years. We started the curfew center, my agency. We were the first ever. One day it's here; the next day it's gone. I think it's back, but today I'm told it may be gone again. So we need some rationality here. We're running services. And the impact on our families as well as our workforce is really great. And let me just make this one other point about the use of the basis upon which decisions were made. There's been reference to something called the SACERS. It's referred to -- what it means is School-Age Children's Environmental Rating Scale, and all that is is a scale by which to evaluate a program. We were told, all of us who 192 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 received funding, contracts with Safe and Sound, that when the SACERS score, an assessment tool, would be administered in May of the past spring, 2007, this would be used as a base, an opportunity for all of us to improve our programs. Well, you know what, Councilwoman? I didn't get the results of my SACERS scores until mid-December. How in goodness sakes was I going to make any kind of improvement in my programs if I'm just finding out about it in mid-December? And it's on that basis that -- (Applause.)

-- cuts were made. That's not right. That's not fair. So as we move forward, I would ask the new Administration and City Council newly configured that you involve us and members of the community in planning. Those of us who have been doing this work, toiling in the vineyard, we've got years and years of experience and knowledge to be shared, and this 193 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 process could have been managed a great deal better had we been involved from the get-go. Thank you. (Applause.)

Let me just ask you a question. Up until this point with this scenario, what was your relationship and what was the relationship with Safe and Sound with your program?

What was our relationship?

Yes. The service they provided, the communication, what was the quality of communication and information that you received from the program?

I would say over time the level of communication with Safe and Sound, quite frankly, has improved. From when we were first involved, I don't know, five years ago, the communication was very irregular and spotty. Now at 194 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 this point, I'm almost overwhelmed with communication on an ongoing basis. I mean, we get all kinds of letters, e-mails and so forth. With respect to this particular process, the communication has been, at best, confusing, and I think, as Anne Shenberger pointed out, if you're not reading those letters really carefully and looking at the templates, well, I mean, given that I have seven different contracts, I got seven different letters. You know, I had Pile A, maybe, yes, no. 15 I mean, it was difficult to sort out. But, in general, the communication with Safe and Sound has been certainly adequate.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Amato.

Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Jim Amato, Deputy Secretary for Catholic Social Services. 195 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Catholic Social Services currently operates ten Beacon programs in Archdiocesan elementary schools and three after-school programs through a contract with Philadelphia Safe and Sound. The Beacon programs were implemented over the past months and were very well 9 received and attended by the parents and 10 children that we serve. The February 11 announcement of the drastic reduction in 12 funding for our Beacons and after-school 13 program jeopardized after-school services 14 for 370 children and 403 adolescents. 15 The notice did not provide appropriate time for transition planning, so suffice it to say, that we were tremendously relieved to hear that the funding even for the after-school programs was restored. Although this is good news, we are now in the process of laying off staff in the four Beacon programs where funding is being reduced. We have not received confirmation from Safe and Sound regarding the funding 196 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 level for the remainder of this fiscal year. Beyond that, we are uncertain as to what next fiscal year will mean for the children and families we serve. Again, we were pleased with the Mayor's announcement on Tuesday that the after-school programs and our Beacons will continue, as this is vital for the communities, children and parents and schools. With that, we need to know the specific funding level for current programs. Also, changes of this scope require provider input, as we are in daily contact with the communities, families and children served and are positioned to provide critical advice as to what programs need to be maintained. Thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you very much for your testimony. (Applause.)

And thank you for waiting. I appreciate it. Nice 197 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 to see you again.

Excuse me. Madam Chairman?

Yes.

If I may, before they go. First of all, to everyone who spoke thus far and who are about to speak, thank you for your endurance. I know how long this hearing has been. And to you, Madam Chairwoman, you have stamina that I'm impressed with.

I'm just numb.

Cheryl, I've worked with you in another life and I know you to be a quantitative person, I'll put it that way. And I won't call you a bean counter, but you were in the Finance Department and you know your stuff when it comes to measurement. My theory is, if it ain't measured, it ain't managed. So it is a theory that says that if you can quantify 198 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 certain things and you can cost account certain things, you see the benefit of certain things. Now, if I understand these fundings correctly -- and I just checked with people smarter than myself -- that we're doing the Beacon centers and the after-school programs in the truancy centers, right?

Curfew.

Curfew centers. Now, if we talk about measuring that, have we quantified -- and I read the Report Cards that are produced. We're quantifying what the after-school programs mean in terms of educational attainment and grade performance and all of the different measurements there, right?

Is your question, Councilman, are there outcome measures for these various programs?

Yes.

Yes and no. Yes 199 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 and no. In some cases -- this is my opinion. Our curfew center, for example, we've been up the longest. We've been running for about a year and a half, and at least based on the data that I have seen from the Police Department, the level of crime in the 17th Police Precinct has dropped from a high of about percent now to about three percent. 11 Now, that's not to say that -- and for 12 other reasons, that in addition to the 13 curfew center, the other curfew centers, 14 some of them have only been open for 15 about six months or seven months and 16 others have just started as recently as 17 November. So the data isn't there. 18 In the case of after-school programs, I can tell you that at least for us, given the level of staff that we can employ, we're not really boosting children's academic performance. I would not want to go on record saying that, but what I can say is that in our neighborhood, which is really one of the 200 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 most violent in the City, we provide a safe place for kids to go, that they've got a safe place, that mom or dad or both know that their child comes to my place, that I have a staff in place who have been cleared, that they're engaged in productive activities. Does it play out that I'm going to improve their reading scores? You know, they're with me 11 hours a week. I don't know that I can 12 prove that to you, but I do think it makes a difference in the neighborhood. I think the neighborhood is safer. It's less chaotic. I mean, all of those things taken together make for a better place.

Sure. I asked you that because what would be helpful for me and I believe this Council and Administration is that percent of 22 the City's budget is represented in the 23 judicial process, the police force and 24 its prisons, 24 percent of the budget. If we look at what prevention does, 201 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 prevention does, and you cost it out -- and I'm almost trying to draw it out of you to say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we are paying $31,000 annually to incarcerate an individual annually and the people who build and plan for prisons know that if a child in the inner city cannot read up to grade level at the age of -- at the fourth grade level, they can predict how many prison cells to build, that it seems to me retro-engineering that we can make a case for -- (Applause.)

Right.

And when I worked in the Finance Department, you were more quantitative than I, but I would love to see a model on over time, over time how we impact that through various programs like this. When a kid can read, he can work. When a kid can work, he doesn't have to steal. I have yet to meet a 202 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 $50,000 a year armed robber, you know. So I want to --

That's true.

I want to try to over time quantify. Finally, I would say this, that after-school programs -- and I've dealt in economic development most of my adult life, but before that, I came from the House of Umoja's Boys Town, which is the first after-school program I had the misfortune of and fortune of having to be in. My point to you is this, that we have to measure things differently today. We have to show what prevention actually does at the end product and outcome of other budgets that we have to assume. So if we can do that, if I can urge financial people like yourself to kind of plan on those kinds of models, I think we can argue a lot more effectively for the effectiveness of some of these programs. Even if you can't quantify the 203 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 grade amount, if you can quantify the fact that that person is in an after-school program, they're not in the dangerous hours of crime for juveniles, then that's a measurement.

Oh, absolutely, and I think that we can certainly produce that kind of measurement and outcome based on cost, because if its $31,000 to put a person in jail, I mean, you know, I can take care of a kid in an after-school program for 1,500 and keep that kid out of a detention facility and then on to an adult prison. So I'd be happy to do that.

I would just add very quickly, we know at this moment of time, at 5:35 on a Thursday evening, that literally hundreds of parents are picking up children at Catholic elementary Beacon schools who have their homework done, who have been fed a nutritious snack and have enjoyed their peers and their parents have been able to work. Measurement is 204 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 important. I think that speaks for itself. (Applause.)

Thank you. Thank you both for your testimony. We appreciate it very much. Cheryl, nice seeing you again.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

We've been around a long time, haven't we?

Oh, gosh, yeah. Thank you.

I'm glad to see you're still working in the community. We next have William Harris, Brenda Blair, Gesu Beacon. Susan Hicks, Michael Fagan, Belinda Harrison, Katrina McCoy from the REDI-Harrison Beacon. Are you all here? (Witnesses approached witness table.) UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Not 205 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 everyone.

We'll entertain those people who are here. The next group will be Pat Hines and Shelah Harper. We again ask you all, please, to summarize your testimony. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman Tasco and Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez. My name is Susan Hicks. I am the Site Director of the REDI-Harrison Beacon program located in the heart of North Philadelphia. We are in a high-need, low-resource area. However, our program has been slated to be cut by March the 1st. Over the past six years, we have serviced over 679 youth. Currently, we have 112 youth enrolled, of which --

Just a moment. Could we ask you to please take your conversations to the hall, please. 206 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Thank you. Go ahead.

