Community Guide 2017

Tender Bones by Molly Giles

Rolling Stones Spring 2013 Taking Care of

“My dad?” The babysitter’s young voice trembles as I drive her home. “My real dad? Remember how I told you he’s always getting hurt?” I nod, concerned. Her father is a once-famous rock musician who has been in and out of rehab for years. “Once a fan hugged him too hard? And broke all his ribs? He has tender bones. Then last night, at this club in L.A? He fell off the stage and cracked his skull. So now he can’t play and his girlfriend’s gone back to Vegas and the cops are keeping his car.” How’d the cops get into this, I start to ask, but the babysitter interrupts. “He’s all alone.” My mouth opens—surely the man has friends, people to help him. “Anyway,” the babysitter continues, taking a deep breath, “I wanted to tell you so you can find someone else for next week ’cause I won’t be here. I’ll be in L.A.” I start to protest—you can’t leave school to keep house for a drug addict, you’re only fourteen years old!—but again the babysitter stops me. “I’m all he’s got. Without me, he’ll start to use again. I know he will. He has no will power. He can’t be alone.” She touches my arm. “You know how it is when you see someone you care about make bad decisions? You can’t just watch.” No you can’t, I think, so when she asks to be dropped off at the crossroads to hitchhike to L.A., I shake my head and drive her straight to her mother’s small house instead. The babysitter won’t look at me as she gets out of the car. Then she turns. “I hope your life gets better,” she says. I watch her shoulder her heavy backpack, knowing, as I drive away, that she has already begun the long trudge south in the dark.

our Children and Families by Dave Cort, Executive Director

Our quarterly Stone Soup editorial meeting took place shortly after the horrific shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. At this meeting, we decided what to include in the upcoming paper. Our editorial committee, like most people who care about kids, schools and communities, was in shock over the shootings and at a loss to understand how this could happen in any community. Could this happen in our community? What are we doing to prevent a tragedy like Sandy Hook? My college major at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, was called Human Development and Social Policy. My focus was juvenile justice and I interned at Cook County (Chi- cago) Juvenile Probation, Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Juve- nile, California Youth Authorities, San Francisco Parole Office, and the Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco. In the late ’70s into the ’80s, I worked at the Marin County Juvenile Hall and Probation, and at Full Circle School’s group home for emotionally disturbed boys in Dogtown (West Marin). By the mid-1980s, I was burned out and came to grips that I was working with youth and families who had little chance of any kind of rehabilitation. The damage that had been done was almost impossible to overcome. Some of the youth I worked with found some incredibly deep inner strength and were able to live a healthy adult life. Unfortunately, the majority of the youth I worked with became institutionalized and struggled throughout their adult years. In 1991, I was blessed to be hired at the Community Center. Over the past 22 years I have been able to work “upstream,” or on the prevention side, with dedicated teach- ers and principals, social workers, counselors, family advo- cates, nutritionists, gardeners, parents, promoters, and other community heroes. Together we have developed and imple- mented wellness programs, school gardens, preschools, youth and teen centers, community recreation programs, social and emotional literacy programs, student meetings, Youth Court, and other restorative programs that focused on diversity, healthy transitions to high school, drug and alcohol preven- tion programs, community wellness days and food security. We have had amazing speakers like youth advocate Michael Pritchard, Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, author David Scheff, and other speakers who discussed cyber bullying and other 21st century challenges to children and family. Our hearts go out to communities throughout the world who join us in taking care of our children and families.

Girl wins bike race, mid 1970s (Photo by Harlan Floyd)

SGVCC

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