Boys and Girls Clubs Struggle to Provide for Teens

Last week, as part of a series on opportunities for youth in South San Francisco, we reported on programs the Boys and Girls Clubs offers for kids. Today, we bring you a story about the challenges the Clubs face in meeting the needs of local teens.

A little over a year ago, Sharon Dolan became the executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of North San Mateo County, overseeing five clubs within the county, including three in South San Francisco.

Soon after she took her post, Dolan faced a city in mourning.

In the last days of 2010, violence rocked South City when three men were killed in a shooting in Old Town. After the tragedy, residents demanded changes: community-oriented policing, more city funds for the neighborhood and more activities for youth.

"There were several community meetings that happened where people, mostly from the neighborhoods where the violence happened, were saying we need a place to go, we need a place for things to do,” Dolan said. “It seems obvious, but there really wasn’t much available.”

Though hampered by a strict budget, the Boys and Girls Club acted swiftly in the wake of the violence, implementing what is known as ‘teen hours.’ The Club would normally close at 6pm, but for four evenings per week, the Club would remain open until 8pm in hopes of keeping teens off the streets.

“We hope to at least be able to continue that this year,” Dolan said of the teen hours. “We may be restructuring our staffing to have one of the people who works here be a teen coordinator specifically because there are more and more teens coming in. We would really like to be able to be more attentive to that group specifically.”

Teens were allowed to frequent the Club and take advantage of all Club resources, including computers, the gym, and the game room.

However, the Club is still devoid of one important resource, which remains a testament to the lack of attention paid to teens in the community.

And Dolan hopes to correct that injustice as soon as funding permits.

“The things that I heard teens say during that period of time in the aftermath of the murders, were number one, they just need a place to be,” Dolan said. “Right now, we have the teen hours, but we just don’t have the teen space.”

Currently, the Boys and Girls Club is more conducive to the younger crowd. There are areas for teens to hang out within the club, but none that were specifically created for them.

Lack of funding continues to stymie the efforts to give teens their own space and maintain teen hours for the upcoming year.

Miguel DeTrinidad, former unit director of the South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club, said that in his time with the club, he also saw the need for teens to have a sense of belonging within the community and the club.

“One of the things I tried to express during my time at the Boys and Girls Club was before violence and after violence, it’s all the same,” DeTrinidad said. “Teens still needed a place to have a sense of belonging; they still needed a place to feel like they’re useful.”

“They needed to be able to say this is their place of hang-out with a bunch of caring adults who actually care about what they feel,” he added.

Following the violence in December, many community members, teens and adults, began to organize focus groups with the sole purpose of identifying what teens felt like they were missing in the community.

Dolan claims that in addition to the need for their own space, teens expressed their need for help in figuring out their path in life.

“I heard from, in particular undocumented teens, who feel like they don’t need to pay attention in high school because they can’t go to college anyway, which really is not true,” Dolan said. “I would love to have a program where we work with people and figuring out ways of doing that. If not college, then some other path that they find appealing.”

“It’s really about helping kids find their path,” Dolan added. “When they’re younger, it’s about having lots of different choices and figuring out what they like. Then, when they get older, it’s about career exploration and helping you move from high school to college or your career.”

DeTrinidad, however, feels that the Boys and Girls Club has done its best to incorporate teens into the community with the resources available, as well as provide opportunities for them to grow.

“We haven’t changed what we’ve done because of the violence,” DeTrinidad said. “We’ve always tried to recruit teens. We’ve always tried to give them the best programs possible with what our budget allowed.”

In the wake of the December violence, there was much blame to be dispersed throughout the community, and a significant portion of the blame fell on the shoulders of organizations meant to keep kids off the streets, such as the Boys and Girls Club.

Dolan is aware that a certain sense of responsibility is associated with her organization, a sense of responsibility that has not been placed on her but one that she came to feel herself.

“Here we are, we’re a place for children and youth, and in some ways the main place for young people to be in the city,” Dolan said. “Yeah, I do feel like there is some expectation. And that’s what we want to do, is meet the needs of the community.”

DeTrinidad however, is not quite as accepting, saying that the responsibility belongs to the community as a whole.

“What I think was very disheartening was that people were willing to come to the table and talk about [the murders] to make themselves feel good, but people didn’t step up to the plate,” said DeTrinidad. “People didn’t volunteer. People didn’t come to the club.”

The key ideal that both Dolan and DeTrinidad honed in on was the effects of free time, instances where teens have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Filling that free time with productive options is the path that the Boys and Girls Club hopes to traverse, because as DeTrinidad puts it, positive decisions are a result of positive guidance.

“We’re dealing with another beast here, and that’s called ‘free time,’” DeTrinidad said. “When you give kids too much free time, they’re going to use it to their advantage or disadvantage. Their minds may not be developed enough to always make the right decision.”