Of which 95 attend on a daily basis. Data-wise, with our Beacon being shut down, it would affect over 300 people because of the fact that these are the families. And we did a data collection to determine all the families that were involved, including staff, and that comes to about 300 people within a five-block radius. At the REDI-Harrison Beacon, we are the only service for elementary-aged students that's located in that area. Other area Beacons do not have programs designed for elementary school ages, from ages 5 to 11, nor the properly trained staff with this population. The closure of the REDI-Harrison Beacon will directly create after-school childcare issues for over 75 families, many with working parents whom rely upon the REDI-Harrison Beacon as a 207 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 resource for affordable after-school programming. No other alternative exists within our community. REDI-Harrison employs qualitative curriculum. REDI-Harrison Beacon offers a wide variety of programming geared towards ages 5 to 11 years old. All programs are conducted by our consultants, and we have teachers that are constantly in training for professional development. To date, the REDI-Harrison Beacon contracts over five different consultants annually. REDI-Harrison Beacon is located inside the Harrison Elementary School. The majority of our youth attend the Harrison Elementary School, thus parents don't have to worry about transporting youth from school to an after-school program. Parents don't have to worry about youth traveling the dangerous streets of North Philadelphia to get to an after-school program. Parents don't have to worry about youth going to empty 208 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 homes while parents are working. We have in-class disciplinary problems. Our in-class disciplinary problems are minimized due to the partnership between our Beacon staff and the Philadelphia school teachers. REDI-Harrison Beacon staff provides direct support to the District academic curriculum. REDI-Harrison Beacon staff provides direct support on site, and we reinforce what the teachers do during the day and basically the overall academic curriculum of the Philadelphia School District. Harrison teachers testify that Beacon attendees' grades and behavior improve dramatically after being enrolled in our Beacon program. REDI-Harrison Beacon's attendance and participation levels are overwhelming. REDI-Harrison Beacon enjoys an attendance rate of 90 percent since inception. We have tripled since 2003, and we foresee that even tripling more over the next three years. 209 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 We currently have a waiting list in two of our areas, for the kindergarten students and also for our -- we call them red, green, blue, gold families. For our gold family, we also have a waiting list. We are a grassroots program in North Philadelphia. REDI-Harrison's family-oriented approach encourages participation of the entire family. Many activities, especially the summer's end performance, are attended by parents, grandparents and great grandparents. REDI-Harrison Beacon is staffed by community residents. So with a cut of our Beacon program, we're not only affecting the children, but a large portion of our staff live right there in the community. REDI-Harrison partners are the following people and organizations from the immediate community: State Representative W. Curtis Brown -- I'm sorry; W. Curtis --

Thomas. 210 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

Thomas. Thank you. Is one of our partners. Thank you. Also, the Althea Gibson Community and Tennis Center. We partner with them, the 11th Street Health Center, Christ Memorial Baptist Church. And I just wanted to run through very briefly the programs that we offer at the REDI-Harrison Beacon program. We have homework help; scientific-based reading program with Achieve 3,000; academic achievement games; organized sports; rap sessions; theatre training; public speaking; choir training; tennis; graphic arts; fitness center; girls lacrosse program, which is pending funding; healthy eating/healthy lifestyles; field trips; special events; summer camp. And we have several consultants: Hollow Joe-Joe, the Rouse Company, the Academy of Fine Arts. And we were until recently servicing through the REACH truancy program. Thank you very much. 211 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

Thank you very much. State your name. What is your name? MS. McCOY: Katrina McCoy.

Okay, Katrina. You want to talk about REDI-Harrison also? MS. McCOY: Yes. I just want to say that I'm a single parent of one daughter, who is ten, and she goes to Harrison Elementary and Beacon program, and I feel like while I'm at work, I don't want to have to worry about where my daughter is. I don't want her to have to go somewhere else. I like where she is. You know, I get there sometimes like at 5:30 and whatever they're doing, learning, whatever, I have to sit and wait, because I don't want to interrupt her learning. And she loves it, and I love it. And it's like she's the air I breathe and I don't want to worry while I'm work what she's doing and if she's 212 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 all right and -- I'm sorry.

That's all right. Go ahead. MS. McCOY: Y'all just shouldn't cut the program, because children should come first, you know. They should find funding for it and just cut something else that's not as important as our children. Because my daughter is everything to me, and I'm sure the parents feel the same way about theirs. And I just don't want to have to worry about that. I have other stuff I have to worry about besides my daughter wandering the streets trying to get home, there's a shootout or whatever. People that don't have (unintelligible) acting crazy. I like the fact that when she's at the Beacon program, it's like she's with her aunties and uncles, you know. Everybody is a family. They know my first name, they know her. I come in there, everybody telling me, China did this, China did that. You know, they 213 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 look out for our kids, and if you cut it, that's not good at all, you know. Thanks.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Good afternoon, Majority Leader and Committee Chairman Tasco, as well as Councilwoman Sanchez. My name is Daryll Barkley and I am the President and CEO for the Junior MBA Platinum All-Stars Program under the National Basketball Association. My organization was contracted by the REDI-Harrison Beacon Center, as well as the Norris Square Beacon Center to provide a violence reduction basketball program in communities where violence was at a high level. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and I'm going to keep it very brief. I just want to place on the record that during Mayor Nutter's campaign, he declared a new day. When he 214 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 took oath to office, he declared a new way. Indeed, it is a new day, but a sad way and a sad day any time thousands of school-aged children that attend these Beacon centers and after-school programs are threatened by a budget issue. It threatens the livelihood of our children, our parents, the workforce, the employees that come to work faithfully every day to provide services to these children. At his first budget address, the Mayor stated that his Administration would focus on customer service; that is, providing quality services to Philadelphia citizens, the Administration's customers. At a press conference yesterday, the Mayor stated that he would restore funding to after-school programs. I would truly hope that this becomes a reality. Providers, parents, children and employees are counting on this. This budget issue is not just playing with numbers. It's playing with 215 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 lives, lives of our children, our City's most vulnerable constituents. (Applause.)

And I encourage Council, our elected officials -- we have to remember, they were elected to serve the citizens of the City of Philadelphia. This issue is indeed an entire City crisis, and I urge Congress, I urge City Council, our Philadelphia elected officials, State Representatives, Senators, anyone with the power to step in this situation and take control of this pathetic situation. Our children should not be left to not having a Beacon center or after-school program. I'm hearing that the Beacon programs are being restored, but they're only being restored from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. Well, the foundation was built back in 2001 for these Beacons to operate an after-school and a family preservation component. When you have a house, a house is built on a foundation. If a car 216 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 runs into that house and damages one percent or ten percent of that foundation, that house is destroyed. Well, with these Beacon centers and after-school programs, if you cut the budget, if you take out of that budget, if you cut the services that's being provided, then you're damaging that foundation, and you will not get the results that these programs have proven to be effective. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you all so very much for your passionate testimony. We appreciate your taking time to come down. We appreciate your mother for speaking up for your child and for all the children in the Beacon programs and for your bravery, because I could see that you were a little nervous, but we thank you so much. I remember my son was a latchkey son, so I would have loved to 217 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 have had a Beacon program when I was a young mother. That was a long time ago, though. But thank you. (Applause.)

Yes. Next?

Hello. My name is Ianna Williams and I attend Freire Charter School and I also --

You have to speak a little slower because we have old ears.

Okay. My name is Ianna Williams and I attend Freire Charter School. I also attend after school the Beacon REDI-Harrison program, and Beacon has done a lot for me. I come every day after school. They help me with my homework. They also -- excuse me. They also --

Take your time.

They made a Youth Council. They made us jobs for 218 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 people that was old enough in the green group. I'm in the green group, and they made us jobs. We work with -- I work with small kids and -- in another group I work with small kids. Also, I believe that if you took away the Beacon program, that it's going to be more teenage pregnancies and more boys in jail or dead. After school we come there so we could be off the streets, and we feel safe in Beacon, and we just -- they have a basketball team for the boys and they come every day. Some of them come every day. They come for practice. Ms. Yolanda and Mr. Webb, they help us with our homework. That's the employees of Beacon. They help us with our homework. Anything we need, they give it to us. And I think that if you took it away, that we will have nothing to do after school and we would just be getting into stuff that we don't need to get into after school. If you took it away, we won't have nothing to 219 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 do.

Thank you very much for your testimony. (Applause.)

We thank you all very much. But we trust that the Mayor made his commitment on Tuesday to make the children whole, and we served on City Council for years with Councilman 11 Nutter, now Mayor Nutter. We don't have 12 a sense that he doesn't tell the truth. 13 He seems to be a fairly honest, decent 14 person. So we'll criticize if it doesn't 15 happen. Let's give a positive let's-go with this. Okay. We have here William Mackey and gang, Shelah Harper, community activist. And is Tracey Scott, Josh Howard and Shinika St. Cyr here? Everybody is here. Okay. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Hi.

