The Blueprint
June 2018 Edition
“There are consequences to inaction. There are consequences to indifference. And they reverberate far beyond the walls of the projects, or the borders of the barrio, or the roads of the reservation. They sap us of our strength as a nation. It means we’re not as good as we could be. And over time, it wears us out. Over time, it weakens our nation as a whole.”
-Former President Barack Obama
June 12 is now MBK Houston Day!
In 2014, President Barack Obama announced the My Brother's Keeper (MBK) Initiative, which aimed to address opportunity gaps among BYMOC by offering new support from cradle to career through young adulthood. As part of this initiative, President Obama issued the MBK Community Challenge, a public call to action that asked municipalities to implement local action plans focused on expanding opportunity at key inflection points across a young person's life.
Houston was one of the first cities to accept the challenge and in May 2015, it launched its MBK Local Action Plan, creating a full-time staff dedicated to the work and investing the vital resources to make the plan a reality. After three years with the support and guidance of Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic municipal consultancy, Houston is one of the first to share its work publicly and well positioned to lead the discussion on what other municipalities can do to enter into this work successfully. Bloomberg Associates worked with the City to develop their Local Action Plan and has been an advisor to their efforts for the past three years including helping to launch Team Up: a sports careers initiative in MBK neighborhoods last year.
Mayor Turner
City of Houston Mayor
"Houston is a city of opportunity, a city where dreams can come true, a city that helps afford opportunities to succeed in life, despite obstacles, the success of MBK Houston demonstrates how innovation, ambition, collaboration, and investment in human capital can help fill the potholes in the lives of our youth. MBK Houston helps to create a culture of achievement enabling youth to reach their full potential."
Noel Pinnock
Bureau Chief of Youth and Adolescent Health & MBK Houston Lead
“Over the last three years, we have been working tirelessly to ensure our city’s most vulnerable youth populations who are underserved receive the necessary tools and support to discover the champion in themselves. We have worked strategically and intentionally to change the lives of our youth, one at a time.”
Niiobli Armah
Bloomberg Associates
“Success in addressing the persistent gaps in outcomes for young men of color in the country requires strong and unwavering leadership, trust, community-wide collaboration, and a strong management approach. Houston has all of the above, giving us promise that the work will stay strong in the years ahead.”
MBK Houston currently operates in three “feeder pattern” communities, which are
clusters of neighborhood schools that allow children to transition from a large
number of elementary schools to a smaller number of middle schools, and finally to
one or two large high schools. In order to pilot efforts in targeted schools, MBK
Houston currently operates its Systems of Care/wraparound services in Bruce
Elementary school, Fleming Middle School, and Wheatley High School.
Throughout these efforts, the city has collected data to track the programs’ results,
select highlights include:
Increasing Literacy
- A Houston replication of Boston Basics – a citywide coalition originating in Boston that utilizes five evidence-based parenting and care-giving principles critical to brain development during the first three years of life - reached 26,064 individuals in MBK neighborhoods
- Total number of books checked-out of the Fleming Middle School library, in 2016-2017 was 1,172, up from 5 in 2015-2016. This increase was a result of a coordinated effort by the school administration to focus its systems of care counseling, college fairs, and onsite supportive groups to promote student utilization of the library.
- At Bruce Elementary School, there was a 10% increase of 3rd graders passing their STAAR standardized reading exam from 2017-2018 to 2017-2016
Increased Police and Youth Relations
- 5,300 Houston police personnel will participate in a four-hour training on youth safety, aimed at reducing social distance between at-risk youth and law enforcement. This is a result of the Texas statewide Community Safety Act Curriculum, which MBK Houston will be leading the efforts in the city of Houston.
Providing Second Chances
- A Houston replication of the Clean Slate initiative, which aims to give persons arrested for a crime a ‘clean slate’ by having their arrest and conviction records expunged resulted in 82% of participants in the Clean Slate Cooperative receiving services, such as criminal record expungement, sealing, non-disclosure, or identification restoration.
Supporting High School At-Risk Youth
- A total of 700 school credit hours have been recovered among 145 at-risk youth in Momentum Academy, an alternate learning experience and a partnership with HISD and the City of Houston's multi-service centers, to help put students back on the path toward expected high school graduation.
In addition to the city and its core partners, the initiative also engaged several
private partners who helped to oversee and support the work. These key
stakeholders are Harris County Protective Services for Children and Adults, Harris
Center for Mental Health IDD, Houston-Galveston Area Council, Houston
Independent School District, Houston Community College, Communities in
Schools of Houston, Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Houston Public Library, 315th
Juvenile Court, Workforce Solutions, and the Association for the Advancement of
Mexican-Americans.
