Expanding summer youth programming and keeping young people busy

The Department of Youth and Community Development has been at work this summer providing summer programming to New York City’s young people through its Summer Youth Empowerment and Saturday Night Lights programs, Beacon and Cornerstone Community Centers and more. And recently Mayor Eric Adams joined DYCD Commissioner Keith Howard to announce $2 million in expanded summer programming and services for the final months of summer to serve underserved communities, specifically those mentioned in “A Blueprint for Community Safety,” a roadmap addressing gun violence throughout the five boroughs. With 100,000 spots available in the employment program and other programming to get involved in, the city is encouraging youth to stay busy this summer.

New York Nonprofit Media spoke with Howard about efforts to support young people and combat violence, the employment program, and how the city is hoping to keep up the momentum going into the fall.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For more, DYCDs Deputy Commissioner Susan Haskell will appear as a panelist at City & State’s Education in New York Summit on Thursday. Haskell will participate on the panel, “Behavioral, Mental Health and Workforce Development Assistance for Students.”

How has DYCD adjusted its approach to supporting youth holistically over the years - particularly in regards to combating violence and promoting de-escalation?

The mayor's forward vision is to take a very preventive approach, and that preventive approach was moving the Office of Neighborhood Safety over to DYCD. And with that move, with the Office of Neighborhood Safety, came a lot of programming that is geared towards public safety. As the mayor's office said, public safety is a shared responsibility. With the crisis management system, DYCD now has the Cure Violence Interrupters, about 41 organizations out there in the street trying to and working towards preventing violence before it happens. Also working in our community centers, working in our schools, those connections to us, programming and also working with young people in our workforce program as well. It's a 360 approach to public safety. Adding on top of that, our summer safety plan, which was launched a few weeks ago, in which we have 19 Beacon programs, Cornerstone programs for the community center, and Saturday Night Light location, which we've offered extended hours to keep young people

How has the Summer Youth Employment Program benefited young people? How does the program set them up for success? Have any of the city’s new arrivals been able to participate?

The Summer Youth Employment Program, which has 100,000 young people, is one of the jewels of our program. There was an increase this year, with the wages going from $15 an hour to $16 an hour, putting more money in young people's pockets is always great, but also building out the program to provide opportunities in tech career exploration with Google and Disney and Playbill. The launch for the past two years, SYEP pride, which is a program that provides safe spaces in companies for young people who identify as LGBTQ+. We also have a middle school career exploration program as well, because it's not too early to start young people to think about career opportunities. We have a great partnership with the New York State Real Estate Board, in which they convene a lot of our engagement, talking with young people in terms of opportunities, teaching them soft skills, communication, and how to engage when they're practicing approaching career opportunities. It's a holistic approach to the level of investment in building on young people and their skills.

We’re in the middle of a youth mental health crisis. For youth experiencing mental health crises or who have behavioral issues, what do we currently have in place inside and outside of school to ensure their academic success, and how can we support them moving forward?

As part of the mayor's youth agenda, mental health, and trauma is number one in our bucket. We make sure that mindfulness is part of SYEP experience. We did a town hall last year in which we focused on talking to young people about what's going on in their lives. And from the town hall, the two consistent things that came out of that youth town hall were young people's mental health and police relations.

We got a lot of feedback from young people in terms of how best to meet them where they're at in terms of their mental health. They literally stood up, looked directly at the mayor and told both the mayor and myself that we needed more mental health services, and the mayor is really focusing on it. The department is rolling out mental health programming in schools with telehealth and most of our providers are also willing to have mental health services as well.

How does DYCD plan to address the mental and behavioral challenges of young migrants coming into the city? Especially those who are non-English speakers?

We do not ask for a young person's status. All we're concerned about is being able to provide the level of services in our drop-in centers and our residential centers across the city. The migrants and asylum seekers have been a challenge for the city, and the mayor has spoken as well, especially without the help of the federal government, as we're trying to be the advocate, but it was the mayor's strategy moving forward to decompress the stress that was on the system. But one of the things that I can say is that what we offer in our drop-in centers and in our residential centers is mental health, food, allow for a young person to be able to get clothing, to take a nice shower, and get connected to services that the city offers.

How do we ensure those who are neurodiverse have all they need to succeed as well?

We have counselors available. We have resources available in both in-school programming, and we work very well with the Department of Education to make sure that resources are there. And we have a whole host of providers to make sure that populations that are in need of services get those services.

How do DYCD programs help children stay in school? What's been most beneficial to boost graduation rates?

We run the largest after-school program in the country, and part of that after-school programming during school, there is a lot of academic support. New York City Public School has launched NYC Reads, and we have bought into that curriculum. So one of the things that Chancellor Banks and myself, and of course, the mayor, have advocated for is to make sure that there is no difference between what's going on in the day school and what's going on in afternoon schools. You can literally walk into a DOE and look at the curriculum in the day, and DYCD and the providers that are running the after-school program will align with curriculum and academic support. We're very, very excited about NYC Reads. We're excited about the chancellor's push, and we're excited about being able to work with him and his team to provide a continuum of services in regard to young people. We also have literacy programs and family literacy programs, and we have included as well that not only address the individual but also address the family in terms of teaching literacy classes.

How do you imagine the $2 million expansion will impact youth in the final month of summer and how do we keep up that momentum going into the Fall once school starts?

Our summer safety plan is very much aligned with the mayor’s blueprint to end gun violence. It's talking with our beacon programs, our cornerstone programs, our after-school programs, and just basically saying, “If a program is offered on a Saturday. Why not extend those hours to a Sunday?” Our Saturday Night Lights, which has 140 locations provide safe, engaging sports activity throughout the year, if it starts at 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. what are kids doing before that? We should think about opening up those centers in those schools in the Saturday Night Lights program so that kids can go and participate and have a safe space earlier on in the weekend. And how about extending it over to Sunday as well? So that's the approach that we took, and that was the $2 million investment as we rolled out the safety plan in specific neighborhoods. We also work collaboratively with the New York City Police Department in Saturday Night Lights, and we're looking at the data that shows exactly where we have the highest level of gun violence and shootings within New York City. So it's a precision approach to look at certain neighborhoods and then roll out programming based on what the data is showing us.