Be brief. 220 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

Thank you. First I want to say thanks for giving us the opportunity, City Wide Youth Agency, to present. It's good to see some friends, new friends on Council, Councilman Jones, who have been out to our program many times, and other Councilpeople that know our program. I guess about ten years ago, City Wide Youth Agency was one of the original members. When the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation came out, they visited our program for our health division. And it's sad to say when former Mayor John Street was the Council President, City Wide had a lot of good days, but when he became the Mayor, we just don't know what happened. My organization went up and down, up and down, and we're in a crisis right now. And I hate to say this, because I was always a loyal person in North Philadelphia, even though we had kids -- young people that come from around the City, but I think sometimes 221 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Safe and Sound getting confused and I think Safe and Sound sometimes stand for PMP, power, money and policy. And I think Safe and Sound needs to make a decision. If they're going to be a policy organization, a power broker organization or a service provider. Because if you mix all the roles together, you really in competition with the community-based organizations. We would like to have seen Safe and Sound just -- youth approach was a lot different. I think the system they have in place for youth organizations to have accountability, it's probably good, but I think Safe and Sound have its roles confused. As it relates to City Wide -- and I get direct to City Wide -- we have no staff right now. Some of these young people that's in here left my program to go join other programs. We started -- last year we was under DHS. Our contract left DHS and 222 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 went to Safe and Sound. Right now we have a contract for $160,000 for 4 months to pay for staff, insurance, 5 students, internships, mentoring, 6 tutoring, rent, phones. Who could do it? 7 And I wrote them several times. It's in 8 the package. And it's a detailed, 9 comprehensive proposal that they had me 10 to redo. That's in there. I think they 11 really designed me to set up to fail. 12 On the left-hand side of my package that I presented is our summer program when we was finishing our funding with DHS, pictures, outcomes, success. On the right-hand side, you see where our fiscal agent document that he cannot -- he have to shut us down. He can no 19 longer pay nothing. We got two staff people. I got a maintenance person that does the maintenance, the intake, the phone calls, the press release and all. He's a hell of an environmental guy. And I have one office manager. We have no other staff. 223 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 We get some students. We have nothing to offer to them. I'm not on payroll there. I haven't received a full salary from City Wide in two years. And a couple of years ago it was in the newspaper that I had some issues with Safe and Sound. I was one of the ones that spoke up about Safe and Sound. Let me say this to you -- and I know you got a little time and I want to give you some real facts -- if you take a quarter million students, a quarter million young people right now, how many you think have accessibility to guns? 17 percent? So what's that 40,000 kids 18 right now got accessibility to guns? 19 Let's be real. How many have 20 accessibility to narcotics? 25 percent? 21 So you see right now at quarter to 6:00 22 today that we possibly have 40,000 kids 23 that could get a gun and use narcotics. 24 So that, with some good rap music, is 25 probably good ingredients for violence. 224 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 That's why you not going to ever get rid of the violence, because I believe -- and I'll close with this -- if you are elected with a district and you have a street list, you know who is registered to vote in your area, who is eligible to vote.

When you get funded by an organization, you should be given a youth list. No organization should be given funds without a mandate and a constituent service list. We proposed -- we came in Council. We proposed to the Street Administration to create a resource card, a card like a driver license, like the school swipe card. Put DHS on that card, put SEPTA on that card, put the Recreation on that card, put the Police on that card, and make it a resource card and the youth -- and a library card. No, Mr. Mackey. Then I find out they spent 60 million trying to duplicate it and never get it off the ground, Safe and Sound. Then I find out -- we've been 225 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Project REACH since y'all knew me. They got a Project REACH at Safe and Sound. What is it? I got a twin? I close: I didn't really come here to bash Safe and Sound, but after hearing some of these stories and stuff in here, our plan is comprehensive here. Our work is in here, what we do. And let me just end with one more end. When City Wide is funded, no 12 one in this City can keep up with us. You see my kids on the news every week. You see my kids in the White House. You see them in the state house. You don't see them in the courthouse. My kids be all over doing stuff. We do mock trials. We do anything -- Mr. Green's sister was our first health intern. She a doctor. She a doctor. I can pull our records out and show where people came through my program, that it's doctors and lawyers and in the professional fields right now. I got some students right now that I have to pay for out of my pocket, and I don't 226 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 have a paycheck. So I scramble every day, pulling resources together. We got evicted out of a building we was in for years, and it's painful now, and it's 6 wrong. And if you play political 7 football with kids, you going to lose 8 every time, and that's what we doing. ) 10

The level of money 11 that we spending on kids filling up, it 12 should be a national model. Philadelphia should be the safest place to walk with young people. Young people is not getting discipline. They don't know respect, and you're going to tell me you spend all these millions of dollars on young people and you don't have no real safe street to walk down with them? Have a good day. If you do not address the youth issue soon and empower youth people -- you have to empower young people. You can have all the fancy degrees you want, 227 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 but when you step down 17th and Jefferson, if your name ain't William Mackey, you might get cracked across your head, and I'm being real to you. (Applause.)

You can't do what I do on 17th and Jefferson, and I can't do what you do in your classroom. Don't do my job and I won't do yours. But somebody better start doing a job, because these young people is going to take this City over. Thank you. Have a good evening. (Applause.)

Thank you very much.

I have one student of mine who has been part of this to speak briefly.

Oh, sure.

Hi. My name is Tempest Ados. I go to Thurgood Marshall Elementary. I've been going to City Wide 228 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 since the summertime, and I really like it. It's really fun. I work as an intern there also. I answer the phone, I fax papers. And I really think it's fun, and when I graduate from high school, I want to be a psychiatrist, but if I don't have nowhere to go after school, it's like my future is not going to work, because like I'm learning some of my business skills from there and stuff like that. So I think if I don't have nowhere to go, like my future won't work out right.

Thank you. You said you're Thurgood Marshall?

Yes.

Yes. That's one of the good Beacon schools in my district. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mackey.

Stand up, you guys, just briefly. 229 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 That's some of my other young people.

Why don't you tell us where you're from, which school? What's your name and where are you from?

I'm Khian White, an honor student for William Penn High School.

My name Shamire Jones. I go to William Penn High.

My name Nyshell Goodridge. I go to --

I haven't heard a word you said.

My name Nyshell Goodridge. I go to William Penn High.

Good. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you, Mr. Mackey. (Applause.)

Ms. Harper? 230 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

Good evening, Councilwoman Tasco.

How you doing?

Very happy. Thank you for having us here for these hearings. I'm really happy to hear that we have reinstated those slots for the AVRP and the Beacon after-school programs. That's my understanding. It seems like I'm hearing a mixture of people talking about like they're begging for the thing to maintain, but it is going to be maintained, and they might not know that.

Well, we've been talking about communication today and some problems with communicating with the providers, and we trust that within the next day or so that the message is clear as to what's going on. It all evolved very quickly. I believe that DHS and Safe and Sound have 231 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 to get together and kind of figure out what's going to happen and let the providers know what's going on.

And the people know, because I'm hearing them speak as if they don't understand that a lot of it has been reinstituted and it's going to be okay, even though, quite frankly, I think it's approximately 6,000 slots in terms of after school and Beacon. It's not enough. I mean, you know, we're getting ready to move into the next phase of budgeting for the upcoming year and we're going to run into the same kinds of issues, where are we going to get the additional. One of the things that I think that really needs to happen is, they need to designate somebody within the Safe and Sound structure to consistently be looking for additional funding sources. Right now it appears that the City carries the majority of the burden. Once they lost whatever initial foundation 232 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 funding, there has to be somebody within that structure consistently going after federal, private and whatever other funds. Secondly, there's this argument that I've observed between -- not an argument. It's a conflict, quiet conflict, between DHS and Safe and Sound over these prevention funds. There are some people within DHS and they want it out, because -- they want it out of Safe and Sound's hands so that they can get those funds back. There's a political battle that's going on internally. It's almost like any time you take a City agency, take those funds, give it to a private agency, there's going to be a battle for that funds, and as a result, it's almost like I'm observing in DHS there are people that really don't necessarily want Safe and Sound to work and there's people within Safe and Sound that are not wanting DHS to work. That battle with 233 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 the middle of our children in it needs to stop. Thirdly, high-paid staff members, consultants that are on books for five years, not knowing whether they're productive or not, those kinds of things in comparison to the dollars that's needed to spend for children has to definitely be taken a look at. Secondly, another issue, the diversity of the staff, the diversification. When you walk into those offices -- at one point it was at Broad and Lehigh when they first started. Now they're down in some high-rent district, 18th and Market. I mean, you know, the offices are beautiful, but I think that there are some areas like high-paid consultants, high-paid staffing, high rent, all those things need to clearly be taken a look at. If it's a matter of balancing it out on the backs of children who lose slots, then it's not acceptable. 234 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 (Applause.)