MBK Houston Case Study: 1st in the Country!
"Houston seized this opportunity because the city understood the need for such an initiative. With a current population of more than 2.3 million people, the City of Houston is one of the most populous and ethnically diverse cities in the United States of America. Boys and men of color make up 75% of the male youth population. The city’s diversity was not lost on the city leadership - whose commitment to improving the lives of all Houstonians made the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative an imperative.
Bloomberg Associates - a philanthropic municipal consulting firm - has been working closely with Houston since the city took up the MBK Challenge. Over the past four years, Bloomberg Associates has been providing pro bono consulting services to 25 cities that have taken up the My Brother’s Keeper Challenge. Through our work, we have taken note of the cities that have been leading the charge with the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative - MBK Houston is one of them. Within the 180-day timeline set by the Obama Administration, Houston produced and launched its Local Action Plan in May of 2015.
This brief is intended to offer a glimpse into the inner workings of the MBK Houston efforts and shed light on the efforts needed to champion this work within City Hall. Now, more than ever, we need change agents who are willing to champion the causes of boys and young men of color boldly and unapologetically. Communities across the country have responded to this call to action. Our goal here is to tell the unique story of Houston with the hope that it may inspire others. "
-Bloomberg Associates Social Service Team
the Lives of Boys and Young Men of Color
MBK Night at UniverSoul Circus
Noel Pinnock was a guest ringmaster at the UniverSoul Circus and spoke on our MBK Houston movement with all in attendance. Some footage can be viewed on our social media. The ringmaster directed the audience to shout M-B-K while giant balls were kept afloat in the crowd. The show contained a wide variety of acts represented mainly by African, Asian and Hispanic ethnic performers.
SPECIAL THANKS TO UNIVERSOUL CIRCUS FOR SPONSORING OUR MBK HOUSTON YOUTH NIGHT AND CELEBRATING WITH ALL OF HOUSTON AT THE #BESTCIRCUSEVER!
In The News & Updates
MBK Houston on NPR News
Bloomberg Associates Roundtable
Featured: (Left-to-Right) Noel Pinnock, Stephen Williams, Judge Michael Schneider, Marcel McClinton (Co-founder of Orange Generation), Niiobli Armah (Bloomberg), CM Cisneros, Juliet Stipeche, Scott Packard (HHD Chief Communication Officer), and Porfirio Villareal (HHD PIO).
Equity Intelligence Platform Pilot
Houston has been selected to participate in the Equity Intelligence Platform pilot (EIP). The goal of the initiative is to provide local governments with an easy way to pull the data out of their agencies, integrate, and present them to communities and local partners to provide clarity on where and why disparities exist for disadvantaged members of the community.
The most important features are:
- Data will be longitudinal
- Updated in real time and
- Shared across agencies.
The EIP is being developed and deployed at no cost to the City and is a joint project of Bloomberg Associates and the Obama Foundation. We are asking your support in laying this out as inter-departmental priority for the Houston Police Department, Parks Department, Library Department, and Department of Neighborhood as well as Legal and HITS as we seek to roll this technology out in the next few months and be the 1st in the country to accomplish the effort.
Building a Community of Practice
Houston HITS Home HIV Testing
We will be participating at the Houston HITS Home HIV Testing event. The event will take place over 3 days, June 27-29, 2018 from 9-3 pm at Walgreens 5200 Westheimer. There will be a nice cool tent and plenty of privacy for individuals and couples to safely get tested for STDS and HIV.
#WeThrive Summer Food Distribution
Juneteenth Parade
Kingdom Men's Conference
"Extra Shoutout to Willis Robinson for connecting me to such a great network, it's evident that your hard work and dedication keeps the MBK name alive in our religious communities Kudos!."
Faith-Based Connections
Our Faith-based administration manager Willis Robinson has been reaching out to local faith-based organizations to help foster connections with our communities in regards to improving youth and adolescent health; whether its through program referrals or just influence from being deeply rooted in the community. Here are some updates from Mr. Robinson:
- Met with Rev. C. Scott of Lilly Grove MBC to provide information on the possibility of partnering together on mentoring youth through the church and to look at aligning his young adult ministry with the Ambassadors of Compassion. There is an ongoing discussion on how this can or will be done. More information is needed to foster some ideas.
- Met with Dr. Douglas Posey along with Ms. K. McNeil to discuss exposing 9th graders to the field of Medical Forensic. The plan is to begin with one Church Mt. Corinth Baptist Church discussing the benefits of this class to young black men to perhaps consider the field. He is also interested in getting the parent involved to keep the students interest and give the parents information and knowledge of how this work is done.
