STANDUP FOR KIDS - February 2006 Charity-of-the-Month
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STANDUP FOR KIDS
1510 Front Street, Suite 100
San Diego, CA 92101
tel: 1-800-365-4KID (1-800-365-4543)
fax: 1-888-453-1647
web: http://www.standupforkids.org
email: Staff@standupforkids.org
The mission of STANDUP FOR KIDS is to help homeless and street kids.
Fact: 1 child runs away every minute of everyday.
We do this, every day, in cities across America. We carry out our mission through our volunteers who go to the streets in order to find, stabilize and otherwise help homeless and street kids improve their lives. We are a 95% all volunteer based organization committed to the rescue of homeless and street kids.
STANDUP FOR KIDS targets homeless and at-risk youths age 21 and younger. Based on current estimates, there are more than one and a half million children, teenagers and young adults trying to survive on U.S. streets today. Children now make up 27 percent -- the fastest growing segment -- of the U.S. homeless population.
STANDUP FOR KIDS is an independent, nonprofit organization that has no religious or political affiliation. STANDUP FOR KIDS helps kids without regard to race, religion, sexual orientation, nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds.
STANDUP FOR KIDS Outreach Center
The intent and purpose of a STANDUP FOR KIDS Outreach Center is to provide a safe and protective environment for homeless and at-risk youth, thereby fostering the needed support network of basic human needs and development through educational programs, one-on-one counseling, and an ongoing atmosphere of hope and concern.
The Outreach Center must first be easily accessible to the kids. Generally, in a convenient downtown location, and provide the following:
• A safe environment to rest
• The place to make meaningful relationships with caring adults
• Referral services for available programs throughout the community
• Meals and snacks
• Telephone messages and mail service
• Hygiene products
• Job referral service
• Apartment finding service (and assistance with furnishing an apartment)
• Identification services (Birth Certificates, Social Security Cards, and etc.
• Educational assistance (books, transportation passes, etc.)
• Internet services for education instruction
• Counseling referral service
• Learn Independent Living Skills to get ready for an apartment
• A place for kids to receive ongoing training
(Some centers may have showers and the capability to do laundry)
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Street Outreach
You will soon find that being a street outreach counselor is dramatically different from anything you've ever done before! National statistics report the number of homeless kids at more than 1.5 million. More than 500 thousand are still under the age of 15, and some are as young as nine!
As counselors we're going to go the streets and try to reach these kids! We are going to try and try again. We will walk the streets week after week never knowing the number of kids that we are reaching. We may never know, that a few years from now, a youngster was able to leave the streets because of the commitment and work we are doing today. Don't give up. They need us!
The single greatest need, for homeless and street kids is our continuous caring and real support. We must convince them that we care, we want them back, and we want to help them get off the streets.
Kids at Risk
The definition of the word risk: danger, hazard, jeopardy, and peril. While these words may be realistically interchangeable, looking at them individually we find that; (1) danger is exposure or vulnerability to harm (2) hazard is a chance of being injured or harmed, (3) jeopardy is danger or risk of loss or injury, and (I) peril is a condition of imminent danger, exposure to the risk of harm or loss. Therefore, when we speak of “kids at risk” we are, in all reality, defining kids that are in fact in grave danger. Kids whose viability can literally be measured in the foreseeable future. Kids who are in desperate need of critical and immediate support if they are to survive!
Where are the Kids?
Kids are living on the streets in major cities, small towns, and in most suburbs in the United States. But don't take living on the streets literally. Some kids manage to stay with other kids they meet in cheap hotels/motels, parks, and even in other states. However, many street kids are forced to live on the beaches, in the parks and abandoned buildings, on the streets, and in many other unsavory places.
Survival
To survive, kids make money by pan handling, selling drugs and shoplifting (survival crime), and hustling or prostitution (survival sex). Understandably, a street kid cannot survive on a daily basis while attempting to save enough money to make the deposit on an apartment. Remember, more than 500 thousand kids are still under the age of 15. No 15 year old can legally work or rent an apartment!
Youth Shelters
There are shelters in some cities. However, most of those shelters have no beds for homeless or street kids. But, for the sake of an argument, let’s assume that each state can shelter 5,000 homeless and street kids. Now, if we had those 250,000 beds, we would still need another MILLION beds if we were to shelter every homeless and street kid who had no place to stay! To shelter every homeless and street kid, every state would need more than 25,000 beds.
If there’s a youth shelter in your city, call them and ask how long a 15 year old can stay?