Another thing that I've noticed is the providers. We do work -- I'm the founder of a small foundation. J. Adams - Save Our Children Foundation. We contract with a number of Beacons. We contract with a number of AVRP programs. And I have observed what's been going on over the last two months since the Mayor has come into place, and everybody kind of knew, well, he really doesn't like Safe and Sound because he really didn't like the process in which they got it bid. In the midst of it, it's been horrible. The providers haven't been getting paid and they're suffering severe cash flow problems. And I've heard stuff coming from different people today talking about monies and staff being lost, and I'm really concerned about the quality of the program. I think that generally, I think 235 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 this was an excellent idea in terms of having these hearings, and I think that around children, there needs to be an annual type of dialogue between children, institutions that serve children, whether it's health, welfare, education, CODAP. I mean, there's no communication. Everybody has got this turf, and this turf should be our children, not money. The prevention focus, I mean, I think it's wonderful. The after-school programs, I mean, it does cut down on -- substance abuse prevention. It cuts down on crime, it cuts down on teen pregnancy and everything that children get into after school when there's nobody supervising and there's no structured activity. I mean, it eliminates, it reduces all of that, but there's so many other areas of prevention. I'm quite -- I'm not certain who is actually dealing with it. At one point, CODAP used to have a substance abuse prevention component. Last I knew, they had one 236 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 staff member. That was about ten years ago, and then they cut that staff member. The School District has some programs. DARE has some programs, but, I mean, we're only talking about maybe ten police officers around the City. The prevention, substance abuse effort has really got to be bumped up, the issue of being able to reach out to young mothers, parenting mothers, young teenage moms. They're the same ones that are being shown in these statistics of low birth weight babies and high infant mortality rates. I mean, all of those kinds of things need to be incorporated into our after-school programming. Doing homework, but not really necessarily teaching and training, because I don't think -- I mean, like it's homework time, but, quite frankly, my observations have been we're just kind of pretty much steering you. We're not necessarily reinforcing you. I think the Councilman over 237 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 here said something about results, outcomes of tutoring, whether or not it's working. I mean, no, you just can't have a body in place that's sitting down supervising a child doing its homework. Yes, that's a wonderful thing, but at the same time, you have to have a quality -- a program that's going to actually be measurable in terms of some outcomes with children. There's things that maybe they don't understand while they're in the classroom that through the quality of a Beacon program or after-school program, you have specialists in there, not -- this whole thing seems to be about money, quite frankly, the debate between DHS and Safe and Sound and any of these other organizations that serve children, and I just -- I'm here to say I've been in health and human services now for 30 years. I co-chair the Child Welfare Advisory Board, and I've started this foundation, and I'm just deeply concerned. 238 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 I'm so happy to see that we have so many children in here in support of these Beacon, after-school programs. So basically I have everything in writing and I have a bunch of things, suggestions for prevention in the future that I'm just going to give to you, but thank you. I just wanted to say that. Thank you.

Thank you. In the Mayor's message the other day, he plans to put a City monitor with Safe and Sound to monitor the use of City funding, City funds. As we understand the testimony today, the applicants apply to the Safe and Sound for programmatic activities, so the programmatic content is based on what the applicants provide to the program. I don't think they set the standard of what the program should be, but they look at the overall program to see if it's fundable. So when you get to the quality of programmatic activity, that goes to 239 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 the providers doing that, and certainly some guidance from DHS or Safe and Sound might be helpful. But we appreciate your testimony.

And likewise on that issue, quantity I notice seems to be what is the objective. I've seen programs lose people or get rid of people as a result because they can't get the numbers. Oh, we need to have children 12 in this program and if we don't have 25 13 children in this program, then it's no 14 good. No. There has to be a combination 15 of -- if you have 20 children and you're 16 not making the mark of 25, that has to be 17 a criterion of looking at quality. And I 18 don't really know how that's assessed, 19 and I think that's something that we 20 might want to also take a look at. 21 So thank you for your time. 22

Thank you. 23 (Applause.) 24

Thank you 25 all very much. 240 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Good afternoon.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I wanted to say good afternoon, but unfortunately I had to say good evening. My name is Tracey Scott. I'm the Assistant Principal at Tanner G. Duckrey Elementary School in North Philly, 1501 West Diamond Street. I'm going to make my speech very brief, very brief, because I am late for a meeting. But to sit here for the past five hours really shows me a lot how parents must feel. I'm away from my school for the majority of the day, and to know that -- I know there's other people there, but just to worry that my children are in a safe place, that the people are there, the people are helping them, that they are not being accosted or they are being hurt or being beat up, it's a just thing that needs to continue 241 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 on. We have had the after-school program as well as the summer program at our school for over eight years, and although I've only been there two years, it has been a very important part of our school. It has allowed only 70 children really to be provided with services, which there are another 30 who are not being provided. It's a small amount, but those children are being provided and the parents of those children are able to work and do other things so they can provide for their families. As an administrator, you always want to have people in your building who are going to improve your school, and the education work people at our school have done that, and although -- and the one thing that concerns me with this whole process is the timing of it. And I understand that we might be on different budgetary constraints or timelines, but to tell us February 1st you will not have 242 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 an after-school program February 29th is really a concern for us, and we really need to just at least have this to continue out through the year. As a taxpayer, yes, I do want to know where the funds are going, because I am heavily taxed as a single person, and the money is out there, and I know that the money is coming from my paycheck back into the budget of Philadelphia. And I do want people to be accountable of what they're spending it on, who they're spending it on and if it's a worthwhile program, but at this point in time, my main concern are what are my 70 children going to do when this program ends on February 29th. So that is my concern. That is what I wanted to say. I want everyone to have a good evening, and thank you for your time.

Thank you for your time. (Applause.) 243 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

My name is Shinika St. Cyr. I run the after-school program at Tanner Duckrey Elementary School and we were one of those that were affected by the budget cuts. I'm an AmeriCorp member and I've been there for the past two years serving the community in and around Tanner Duckrey School. I also live there. And I know the impact that the after-school program has on these students. It's one thing because I run the after-school program to say, Well, I know the impact that this has on my students. However, thinking about those 70 children and families who wouldn't have services being absorbed into other places in the community, that's all well and good, but there are really no other places for these 70 kids to be absorbed. The majority of my parents work. The majority of them need these services. Some of my parents can't read to help the kids with homework after 244 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 school, and they send their kids to this program and appreciate it. And even as they were saying, that the funds are being restored, my fear is that even though the funds are being restored, it won't be restored to the point where I can still house 70 kids in my building. I'll be able to house maybe 30 or 40. What are the other kids going to do that I have to turn away? Where are they going to go? Because there's nowhere else in the neighborhood for them to go.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council. My name is Joshua Howard. I'm a junior at Robert Vaux High School and I'm a proud participant in the Vaux Beacon. Beacon has helped me and my peers build job skills, create resumes and help us obtain summer jobs. We learn what to wear on interviews and how to present ourselves and in which manner to speak. The Beacon also helps us in our 245 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 community by having various after-school programs. There's the Spiral Q program for the younger children. You have Youth Council and many more for the older children. In the summer, we also do neighborhood clean-ups when we voluntarily clean up the lots, and we have a community block party. There's a big block party for families and anyone who is around the neighborhood, and it's free, and it's time for everyone to celebrate. We also join a peace walk such as the Legs Against Arms that was held April of 2007. Without the Beacon program, we wouldn't have been involved in that many positive things. Thank you for your time, and I would like to present you with our petition of 405 signatures from the Vaux community supporters for keeping the Beacon open.

Thank you 246 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 very much. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. You have a petition. Thank you.

I think we should sing Ebony and Ivory first. We need to entertain people. We've been here a long time. Good evening. My name is Patricia Harris. I am the Program Director of the ECS Beacon Center, serving the Feltonville community for five years and nine months and counting, the last of the original Beacon Directors standing still here. I want to talk about what a quality Beacon center can do for the City of Philadelphia and urge the City to keep our future first and continue this important initiative beyond June 30th. A quality Beacon center can identify children with behavioral and mental health challenges and direct the 247 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 parent toward quality services to ensure the Philadelphia Compact and School District's goals and objectives are accomplished. The center can restore community ownership by rallying for restoration of libraries, because illiteracy is the nucleus of crime. And these are just some of the things that we have experienced as a result of having a Beacon center for almost six years. The centers actually take the most vulnerable youth being raised by grandparents, single parents and give them an opportunity to stabilize the family unit plagued by abandonment, poverty and drug use and provide them necessary resources to address anger issues that could lead to the ongoing violence being experienced in the City. Beacon centers can develop positive relationships with reputable -- and I do mean reputable, because there are some challenges in that area -- 248 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 reputable organizations to ensure that services reach a larger portion of the population. The Home and School Association can join monthly family activities to ensure that valuable information necessary for children and youth is available to parents to meet academic goals. When a Beacon youth development center -- because we can't continue to be compared to a recreation center. We are not in the business of providing a place for young people just to play recreation. We are a development center -- identifies children and youth strengths and family strengths and nurtures those abilities, City of Philadelphia is proactively addressing illiteracy, crime and violence for the sustainability of the new crime plan. I have a compilation of positive outcomes achieved by the ECS Beacon Center over the past several years here today to support my claims, because 249 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 I believe actions speak louder than words. I have driven almost 150,000 miles, donated my expertise to United Way to assist in the necessary capacity-building to make the model stronger for the Feltonville community and the City of Philadelphia. To make the same -- I'm asking the City of Philadelphia to make the same level of commitment by incorporating the Beacon model into the behavioral health, crime and economic goals for the new Administration. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak. And I forgot to mention that when they cut the REACH program, that was a devastation to families that continuously go under the radar of not being served. Our first month of being open last February, we served a family who hadn't had electricity in three years. So why was truancy an issue? So we have seen so many 250 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 challenges that families can't address on their own addressed through the REACH program. And also when you mention that there's going to be a special prosecutor put at Safe and Sound to monitor Safe and Sound, I'm not here as anyone's advocate, but I've seen a lot over almost six years. So I ask, who is going to be monitoring the providers that continuously are misusing these funds that Safe and Sound has rightfully given them to provide a service, thinking that they're going to do the right thing?

