Bringing Out Unity Through Interactive Transformation

BOUT IT (Bringing Out Unity Through Interactive Transformation) is a program developed and run by Roosevelt University professor Dr Melissa Sisco that is designed to help mentor at-risk youth in the Chicago area. Dr Sisco has previously mentored youth in foster homes and behavioural health facilities (most notably at the University of Arizona in the form of a mentorship program run jointly with Dr Julie Feldman) but the BOUT IT approach differs from previous approaches to mentorship in various ways.

First, it focuses on youth-to-youth mentorship by taking students from Roosevelt University and exporting them from the classroom into the field of practice. Through her relationship with the Uhlich Children’s Advantage Network (UCAN), Dr Sisco found a space to take undergraduate students off campus and place them in an environment that would enable them to develop their skills as future psychologists and professionals working with at risk youth. UCAN is a facility dedicated to housing and caring for youth that have had a rough start in life, and many of the youth at the Chicago facility have suffered abuse and gang-related neighbourhood violence from a very young age. The BOUT IT program (the only program like it in Illinois, Indiana or Wisconsin) brings university students from Roosevelt to UCAN and pairs them with an at-risk youth for a semester-long mentorship program.

The mentorship is focussed around the concept of SMART goals. Dr Sisco states that the most important thing to instil in a youth that has suffered trauma is the ability to dream. Youths that are a ward of the state are entitled to free college tuition, but many of them are unaware of this fact or simply cannot see themselves ever going to university. The SMART goals framework enables them to visualise a dream, and then begin to take the steps required to achieve it. Through making small steps one at a time, these youths can find a way to achieve something they never deemed possible. The goal of the program is to show that not only are these dreams possible, but that we can take steps on a day-to-day basis that get us closer to reaching them. There are now two UCAN youths that have graduated the BOUT IT program and attend Roosevelt University. The mentors, current Roosevelt students, facilitate the development of these goals by being a positive role model and helping to provide a framework that enables the youth to take the necessary steps to achieve them.

Many of the youth at UCAN are unwilling to discuss their past, but one of the methods through which they can express themselves is music. In particular hip-hop and spoken word can be used as a tool for tackling their emotions. The newest BOUT IT project for these kids involves a partnership with Chicago-based spoken word group Row Cypher. Established by Dr Sisco, this partnership is hoped to help provide the youth at UCAN further positive role models that can demonstrate how these kids can use their skills to develop themselves and tell their story.

In the city of Chicago as a whole it is estimated that 1 in every 1000 people will be in contact with police regarding a violent crime, either as a victim, perpetrator or witness. In certain gang-infested neighbourhoods such as Humboldt Park this figure can reach as high as 1 in 4. Youth that grow up in these communities are at a very high risk of entering criminality themselves, especially if their home life is unstable. UCAN hopes to provide a sense of stability for these at risk youth but it can only provide shelter for a 3 month period before funding for the youth is cut. What programmes like BOUT IT hope to do is provide that stability through the establishment of SMART goals, allowing the youth to make sense of their own life story and take control of their future by providing them positive role models and a means by which to achieve what they want to achieve.

As a mentor in this program I have been consistently impressed with the professionalism of both the BOUT IT team under Dr Sisco and the UCAN staff who go above and beyond to foster good relationships with youths that can at times be difficult, for understandable reasons. I have similarly been blown away to see the resolve of so many of the youth in the program that have overcome all the odds and made it to a point where they are ready to move on with their lives and begin to think about a future away from violence and crime. Programmes like BOUT IT, though few-and-far between and desperately underfunded, are essential to instilling a sense of hope in youth that may have none. But more than that, BOUT IT takes college kids who have had little to no experience in the field of practice and throws them into a real world situation that is both challenging and incredibly rewarding. For me, it has been perhaps the most educational experience of my time in Chicago and that is solely down to the perseverance of the youth at UCAN in the face of unbelievable hardship, and the effort put in by Dr Sisco to enable us to take part in a program that is unlike any other I have ever seen.