- Met with the leadership of Abiding Faith United Methodist Church to discuss next steps in developing this partnership. Mr. Leftwich, the Bureaus partnership developer was in attendance and he was going to contact his city of Houston’s Parks and Recreation insider to make the connection for them to utilize the city’s recreation center in their community. Currently waiting for a status update.
If you know any faith-based organizations who would like learn more about ways they can stay plugged in and/or want to learn how we can collaborate in the community, then you can reach out to Willis.Robinson@houstontx.gov.
Postive Youth Development
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships
Tia, Frank, and Katherine facilitated workshops with the girls that are a part of the E.S.T.E.A.A.M. Career and College Preparatory Girls Summer Program at Atherton Elementary School. The 3 spoke on Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships and provided youth with skills to differentiate between characteristics of a healthy and unhealthy relationship.
Mass Clinic Days
On June 5th, Katherine Caballero and Nurse Mary Simon hosted two mass clinic days with 100 students from Wheatley High School as part of our Comprehensive Screening Program. The program offers free comprehensive wellness exams and physicals to students of Wheatley and Booker T. Washington High School. Students received wellness exams, physicals, and education on healthy eating habits and nutrition. Another mass clinic day was held at Booker T. Washington serving a total of 53 students.
Youth-Adult Partnerships
The THAI HYAC hosted the "Youth-Adult Partnerships in Programs and Evaluation" session at the 35th Annual Texas Network of Youth Services Conference. Attendees learned how to bring both youth and adults to the same table to work toward a shared purpose or goal. Through sharing firsthand experience, participants also were informed of best practices for elevating youth and adult voice in their own work. Finally, attendees of our session learned how to use evaluation practices to improve services by incorporating both youth and adult feedback into their quality improvement processes.
Youth Hub: Chess Club
Saturday Chess Club is constantly growing, welcoming 2 new members to the team. Everyone is welcome, rather you already know how to play, or just want to learn! Saturday, June 9th, students had the privilege to learn from a United States Chess Federation (USCF) player, Sam Bronx, who has a USCF rating of 2000+. The image shows him playing 9 students in a game of chess at one time. Chess Club meets every Saturday, from 9 a.m. – Noon at the Denver Harbor MSC – 6402 Market Street, Houston, TX 77020.
MBK Houston Milestone Snapshots
Houston Basics: Overview
Parenting is best when you get back to the basics. Please share these videos with someone you know who has children or works with children. Let's work together to turn unintentional micro-aggression to micro-impressions!
To view more Houston Basic videos click here.
HYPE Summer Literacy Program Registration is (Still) Open!
This summer session included special training sessions on June 25-26 from our Youth Violence Prevention Team covering CPTED (Crime Prevention through Environmental Design) curriculum and TAPS Academy as well as a campus tour of Prairie View A&M on June 29, 2018 as part of the HYPE program's weekly field trips.
Summer registration is still open for families to register their K-8th Graders. Scholars can apply today and look forward to:
- Improve Skills and Confidence
- Parent & Family Involvement
- Develop a Love of Reading
- Eliminate Summer Learning Loss
- Youth Leadership Development
- Social Action
Read Aloud for MBK Week at HYPE
ARE YOU HYPE? ARE YOU HYPE?
Please support MBK Week at HYPE Freedom School on
- July 2 8:45AM-9:30AM
- July 3 8:45AM-9:30AM
- July 5 8:45AM-9:30AM
at Bruce Elementary School or K Smith Elementary School.
WE WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO BE OUR READ ALOUD GUEST!
Serving as a Read Aloud guest is a great way to positively impact HYPE Scholars. After registering (with the button below), you simply select a location, arrive at the scheduled time, briefly share your background with scholars and read a short- length story!
Mr. Omowale Allen volunteered as a read aloud guest in the first photo.
Photo Courtesy: Kesha McNeil
HYPE Parent Meeting
Congrats Class of 2018
YABC Project in Acres Home & Gulfton
We have now concluded our focus groups in the Gulfton community and now compiling the data to develop a report based on the feedback obtained. This information will assist in the final modification of the training curriculum to start our leadership training mid-July into August. We have started our focus group facilitation in Acres Home at the following points: Acres Home MSC, Shepard Library, Lonestar College, and New Life Tabernacle. These sites will be hosting focus groups to assist the Y-ABC project in obtaining the necessary content needed to modify the training curriculum. We plan to start the leadership training in Acres Home mid-August into September.
If you know anyone who is between the age 18-30 and would like to attend our leadership training in Acres Home or Gulfton please contact Frank Garcia at francisco.garcia@houstontx.gov
TX Certified Community Health Worker
Please contact Larry Prescott at Larry.Prescott@houstontx.gov to stay in the loop!
