The problems facing today's inner city students, particularly those with behavioral and emotional problems, are innumerable and daunting.
Today, there are vastly more single parent families. Fathers, for the most part are totally absent. Child abuse has increased immensely. The proportion of children in the foster care system has increased dramatically. Ordinary familial roles have deteriorated dramatically. Violence, anger, and acting out are the rule rather than the exception in many families. There are very poor boundaries in relationship to others, especially authority and institutions representing authority such as the police and schools. Daily social conformity often seems a thing of the past. Running the streets, gang involvement, drug use, and teenage pregnancy are rampant. The misguided parental involvement and lack of appropriate modeling and structure undermines children's and adolescents' self-esteem, motivation, and ambition, creating apathy and hopelessness. The school drop-out rate in one very large urban community is estimated at 80%.
Remedies in the schools for these problems, in the past and present, but for a few wonderful and involved teachers and administrators and a few imaginative programs (e.g. charter schools), amount to a chasm of nothing. The education of many adolescents literally doesn't happen. The school graduation rate in this same community is approximately 20%. Behavioral and emotional needs are either ignored or dealt with superficially, if at all, or left to others, such as the parents and police. Frequent suspensions, transfers from one school to another are popular 'remedies'. Out of sight, out of mind. The strength of families, no matter how strong or weak, is rarely encouraged or used in schools. Efforts to involve, teach and strengthen families, teaching them their key role in their adolescent's success in school, are virtually absent. Teaching families the necessity of maintaining appropriate in-home standards and rules, emphasizing respect for authority and proper socialization skills are usually ignored. Promoting the direct involvement of families in schools such as volunteering, classroom assistance, monitoring and promoting the emotional and behavioral development of their adolescent is virtually a non-event.
The Linden Center, a nonprofit Los Angeles based program, is an example of a program that attempts to deal with these problems. Linden Center believes that Respect is the cornerstone of its program, without which there is little or no hope for positive development. Its fundamental values and beliefs are that self-worth, the development of meaningful interpersonal relationships, academic and vocational success are predicated upon structure, predictability, and high expectations.
The Linden Center integrates emotional support with behavioral standards and academics. It creates structured behavioral, emotional, and academic processes and experiences that repeatedly clarify appropriate roles, reinforce appropriate behaviors, set consistent limits, and provide learning experiences that are individually tailored so as to be reachable and master-able. Career training is also provided so that students' strengths become valuable assets in society and to themselves.
The level of behavioral and emotional problems present in Linden Center children is immense. Many, if not all of Linden Centers' students require assistance with serious emotional difficulties, including anxiety disorders, depression, suicide attempts, hearing voices, hallucinations, etc. To that end Linden Center provides mental health treatment with its staff of seven psychotherapists and one psychiatrist. This area is both one of the greatest challenges and successes at Linden Center.
Family involvement is a crucial part of an adolescent's success. Meetings, open-houses, and parental involvement with their adolescent's emotional and behavioral problems is a great strength at Linden Center. Many of Linden Center's families are very poor. To that end Linden Center has created a program to offer financial help to their families, linked to the school attendance of their students. If a family's adolescent attendance is 100% during a month, for example, the family receives a stipend of $50. This program encourages parents to motivate their children to attend school and helps families with at least some of their day-to-day needs.
Linden Center's success rate is very high. The most prominent successes are related to the often dramatic improvement of its students' emotional and behavioral problems and level of academic functioning. A typical student entering Linden Center is behaviorally out of control, very often violent, severely emotionally ill and academically far behind. Stories of dramatic improvement in these areas are legion and are far too many to count.
The success of Linden Center graduates varies widely. Many are highly successful. A sampling of this group includes four-year college graduates (one from UCLA), community college attendees and graduates, successful professionals, members of the armed services, policemen, and successful family members with wives/husbands and children. One student went to and graduated from culinary school, one joined the Army, one became an EMT, and one a manger of a large university cafeteria. One girl, having graduated from college, wrote an opera. Of other college graduates, one became a social worker, one a teacher of English in Japan, and one a successful mortgage broker.
There are some students, sadly, who have done poorly or very poorly. A number live on welfare. Some have become pregnant and live on welfare. Some have been convicted of crimes. Three students have been killed. Two of these were innocent victims of gang violence. The third was killed during the commission of a crime by the police.
Nonprofit programs like the Linden Center are rapidly closing due to the cutbacks in state funding and decreases in private donations. Despite massive attempts at fund raising, raising enough money to operate Linden Center is and remains a monumental problem.
Writer's Post Script: The United States sends resources and money all over the world, often ignoring disastrous problems at home. We must remember the needs of those of us at home, those of us living in the United States. The Linden Center is but one example of programs striving to help our children and adolescents. There are many others. Sadly, most are near financial extinction.
More information about The Linden Center can be obtained at info@thelindencenter.com