Chicago is a great city with a great potential to help its poor and disadvantaged, but the current administration shows little interest in tackling the gang issues in the South and West sides. With little to no government help, programmes like UCAN aim to intervene in the lives of damaged youth and change their lives for the better. This would not be possible without the input of BOUT IT, which both relieves the staff and gives the youth a release where they can hang out with similarly aged individuals who can act as role models and hopefully provide an example of what is possible with a little hard work and perseverance. These services for underprivileged youth are essential to ensuring our continued success as a society, because these kids that have survived unbelievable hardship and come through the other side are our future, and they have the potential to make an incredible difference to the city, the country and the world.

So what can we do as bystanders to help these programmes continue to function? The simple answer is to get involved. Fundraise, show an interest, become a mentor, tell people about these amazing things that are happening. Running a program like this is a constant tight-rope walk of trying to balance the needs of the kids with the available budget and volunteer resources. If you believe in this sort of transformational experience as a way of changing the lives of both disadvantaged youth  and college students who are gaining an experience they can get nowhere else then take the advice of Dr Sisco and the BOUT IT team: don’t just talk ‘bout it, be BOUT IT.

For more information on any of these programs please visit their websites:

http://boutitlifecoaching.webs.com/

http://www.ucanchicago.org/about/

http://www.rowcypher.com/

The Mental Health Crisis in Chicago

In 2012 Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 6 of the 12 public mental healthcare facilities in the city. It was estimated at the time that around $3 million would be saved with this move, which came at a time of extreme fiscal insecurity. Today, the Chicago Tribune estimates that the city owes $33 billion dollars in pension pay and obligation bond debt. The Illinois Policy Organisation estimates the total city debt at $63 billion. 3 years after the closure of 50% of the city’s mental health facilities, serious questions are being raised over the efficiency of this move. The $3 million saving equates to far less than .1% of the city’s total debt, and has damaged the chances of thousands of individuals of getting adequate medical care for mental illness.

A recent Vice documentary estimates that around 30-40% of the inmates processed at Cook County Jail at 26^th/California are suffering from mental illness. Cook County sheriff Tom Dart notes that this makes the jail the largest mental healthcare provider in the state of Illinois. Why are we criminalizing the mentally ill in this way? A coherent mental health policy focused on treatment would surely reduce the number of crimes committed by the mentally ill, and eliminate the need for our jails and prisons to bear the burden of providing mental healthcare at a time when they too are strapped for cash. One of the most obvious reasons for this is that in passing the buck on mental health provision, the indebted city can shift the cost of treatment up to the county level, with Cook County taxpayers footing the bill rather than Chicago residents. With this highly political move, Emanuel can continue to push his low-tax policy in downtown, attracting business to the city.

But prison is far from the best place to treat a mentally ill population. For one, people do not get treatment until they have committed a crime. This leaves individuals suffering from deteriorating mental health without access to treatment. For someone suffering with a mental condition without access to health insurance or ObamaCare, the most likely end point is either in the prisons or on the streets. At this point in time, the city of Chicago is failing its mentally ill population.

And yet, despite these cuts to services and the handing off of much of the burden to the county level government, Chicago’s debt continues to increase. Emanuel’s policy has focused largely on austerity measures in the periphery of the city (leaving Downtown largely untouched by the cuts) and the increase of property taxes. However, there are other options. Roosevelt University professor Stephanie Farmer calls for the institution of a financial transaction tax on the city’s stock exchanges. This tax would be applied to financial exchanges on the stock market (currently Illinois’ most profitable economic sector) and encourage investor responsibility when trading by applying a cost to each transaction. This could cut the current unhindered ‘cowboy’ trading that was in large part responsible for the 2008 economic crisis by encouraging investors to be more sensible with their exchanges, and the Chicago Political Economy Group estimates it could raise $11-12 billion annually in Chicago alone, putting a much larger dent in the $63 billion debt than the £3 million saved by cutting mental health facilities.