Hire Houston Youth Summer Jobs: Orientation
Making Connections with Workforce Solutions
Virtual Welding Instruction
MBK Houston, in partnership with the Houston Black United Fund, Houston Community College (HCC), Texas State University and the Launch Pad are providing virtual welding instruction at Phyllis Wheatley High School. Students enrolled in the summer Bridge program are being prepared to weld through simulated computer training. This project emerged from the Area Action Team while discussing Milestones 5 and 6. This training will augment skill building for entering the world of work successfully. Training is also friendly to ex-felons (Milestone 6). Our partner, Launch Pad has the ability to pair the virtual welding certificate with a construction trades certification.
Marcus Glenn of the Black United Front is the chief facilitator. Dr. Wakefield of Texas State University has generously provided the virtual welding machine. This pilot program should provide the experience necessary for a mobile and more expanded effort in the fall of 2018.
HILSC is hiring: Program Coordinator
The Houston Immigration Legal Serices Collaborative (HILSC) is looking to hire a program coordinator. Please view the job description below:
CPTED & TAPS Academy gets HYPE!
Through HYPE Freedom School Youth Violence Prevention (YVP) implemented CPTED (Crime prevention through environmental design) and TAPS Academy for two days each for a total of 4 days with middle school and high school students at 5 locations throughout the City of Houston. These classes also involved a collaborative art project that will be combined from all 5 locations to make a beautiful canvas and paper flower collage with the words “Stop the Violence - Read to Lead” painted on by local Houston Artists. We will culminate YVP programs with a campus tour of Prairie View A&M on June 29 where students will be greeted by center staff and the Dean of COJJP (College of Juvenile Justice and Psychology), participate in a scavenger hunt, experience mock trials with Dr. Penn in the courtroom, campus tour of the juvenile justice operation and go bowling with Houston police officers, YVP team and HYPE team.
CDC two-day Site Visit
Houston Youth LEAD Program: Updates
The Houston Juvenile LEAD program continues to develop with implementation completed in August. The Harris County Commissioner’s Court and Office of Budget Management are creating a case manager position for Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis. This case manager position will be assigned to the Houston Juvenile LEAD program at Attucks Middle School. We are working on dates for a return visit from the LEAD National Support Bureau who will be conducting in-service training for teachers, case workers, and HISD-PD on the principles of LEAD. The Policy Coordination Group for Houston Juvenile LEAD met on June 13th.
The members of the PCG are stakeholders of the LEAD pilot project and responsibilities include guiding the development of policies: referrals, eligibility, and service provision. The partner agencies of the PCG include: Houston Independent School District, HISD-Police Department, HPD, HHD, Harris County Protective Services, Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Harris County Juvenile Probation Department, Harris County Public Defender’s Office, Judge Michael Schneider, 315th District Court, Harris County Precinct One, Mayor’s Anti-Gang Office, Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, Neuhaus Education Services, Council on Recovery and Crimestoppers.
The District Attorney’s Office submitted a memo to the PCG providing in writing the offenses that are considered eligible for the pre-charge diversion. Several low-level felonies have been added to the Class A and B misdemeanors.
Youth Justice Council
The Youth Justice Council met on June 13th. Members of the Youth Justice Council are involved in a workgroup analyzing the denial of school enrollment for youth who have been incarcerated through the juvenile justice system.
Wear Orange Day Recap
On stage our Bureau Chief Noel Pinnock gave a key note speech (coming to YouTube soon) and met with Marcel McClinton who was involved in a church shooting and now the Founder of Orange Generation and Sante Fe School shooting survivor Bree Butler.
Other Upcoming Events
Luc Mbah a Moute Soccer Charity Game
Interested groups will need to provide their own transportation and chaperones, and we’ll need to know the name of organization(s), their contact person and the number of students they'd like to bring.
[This event is *FREE* for the kids and their chaperones/parents.]
Luc Mbah a Moute is a current basketball player for the Houston Rockets. http://mbahamoute.com
Saturday, Jul 7, 2018, 09:00 PM
Rice University Holloway Field
The Colony Writers of Color Summit by VIP Arts Houston
Saturday, Jul 14, 2018, 10:00 AM
500 McKinney Street Houston, TX 77002
Summer Camp Fun
Follow Us @MBKhouston for more updates
Email: mbkhouston@houstontx.gov
Website: www.mbkhouston.org
Location: 8000 North Stadium Drive, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: 832-393-5169
Facebook: facebook.com/MBKHouston/
Twitter: @MBKHouston