And I've been a whistle-blower and contacted Safe and Sound over a six-year period when I found out that centers were charging enormous fees, when my program has been serving the same -- using the same budget for six years and hasn't charged yet. This will be the first summer that we might have to charge, if we are in existence. But that's my challenge, is that where is the 251 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 accountability for the providers that have also supported all of these issues that we're facing at this time. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

My name is Peter Cogan and welcome the opportunity to say a few words. People have been -- I've been at Children's Aid Society. We have two offices in Montgomery County and three in Philadelphia, three neighborhood centers, one in Ogontz connected to schools, 16 Frankford Family Support Services and the 17 Logan-Olney Family Support Services. And 18 people have been far more eloquent than I 19 could be, especially the parents. They 20 really bring us all down to what's really 21 important, and I welcome that. 22 I'd like to just say a -- give 23 you a flavor of the parent truancy 24 officer program, which will be 25 eliminated, 25 people, almost all 252 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 parents. Just give you a flavor of that. We looked at the records just for December and January, December of '07 and January of '08. We visited 311 families. This is basically out of the Logan-Olney section. The success rate was 86 percent, meaning that a parent truancy officer got to actually speak to a parent or guardian of the referred families. So 86 percent of the 311. In many cases, this required many attempts, but the result was that the family got a face-to-face visit. Fourteen could not speak -- we could not speak with, who were mostly incorrect addresses, phone numbers or people who had moved. Nineteen percent of the successful visits, they revealed an error in the school record-keeping. In these cases, the PTO or the family contacts the school and the issue gets resolved. Thirty-six percent of the successful visits resulted in the designation that would go somewhere along 253 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 the lines of this: The parent guardian agrees to improve attendance. Typical issues that fall into this category include parents not realizing that kindergarten was important, a child not wanting to go to school or needing to be home to take care of another child and not realizing they really shouldn't do that, the parent not knowing that their child was not in school. Another 33 percent of the successful visits resulted in this designation: The parent or guardian agreed to send in excuse notices for past or future absences. These were families who had forgotten or had never realized that they really needed to send in notes when their children were out sick. They didn't think that was really necessary. That's just a little flavor. It's the beginning if you can catch these situations in truancy. We got a serious truancy problem. These folks work 12, 15 hours a week. They visit in the evening. 254 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 They visit on the weekend. It's a part-time job. They're not making oodles of money, but they're doing a very nice job, I think, in getting more kids connected to school, and I would hope in the mess that we're in that -- and I feel confident that you'll keep -- the bottom line is that the agency is not the important thing. The important thing are kids, the families and the neighborhoods that they are living in. We want to be an asset in those neighborhoods as Children's Aid and we want to build up other assets in that community. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. And since that's my area, we need to talk.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you both for your testimony. Thank you for your hard work and your commitment to the 255 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 program. We have Cory Bowman and Carol Goertzel.

Rita Axelroth will be joining this panel.

That will be good. Thank you, Sharon, for doing what you're doing, because it's moving it along. Thank you very much.

I'm Carol Goertzel. I am the CEO of PathWays PA and I would say good afternoon, but it is good evening.

And you're going to be brief.

Yeah, we're going to be brief. As some of you know, we provide services to about 5,000 individuals a year, and we have truancy intervention and prevention programs in Marian Tasco's area. We work with altogether about 500 youth through the Adolescent Violence -- the AVRP center-based and the truancy 256 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 court program. We also run the EPIC, which is the community-based program, and run a program called School and Family Together for five- to ten-year-olds where we have worked with like a five-year-old who walks out of school and the school calls us. We bring them back. We find out what's going on. An eight-year-old who self abuses, we're called in. We go in the school. We sit in the classroom. So we work with all these programs. Our funding is not being cut right now, because we are funded directly by DHS for all of our prevention services. I'm here because of my fear that this is the beginning of a cut in services that really do prevent kids entering DHS. And the e-mail that was referred to earlier that I have on my little BlackBerry that says, Call me right away at DHS because your center-based program is about to be cut or is threatened to be cut if we don't hear from you now, because we have to 257 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 make this decision Sunday, that that is an e-mail that I received about o'clock 4 this afternoon, and my fear is that they're taking the money and, okay, now they'll have the youth workers, but now there won't be any center for kids to go to. So I'm really fearful for Philadelphia's kids, because we have kids who are truant from school, we have kids who are dealing with violence, we have girls who are very at risk. I would say 90 percent of the girls we work with have endured sex abuse. And after-school and violence reduction programs, we have Project Peace, which is a teen parent program. We work with kids all over the City who are threatened with homelessness and with being in the streets to make money for their kids, and we intervene in that. All of those are DHS prevention programs, and they are really important. We do the mentoring at the Achieving Independence Center, which is 258 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 also prevention for girls and for boys, and we match them with mentors either at Temple or in the community or in a university. That's also part of prevention. And what I'm here to do is to really plead with you not to have them play with prevention programs so that they give back to this and then take from this, and who loses are Philadelphia's vulnerable kids, which are our concern and which are everybody's concern, because we want them to have a future. And we all could give you many examples of kids who succeeded, kids who stayed in school where we have negotiated the propensity to violence by teaching them to negotiate, teaching kids to talk to each other. We've looked at the problems that they're facing and we work with it so that when they get out in the community, when they leave school, we can bring them back. When they're at risk of leaving school, we can intervene. And 259 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 the intervention before they enter the DHS system as an indicated case is really important. We run SCO services for about 165 families and our specialty, so to speak, is sex abuse. We want to intervene with kids before they're dealing in ages 5, 6, 10, and with 10 continued sex abuse. If we can find that 11 out before it's indicated through knowing 12 the kids and knowing the families and 13 having the families make changes and 14 having the kids feel strong, that's what 15 we need to do with prevention. So I'm just here from PathWays PA to, I guess, talk and to plead with you to understand the importance of prevention, ask all of us to give you our figures, because we can do that, to let you know the success. And the programs in the communities are having an impact and need not to be cut and played with.

There have to be other resources so that kids can succeed. 260 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 And I'll just say, you know we do the self-sufficiency standard for Pennsylvania and Philadelphia every other year, and 42 percent of the working families in Philadelphia earn under 200 percent of the poverty level, which is under $40,000 or $41,000 a year for a family of four. These families cannot afford to pay for childcare. They cannot afford to pay for after-school care. They can barely afford their utilities. So we need to keep that in mind also as we're looking at what we need to support so our families can be working and our kids can be safe and we can intervene whether there's already a problem or there's a problem about to happen. I just want to thank you very much for having these hearings. )

Thank you for coming down to testify. We hear your message and we hope to pass that along. 261 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 And Ms. Shenberger is here and Dr. Schwarz is here. They hear your testimony, so they know what the issues are that are being raised today.

Thank you.

Mr. --

Good evening. My name is Chris Bower. I'm the Director of Community Schools at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm sitting in for my boss, Cory Bowman, who couldn't be with us today. And he handed off a pretty extensive testimony, but I'm going to give you all the Reader's Digest version real quick.

Cliff notes.

You're preaching to the choir.

I think the theme of his testimony was about how Philadelphia can become a national leader in what we call community schools. Penn's Netter Center for Community 262 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Partnerships, which is the department that Cory and I work at and who manages several Safe and Sound grants, Beacons and ASIs, has been working over the last two decades, together with community partners, to create university-assisted community schools that are centers of education and engagement and that provide a range of services for students, their parents and other community members. Looking through his testimony, I think the big theme about what he wanted to say today is in kind of a different paradigm, I think, than what we've heard so far. It's about how these grants and these services can be capacity-building and how we can leverage other resources from the community, from eds and meds, from corporations, et cetera, to really effect change, to aggregate and integrate services and funding to effect change in our communities. So Philadelphia through its 263 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 combination of promising partnership programs, as well as its model for integrated administration of multiple funding streams, could become a national leader in the movement to support the educational, health, safety, employment and social service needs of the entire community through community schools. Funding provided through the fiscal intermediary of Safe and Sound has played an important role in developing and supporting these efforts. This community school strategy assumes that like colleges and universities, public schools can function as environment-changing institutions and could become the strategic centers of broad-based partnerships that genuinely engage and coordinate a wide variety of community organizations and institutions. For us, the most salient institution is the universities here in Philadelphia. Some of the key notions to highlight about our funding from Safe and 264 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Sound is that, first, it's been used to leverage substantial additional resources from the school, from across the community and from the University of Pennsylvania. I'm kind of the operations guy. Using those dollars on the ground to build the coordinating support where we can partner with other organizations, where we can bring in med students and nursing students to provide healthcare services in the schools, et cetera, is critical. Those coordinating dollars to build the infrastructures, to manage schools during out-of-school time, the payoff is just huge. It's about tenfold in terms of in-kind resources and things like that. But obviously the universities themselves and other organizations that can provide these types of in-kind resources aren't going to provide those coordinating and infrastructure dollars or programmatic dollars themselves. 265 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Secondly, it's been used to create a comprehensive program that addressed community education, safety, health and other needs, because comprehensive neighborhood-based programs are necessary to address the multiple and interrelated needs of our communities. Thirdly, it's been used to create long-term partnerships that support the core missions and goals of the partners. And, lastly, it necessarily comes from multiple sources, demonstrating the need for an innovative intermediary organization that can integrate multiple funding streams and the need for an organization specifically designed to support comprehensive neighborhood-based programming, like Safe and Sound. Our largest community school site is Sayre High School in West Philadelphia. We've been honored with a few different awards from the Coalition 266 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 for Community Schools. We won the National Award for Excellence, and Safe and Sound unveiled their Report Card there this year.