Now, we let you draw your own conclusions. Do you think that we’ll ever have enough beds to protect every homeless and street kid? So, until that day comes, our commitment is to go to the streets and help as best we can, and never give up!
So, Who are These Kids?
Street kids are just that: without a home or a guardian. While most street kids are living on the streets, some do come up with money to live in hotels/motels off and on. Mainly they live under bridges, in dumpsters, and just about anyplace you can think of.
Homeless kids are without a parent or guardian: they live in hotels, motels, apartments, or with friends. For some, they are just a breath away from becoming a street kid.
Apartment Support
Despite what you might have heard on various talk shows. Kids don't want to live on the streets! Yet, they tell you that living on the streets is fun and exciting. That they have no responsibilities! That they want to live on the streets! These statements are easier to say than to be honest and say “I'm here because NO ONE wants me. Not even my family!” Who wants to admit this?
Kids don’t want to be on the streets. But, they don’t want to be home where, in most cases, it is worse!
“Actually, saying that kids live on the streets is a blatant lie!” “Kids do not live on the streets.” “Kids are dying on the streets!” So the challenge for the outreach and apartment support counselors is tremendous! They are the first ones to convince the kids that we care. At first, the kids will suspect that you want something from them, like everyone else does. You will have to help them overcome that!
Apartment support counselors work closely with the outreach counselors, in their initial support to the kids, as they come off the streets.
For most of their lives they’ve been used and abused by adults. Trusting you, a stranger, will not be in their nature and won’t come easy for them. But, when they do start sharing and trusting in you, it is the greatest feeling you will ever know.
The apartment support counselors must take even greater steps in teaching these young people social skills; how to get along and live in their community. They will no longer be surviving, but living. We need to teach them how to let go of their survival skills and how to begin to let their defenses down. We need to help them learn how to interact with their neighbors and others in the community. Counselors need to help them become familiar with the other agencies in the community and teach them how to reach out to those agencies for assistance.
Depending on how young they were when they arrived on the streets, they may not even have the basic skills to take care of themselves. They may not know how to cook, clean up, store leftovers, and the many other everyday things that go on in an apartment. Things we take for granted or that simply come second nature for us, they may not have a clue about. They may also be embarrassed to admit that they don't know how to do these basic things, so it's up to us to let them know that it's okay and we understand.
We can get there from here. It’s just going to take a lot longer than anyone expected.
STANDUP FOR KIDS HELPS HOMELESS KIDS TO SURVIVE AND LIVE.
STANDUP FOR KIDS is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization founded in 1990 to help rescue homeless and at-risk youth. With national headquarters in San Diego, California, STANDUP FOR KIDS is run almost entirely by volunteers, and has established more than twenty-five outreach programs in thirteen states.
Our focus goes beyond street outreach and extends to deterrence and resource programs that we provide in schools and via the internet. But all facets of our mission are guided by the mandate that our volunteers shall tell kids they care about them and then, at every point, prove it.
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* THIS APRIL 2006
The TURN PURPLE CAMPAIGN
http://www.turnpurple.org/
The TURN PURPLE CAMPAIGN is working to prevent youth homelessness by raising awareness, uniting youth organizations, increasing advocacy, and heightening prevention efforts:
* National awareness is being raised by literally turning the face of the nation purple in April 2006 to bring attention to the cause of children living on the streets - child abuse;
* A coalition of youth oriented organizations is being built to stand vigilant in recognizing the signs of children in distress and provide them with resources;
* A petition is being circulated to collect a million signatures of American's who recognize the problem of child abuse as a precursor to youth homelessness and seek to advocate for their needs;
* We are looking to impact the number of children who are running away by placing a Don't Runaway Card in the hands of 60,000+ students and provide them with our effective deterrence program.
The TURN PURPLE CAMPAIGN is a multi-tiered initiative driven to provide immediate assistance to children in need through a safe net-work of youth organizations, decrease the numbers of runaways, create a base of constituents who are looking to advocate for abused children, and heighten awareness that at-risk, homeless, and street kids are not "rebels without a cause" but survivors of abuse. Ultimately the TURN PURPLE CAMPAIGN seeks to create a permanent systems change that reforms the way at-risk, homeless, and street youth are viewed and serviced in America.
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STANDUP FOR KIDS
1510 Front Street, Suite 100
San Diego, CA 92101
tel: 1-800-365-4KID (1-800-365-4543)
fax: 1-888-453-1647
web: http://www.standupforkids.org
email: Staff@standupforkids.org
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