And some of the key components of that include comprehensive after-school programs for K through 8 six days a week, summers until 8:30 at 9 night and community-wide programming as 10 well. 11 But I think, again, just 12 harking back on the theme about how these dollars can be used to leverage additional resources, the funds that Safe and Sound have provided the University, specifically at Sayre, has enabled us to leverage additional resources that include a comprehensive school-day program that include Penn faculty and staff and students working across the University, working with Sayre's over 800 students through new and existing courses, internships, academically-based community service courses at the University, service learning and 267 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 community problem-solving approaches. Most significantly, because of the dollars that we were given through Safe and Sound, we were able to apply several times and finally were awarded dollars to start a health center. So we renovated an entire wing of Sayre High School and converted it into a health center. This school-based community health clinic serves students and community members regardless of insurance or ability to pay. Sayre students play leading roles with the Community Advisory Board and the ongoing development of that program. 2 million in construction and renovation donations from Penn and opened its doors to the permanent facility in September 2007. It is expected that the health center will have over 2,000 users by the end of 2008. That pretty much concludes my testimony.

What we'd 268 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 like for you to do -- do you have copies of that testimony?

I believe your documentarians have them.

The copies will be made part of the record. Your entire testimony will be there. And it's something you might want to share with other providers so that you all have the resources to do a little workshop with other providers to help them understand what you're doing and probably follow your model.

Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity.

Yes?

My name is Rita Axelroth and I'm a member of the Coalition for Community Schools. Today I'm representing Martin Blank, who is the Director of the Coalition for Community Schools in DC, who regrets that he can't be here today to deliver this testimony. I'm going to be speaking very 269 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 briefly today on the role of intermediaries such as Philadelphia Safe and Sound and the critical position that they play in providing these services to our families and children. In the past decade, the Coalition for Community Schools has grown from seven partner organizations to more than 150. Through our partners, we have promoted the development of community schools across the country. From Chicago's 110 community schools to Portland, Oregon where 55 of 150 schools are community schools to the outskirts of Seattle where the 2,640 students of the Tukwila, Washington School District all attend community schools, the number of district-wide initiatives has rapidly expanded in the last ten years. These community schools serve as both a place and a set of partnerships that bring together the school and other community resources. Schools become hubs 270 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 for the neighborhood in which an integrated focus on academic, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Evidence is mounting that students in community schools not only improve academically, but that other factors important to student success such as family, school and community outcomes are also improving. Leaders in our nation's schools and communities are working together across the boundaries of education, government and public-private and community-based agencies to create community schools. The community schools profiled in this testimony, which I don't have time to run through their profiles, illustrate how cross-boundary leadership helps community schools move from pilot projects to large-scale community-wide 271 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 education reform strategies. It is clear that where these initiatives have been sustained and expanded, leaders consistently and intentionally do at least four things to embed their vision in the hearts, minds and budgets of their communities. One, they develop and implement a sustainable financing strategy. Two, they transform policies and practices through technical assistance and professional development. Three, they focus on data and stories to show accountability for results. And, four, they pursue a public engagement strategy to build public will. These are particularly important roles to be played by intermediaries. Intermediaries are often entities that have direct access to top-level leaders and their policy discussions, as well as a connection to school and community organizations. They connect the vision and authority of top-level leaders to community residents' 272 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 concerns, assets and energy. These leaders in the middle help build the organizational infrastructure, the personnel, policies, services and facilities needed to implement and sustain community school initiatives. These individuals can be housed in a variety of different organizations. Clearly, where these individuals are housed is less important than their having the support of all of the key community stakeholders for their work. These intermediaries, as leaders in the middle, can help bridge the diverse cultures and expectations of schools, government, community-based organizations and other groups. Across organizations, intermediaries keep open the lines of communication among top-level advocates and ensure that busy leaders stay focused on sustaining and expanding the community school initiative. They often serve as translators, increasing the visibility of 273 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES.

080139 organizations accustomed to operating without public scrutiny. By reaching out to people at all levels and incorporating concepts from various disciplines, leaders in the middle help bring parties together, overcome implementation barriers and increase the trust necessary for effective collaboration. Philadelphia is a unique case. In this City, there are many pieces of a comprehensive citywide community school strategy, from numerous after-school initiatives to community health centers to the University of Pennsylvania's involvement in University-assisted community schools. However, what is critically needed at this moment is a comprehensive approach and vision for how the different stakeholders can work together to make Philadelphia's young people succeed. The community school offers such an approach and vision. In pursuing this vision, local stakeholders need to both make better use of existing 274 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 resources and at the same time to deepen their investments in our young people and our communities. Philadelphia will become a national leader -- as my friend Mr. Bowman said, Mr. Bower representing Mr. Bowman, Philadelphia will become a national leader in building a citywide community school strategy if the school system, faith-based institutions, higher education, community-based organizations, health and human service agencies, unions, business and the City government come together behind what must be our most important goal, preparing our children as successful and productive citizens, families and community members. Thank you for your time, Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Thank you all for your testimony. We have two more 275 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 panels, and then if you haven't signed up, this is the last call.

Thank you for your patience and time.

We have Ms. Pat DeCarlo of Norris Square, Martha Sierra of Aspira, and Ariel Arnau of the Lighthouse, and we're going to call up Ms. Sheila Henry, who is a parent truant officer, in that order. MS. DeCARLO: And I also want to bring apologies from Congreso, because the young lady who was here had to go, Sybill, had to go and pick up her child.

And we're going to ask you to be brief. We know all about the programs. You're preaching to the choir. MS. DeCARLO: So you already have a copy of this.

Yes. MS. DeCARLO: But I wanted you to know that I'm here today speaking both as a provider and as a Board member of 276 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Safe and Sound, and so for those who continue to think that there is a conflict of interest and somehow some favoritism within that organization, let me tell you that the Safe and Sound Beacon Center that Norris Square Civic Association runs at Hunter School was closed along with the others. And so knowing that Safe and Sound truly makes its decisions based on data and outcomes, I was upset, but I said it is what it is. They were told to cut $20 million. They cut $20 million the best way they can in a very short time. Let's see the numbers, and the numbers speak for themselves. And providers, sometimes we don't like to accept the numbers, but they are what they are. We, unfortunately, made a mistake this year, my mistake. I decided to take the after-school Beacon program and focus it, rather than the kinder to fourth grade that it had been before, to focus it on fifth, sixth and seventh 277 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 grade, because I read that those kids who don't do well in sixth grade will eventually drop, and I told the staff, You know what, the other program can do kinder to this, we're going to focus on those kids. And they're the tough kids to recruit and they're the kids to keep, because mommy brings a kindergarten, first, second and third grade and they stay there, but somebody who is in sixth grade -- (witness speaking Spanish) -- they make their own decisions and they leave and they come when they please. So they're a very tough crowd to have. So as a result of that, our attendance this particular year was very low. We suffered the consequences. It's okay. I'm a big girl. This lady who just spoke, I think we really need to listen. The investment and infrastructure that Safe and Sound represents for the City of Philadelphia is invaluable. It would be a crying shame, irrespective of the 278 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 providers, that in the midst of this debacle we ended up throwing away what is clearly a very valuable institution and too for this City for something that small to undertake to coordinate, train, monitor, support all those different programs -- and let me tell you, they come, they show, they count. When we had our accident last year, they came. What do you need? Were it the government, sorry. The government would come in and say, What you do wrong, right? There's a different attitude, and they're excellent at what they do. Can it be improved? Absolutely. Anybody who can't improve doesn't mean to be in this business. But we really need to be careful that we don't throw the baby with the bath water. Last, but not least, what we have is one Mayor who was going to push his programs before he left, come hell or high water, and we now have a new Mayor who is going to cut his programs, come 279 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 hell or high water. (Witness speaking Spanish.) So I ask the ladies in City Council to please use reason -- she can explain to you what I said -- that we use the reason that women have, the reasonableness and the patience that we have to make this issue end. It is an issue of needing $20 million. I don't care where you cut. Somebody else is going to be affected, particularly because it ends in June, and when someone said, by the way, we want to know what happens after June also. So it is a deficit. Take the bull by the horns, figure it out and pass the $20 million deficit that needs to be covered. So somebody will say, no, because Street will win. (Witness speaking Spanish.) But I ask, I beg the ladies in City Council, no disrespect to the gentleman who is here -- oh, he left.

They're listening. 280 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 MS. DeCARLO: That you all figure it out, that you do the right thing and you fund these programs. Otherwise, we will continue to be getting these e-mails about this got cut, that got done, the other. It is unfortunate that we have chosen to communicate the way we've chosen to communicate and press conferences. I really hope that it changes. It can't continue. One last thing, little secret that I'll share with you. There's state funding for programs that are licensed by DPW. They're a pain to get licensed. DPW is very tough. Both of our programs are licensed, McKinley and Hunter. It takes a lot to get them licensed, but we did it. If you're licensed, working parents can then apply to CCIS, which is a different state fund, for their after-school program up to year 13. Why hasn't Norris Square done that? Well, because when all the after-school 281 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 programs are free and you try to charge, people say -- (witness speaking Spanish) -- Why are you charging? Now with this cut, somebody needs to figure out how you set up a system that there's a program for working parents so they can enroll. They do a co-pay. And there's a program, the same program, but it's a different kind of funding that goes for parents who do not work but still need those kind of services. Thank you for your attention.

Who did you get your e-mail from? MS. DeCARLO: DHS.

Ms. Shenberger, who is sending out the e-mails? Are you? You don't know? You don't know who -- so DHS is sending out the notices?

I guess. MS. DeCARLO: Can I explain why? Because they're not the bad guys. 282 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 The Mayor told them to cut their funding. Now, they don't cut funding by going to a machine and printing money. They go to the providers and they say, How much you spent? Don't spend any more. We're going to cut. So that's why I'm saying, this is crazy. So he told DHS to cut their funding, like he told Safe and Sound to cut their funding. And I know this is simplistic. Come on, guys. Like the lady said, do the right thing, pass the $20 million --

I'm going to address you in your Safe and Sound capacity, Patricia. The fact of the matter is -- and as I said to the Safe and Sound folks here, we -- at least my responsibility and Marian's is, we don't want to shoot the victim to get to the perpetrator. And, clearly, we did not do due diligence on this. In the Safe and Sound capacity, it was very, very clear to me that this Council and 283 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 this Mayor-elect did not approve this. So we will try to do as much as we can to restore programs, but I want the adults in this scenario to accept some responsibility. We will take ours and we will take our hits, but the fact that we moved forward when we knew the City was in non-compliance and the State knew, so there's enough blame to go around, but as we move forward -- because I agree, the discussion should be what happens next year. Then the reason for these hearings is, what weren't we doing that we could have done to avoid this, the fact that the State never triggered something when they knew the City was acting in a way that was in non-compliance legally. So, again, we can argue this point. Our point is -- and I think our position has been clear, both Councilwoman Tasco and myself in proposing this resolution -- is, we do want to know the good things. We all 284 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 know everything is not perfect, but we all have to take some responsibility. I'm taking the heat and the e-mails for decisions that I had nothing to do with, but I'm here saying, I understand that I do not want those kids caught up in this tension that we created through a bureaucracy that we created that is not the only one that exists in this City. (Applause.)

So I want to be real clear that our goal is to get the services on the ground. But, clearly, between the State, the City and even our umbrella organizations and in this case Safe and Sound, we could have done a better job at managing this chaos.

Well, they were trusting. MS. DeCARLO: You know, you get a contract that says it's a done deal, here it is, go more forward, and you keep saying -- (witness speaking Spanish) -- more forward. 285 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

I've come to the conclusion that you were trusting because based on past practice, everything came through, and at the end of the day, there was someone who wanted to leave a legacy and just bulldozed through the whole process, without any consideration of the chaos it would create, or maybe knew the chaos would be created. MS. DeCARLO: I don't think so.

Oh, I believe so. And anyway -- MS. DeCARLO: That's why I say, ladies, resolve the chaos. You can do it. I am convinced you have the capacity to do that.

I think as I listen to this testimony today and listen to all of the scenarios, I just think it was intentional. I'm sorry. That's my personal feeling, and I will always have that feeling, knowing the perpetrator. 286 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Let me stop that, because it's unprofessional. MS. DeCARLO: My daddy used to say two wrongs don't make one right. That's the problem.

Thank you very much. MS. DeCARLO: Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Chairwoman and Councilwoman Sanchez. My name is Martha Sierra and I'm speaking to you on behalf of Aspira Incorporated Pennsylvania and its parent truancy program. Although I completely understand the necessity for the review and audit of impacting and fiscal decisions made by the prior Administration for the use of City funds as well as make changes, if necessary, but I'm here to remind everyone that the decision made to cut not has only impacted a much-needed service as a parent truancy officer, but the loss of 287 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 revenues for of our employees and 83 members of their families. During its operation, which is ours, our program not only visited 1,500 homes for the purpose of reducing truancy and violence, they also made 493 referrals to families in the communities and the schools we served. If it wasn't for us, for example, visiting Ms. Sorada Green about her child's attendance record, Ms. Green wouldn't have found out or become aware that the notes that she had been sending to school were not being accepted. As a result, our parent truancy officer informed her the steps that she needed to take in order to avoid unwarranted visits and future involvement with DHS and Truancy Court. Additionally, our PTO provided her with the food and clothing referral she needed to one of the emergency cupboards, as well as provide access to our computer lab so that can she work on her resume. 288 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 This is an example in our community how we work and how we've been working and training our employees, which are actually parents teaching parents in the community, about the education law, about the things that they have to do to give themselves a voice. Another example was when two of our PTOs came and made a home visit and discovered that three children, ages 2, 4 and 10, were left alone. Our PTOs reacted quickly and called the supervisor, who then in turn called the cops and DHS. If it wasn't for that, that mother wouldn't have received the support being a young mother herself and understanding what she was doing was wrong. We probably wouldn't have been able to find that incident. Again, we took the steps. The parent truancy officers are the initial individuals that come out to visit the homes. We know that the schools have the responsibilities, but one individual in 289 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 one school has over 1,300 on the average to take care of. So when we can come in and give them that additional support and visit those homes, we're giving them the opportunity to address potential issues in the future. Instead of seeing them in Truancy Court, as a supervisor of Truancy Court, I see them day in, day out dealing with children ages fifth grade all the way up to high school and wondering where did it go wrong. If they had addressed those in the earlier-on stages at eight days versus 43 days, we probably wouldn't have had many of the problems involved today. I can bring up an incident in terms of briefly us seeing a child who was arrested recently because of being involved in a robbery, but that was done through Truancy Court. Again, that would have been an incident avoided had they been involved or addressed earlier on in after school, as well as a parent truancy officer continued to be able to visit 290 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 that home and give them the referrals necessary. In closing, Madam Chairwoman and members of the Council, I just want you to consider not only our parent 7 truancy officers and their 83 members, 8 but the 300 other PTOs and their family 9 members that have been impacted by these 10 cuts. It's not giving them a cut, but 11 also forcing them back into the possible 12 welfare system, something that we've been 13 trying to work so hard to get them off of 14 and become self-sufficient. 15 (Applause.) 16

Thank you. 17 Yes? 18

Good evening. My 19 name is Ariel Arnau and I have the honor 20 and pleasure of serving as Director of 21 Youth Services for the Lighthouse. For 22 the previous two and a half years, I had 23 the pleasure of learning management under 24 Reverend Catherine Bowers serving in the 25 capacity as Director of their Frankford 291 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Beacon. I know that Reverend Bowers was here earlier. I've come to give you guys some good news. Philadelphia Safe and Sound's 2007 Report Card reported that the average school attendance rate was approximately 87.4 percent. The students that we service in our ASI after-school program, which is a Safe and Sound-funded program that attends Sheppard Elementary, on average have a 97 percent school attendance rate. Their interaction with our staff and with the various resources that we've been able to bring in, in combination with our meetings with parents, have been able to increase school attendance rates. And I don't think that I need to stand on an egg crate and preach to anyone here about how important school attendance is. In addition, our curfew center, the Lighthouse East Curfew Center, was the second curfew center started in the City and it was the first one north of 292 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Market Street. We had the pleasure of working with the 24th and 25th Police Districts. In the ten months where we had -- we worked with the 24th and 25th Police Districts, we served over 500 kids that violated curfew. Now, if you do the math over a ten-month period, that's 50 kids per month that we were working with. That's 50 kids that were taken off the street, 50 kids that were placed in somewhere safe, that were fed, that were protected, and 50 families that were served in combination with behavioral health. I think it would be a crime and a travesty if these services, these very necessary services, would experience a reduction of any kind, whether it's monetary, whether it's in terms of technical assistance, whether it's in terms of other resources that providers such as -- community partners such as Safe and Sound have been able to provide. I've heard the testimony of 293 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 other people who have come up here who have stated that they have received letters and faxes and have been invited to meetings. I applaud those members, because we at the Lighthouse did not receive any such communication. I'd like to be able to tell you, Well, this is how much we were cut, this is how many people we've had to lay off. I don't have that data for you, because I have yet to receive an official communication from Safe and Sound. Does that mean we're going to get cut? I have no idea. I have no clue. I found out about the meeting with providers that Safe and Sound had at the Aspira Gala from a colleague of mine. An interesting way to find out about a very important meeting. I would urge City Council to consider not just what I've said, but what every person that has come through here and that has stayed here six hours plus, along with you guys, of course. I 294 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 mean, I don't know how you guys do it, to be honest with you, and I give you guys a lot of credit, because I'm 31 and I'm fidgeting here with lack of patience.

Stamina.

Yeah. So I give you guys credit for the stamina that you guys have in dealing with this. And I know that it can't be easy fielding a lot of angry phone calls from parents and concerned phone calls from various community members. But I would urge you guys to find ways to continue funding and to seek additional ways to support Safe and Sound with their communication with their providers, because I think it is going to take a collective effort of not only the providers, not only the middle men, the Safe and Sounds of the world, but it's really going to take a collective effort from parents, children, City government working together to try and not only fill this gap but improve the quality of service that we are able 295 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 to provide. So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you for coming. (Applause.)

Ms. Henry, are you ready? You've been here all day. You can't leave at the last minute and not testify.

Good evening, ladies. My name is Sheila Henry. Councilwoman, I've been here since 7:30 this morning. As of tomorrow will be my last day as a PTO, and I really enjoyed the job, because I was great at it and it gave me an opportunity to talk to single parents, and a lot of times when you go to the door, the parents need someone to be like the liaison between them and the school. And it was like an eye opener, because it doesn't have to be based on poverty stricken, because the areas that 296 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 I was going to, their homes was fabulous, but they just didn't send them notes for their children to go to school. But they still needed someone to talk to and to let them be aware of what's going on in society itself. And with that note, ladies, think about all the PTOs and everybody when you do the budget, and tell the Mayor, yes, I voted for him and keep up the work that he trying to do and with y'all help. God bless you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. (Applause.)

Good night.

Good night. Thank you. Good afternoon.

Good evening.

Good evening. I'm sorry. I'm still in a time warp.

Good evening, 297 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 Councilwoman Marian Tasco and Councilmember. I want to thank for the opportunity to speak today. My name is David Seng. I'm the Director of Operation of United Community. I'm going to keep it brief, because I know that time is getting late.

Excuse me one moment. I don't want to cut you off, but our reporter said she has to leave at 7:15. So please summarize your testimony.

Okay.

Thank you.

With the Mayor's direction to cut $21 million, what I want to do is, I want to talk the effect. This is not just the $21 million. We're talking about our children's lives. Cutting prevention program will affect many things. If the Mayor's priority is about crime prevention, I think cutting prevention program meaning it's not investing in our kid future. 298 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 I understand there's a need to focus on outcome measures and how funds being spent on prevention that will aid the development of our City. This is the financial responsibility to match with the outcome. I think it's a good thing, but there are more than just dollar and cents. At United Community we had to let go to 30 employee because of the 12 budget cut. And let me remind you also, 13 these employee are the PTO, and they 14 don't make that much money. They go out 15 to the homes and visit the kids and 16 making sure that their attendance record 17 is improved. As you know, truancy is the 18 leading cause of behavior that lead to 19 other adverse behavior. 20 So I'm going to get to the 21 conclusion, is that I hope that this 22 program will be restored and continue to 23 invest in our children future so that we 24 all share the vision of making 25 Philadelphia as the first class city. 299 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 So I thank you for your time. (Applause.) SISTER JANE: I'm Sister Jane. I'm from Visitation School in Philly, and first of all, I'd like to thank you. I definitely don't want to be a City Council person. We have two issues, I guess, I would like to talk about, is our Beacon, which is 180 children and it was shut and now it's open. We are a school that 80 percent are below poverty level. We're multi-lingual. We're multi-cultural. We have 180 children. This has been a great Godsend to our families and to our children. We also have from Variety an autism support program that's going to be closed. It only works with three children, but it works with three very special children, with very special needs that are going to grow and become a major issue in our society. So I'm concerned about that program also. 300 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 We were told we were restored and our parents were calling the school today all excited. You know, We're restored, yeah, yeah. And all I can think is, we're restored for 75 clots and we have 180 children, you know. They think this is going to go on the way it was, and it just isn't. I also think that we are most willing to get rid of the school rent, because the school is being paid rent. The utilities, we'll be willing to pay for them through the school. Myself and the principal will be most willing to help the Administration so that we can have less administrative staff and we could assist with that in-kind service type thing, but we need to know what's going on. We have one week left to let parents know what's going to happen to them as of March and if they need to bring money, et cetera. So we're grateful for the restoration, but we really need some help 301 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 with what to do with the other hundred, and we've got one week. So thank you, and please help us. And Alyssa is one of ours.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Alyssa Valez. I am a sixth grader at Visitation BVM School. I attend the Beacon program at Visitation BVM every day and the after-school program and the family preservation program. During the after-school program, I get help with my homework, computer lessons and art class. I also participate in a computer program, Achieve 3,000, that helps me with my reading level. After we have done our homework, we have time to have fun with our friends. We walk, we talk, we play video games, we go to the gym for exercise and, in good weather, to the playground for fresh air. The after-school program comes to an end at 6:00. At that time, the 302 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 family preservation program takes over. On Mondays and Fridays from 6:00 to 7:00 I attend a photography class. I learn how to take pictures and edit them using photo shop. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I participate in hip-hop. I love doing both of these things. The Beacon program has allowed me to improve in my school work while also giving me the authority to have fun with my friends in a safe and fun environment. Without this help, many authorities will be closed to me and my friends. I want to thank you for the authority that you have provided for me and others in the past year, and I hope that you will allow our Beacon and other Beacons to remain open. Thank you, everyone, for listening to me today. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. 303 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139

Good evening. My name is Carrie Path. I'm with the South Philadelphia Junior Stakeholder, and I'm here to support the reinstatement of the programs for our youth.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Brianna Beckham. As high school students and Beacon participants, we are here to speak on the behalf of many students in our program with the help of EPOP, which is the Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Project. I know that firsthand cancelling programs like ours will leave more of us on the street without productive things to do. For lack of productive activities will open the door to crime, dropping out of high school and drug use. These realities make it important not only for us but for all Philadelphians.

Hi. I'm Dominique Henderson. 304 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 In addition to that, many more parents who cannot afford other activities will have more to worry about knowing where their children are not supervised. Cutting programs like the Beacon will also open the door to many more high school dropouts, which is on the agenda for Mayor Michael Nutter.

Hello. My name is Dara Maxwell. The Beacon program has become a regular routine for many of us that should not be disrupted under any circumstances. It is not fair for us to take away programs that we are benefiting from. They are programs that keep all of us safe. They give us resources like tutoring that we otherwise will not be able to receive. While we all thank you for reinstating the programs into June, it is still not enough. We need programs over the summer, where there is less structured time for youth and when things 305 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 like the murder rates spike. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you all so much for coming. And I think we have one last testifier and she's from my district. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you, Councilwoman Tasco and to Councilwoman Sanchez. I just have two quick things that I wanted to say before leaving. I have been here since the hearings have started and I listened attentively. I didn't come with a desire to speak. I really wanted to hear, but if I could just say these two things, I would appreciate it. One is that I believe that as a provider in the Mount Airy section of the City of Philadelphia and one that has been partaking of children's investment strategies now for the last, I believe, eight years or so, that we are finding ourselves caught in a position wherein we 306 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 have no real advocacy for us as providers. DHS has its agenda. Philadelphia Safe and Sound has its agenda. And we as providers have a whole different kind of thing that we're looking at. So I'd like to suggest maybe that if we could find a way wherein providers can be heard more often by entities like yourself. I'm not looking for hearings, but I am looking for some outlet wherein we can be heard and not penalized for being heard, first. And, secondly, that I do believe that when we put all of our eggs in one basket and when that basket breaks, we have a serious problem. And we had a -- there was a point wherein we had Philadelphia Safe and Sound, we had PHMC and we had United Way all working this one pie. Now it's just one entity where they are collectively doing everything in-house, and it kind of gives us no "out." Even if we had PHMC when we 307 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 had that, we had some kind of other fiscal management that would hear us. When we had United Way, we had some program management that would hear us. Now we just have the one entity that is doing its own thing, and we're kind of being jockeyed along, and I think that that's something that maybe you can find a way to help us with. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. We appreciate those comments, and certainly Ms. Shenberger is here and Dr. Schwarz, our new Health Commissioner, is here, and they have heard the testimonies of all the participants today. I will close this hearing with the charge to them to, one, find a better way to communicate what's going on to these organizations. I mean, there's total confusion here. And certainly I think you all need to move very quickly to figure out what's going to be 308 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 restored, what's not going to be restored, and that is communicated, too. And I think the one theme we heard today was better communication, better communication, and certainly a voice for the providers so that they can let you know what's paining them and find some resolution to their problems. We certainly thank you for your testimony today, for coming in. I think we're all better informed as to the Safe and Sound program. There's still a lot of questions between their interaction between DHS and Safe and Sound, and we will further explore that during the budget process. But during this crisis, we charge you to try and figure out a way how you can quickly help, if we can help, to solve the issue of how we're going to restore these programs, what programs are going to be restored, and that message gets out very quickly to the community. Thank you. This meeting will be adjourned to the call of the Chair. I 309 2/21/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080139 want to thank my colleague, Councilwoman Sanchez, who has hung in here with me today. She's like my old buddy, Councilwoman Ortiz. It used to be the two of us in here on social service issues. It's been an informative afternoon, and I thank you all for coming. Thank you. (Committee on Public Health and Human Services adjourned at 7:20 p.m.) - - - 310 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on February 21, 2008, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)