As the city’s downtown continues to reach skyward and the periphery continues to descend into gang violence and disrepair we must begin to look for new ways of investing in the human capital that Chicago can offer. Chicago is not the Loop; it is 234 square miles and over 2.5 million people’s worth of largely underutilised resources. These people are worthy of investment, and in order to do so we must veer away from the current focus on finance capitalism that has facilitated the increasing inequality gap in the city. A 1% tax on each financial transaction that takes place in the city’s stock exchanges will be hardly felt by the million and billion dollar companies operating in downtown, but the loss of such a huge chunk of the city’s mental healthcare facilities has harmed, and will continue to harm, a significant section of the population that are being prevented from contributing to their communities by the incapacitating nature of mental illness and an inability to find treatment. Solving city level public health problems with mass incarceration at the county, state and national level is unsustainable. Cook County Jail is the largest prison complex in the US and the courtrooms at 26^th/California are overrun with minor cases. This strain on the criminal justice system breeds a mechanism that is neither morally just nor viable economically or socially. For Chicago to continue to grow it needs to invest in its citizens, and this in part can be achieved through providing help to those who need it most. The Emanuel administration has a duty to address these issues as it enters its second term.

The cutting of mental health services in the city is emblematic of Emanuel’s slash-and-burn approach to social services city-wide, with 54 Chicago public schools closing down on his watch and replaced by privately-owned charter schools. This wilful neglect of education and mental health provision may save money in the short-term, but it lays the groundwork for a full-scale crisis of humanity in the not-too-distant future. With a five-year high school graduation rate of only 69% in the 2013/14 school year (compared to the 80% national graduation rate) and an ever-expanding prison population, many Chicago residents are being set up for failure. Early intervention, better schooling and easier access to healthcare providers should be a starting point to mending the lives of an increasingly disenfranchised majority of Chicago citizens that reside outside of downtown. This is not a burden on the taxpayer, but an investment in the people that shaped, and continue to shape, one of the most vibrant cities on Earth. 

Helping the Homeless of Chicago: The South Loop Campus Ministry

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless estimates 138,575 Chicagoans were homeless in 2014. This number was up 19.4% from just one year earlier, and is expected to rise again in 2015. The evidence of this growing homeless population can be seen in the streets of the Loop, the university and business district of the city. Hidden beneath the skyscrapers, university campuses and expensive Magnificent Mile designer stores are hundreds of homeless individuals that have fallen through the cracks of the same society that built the city to its heights.

It is all too easy to ignore these individuals and walk past them – something we are all guilty of doing on a daily basis – but it takes a different kind of person to stop, take notice, and try to make a change in the daily lives of the people the system forgot. The South Loop Campus Ministry started life as an organised community meal for students at the Roosevelt, DePaul and Columbia university campuses surrounding Grace Place, an Episcopal church at 637 South Dearborn, in 2007. However, after a while it became clear that many of the individuals that arrived to take advantage of the free food and drink served at these community meals were not students but homeless men and women that lived in the streets of the Loop. Reverend Tom Gaulke shifted the focus of the ministry from feeding students to developing a community meal for the homeless at Grace Place in response to this and it proved incredibly successful. Excess food was taken to the streets and handed out to anybody who was hungry, and with that the current South Loop Campus Ministry was born. Today, under the leadership of Pastor Benjamin Adams, the ministry takes a shopping cart filled with packed lunches, soup and clothing to the streets every Sunday, other than the last Sunday of the month when a community meal is held at Grace Place for anybody who is hungry.

Although run by Ben and seminary intern Joe Hopkins, the SLCM is reliant on volunteer work from individuals in the local community in order to continue to feed the needy in its community. It receives help from students at Roosevelt University through APO, a service-based fraternity at the school. In addition local churches and youth groups lend a hand, as well as residents who want to help make a difference. The work done by SLCM feeds dozens of needy individuals on a weekly basis, and provides a time for them to talk with individuals who otherwise may have simply walked past. But Ben is aware that work like this, though absolutely necessary as a lifeline for people with nothing else, is insufficient in battling the epidemic of homelessness spreading through the city.

“Without service ministries people would go hungry,” he says, highlighting the simple need for charity work to help people on an individual basis, “you have to keep applying pressure to the wound so that you don’t bleed out.” But the eventual goal of the ministry is to sew the wound up by ending homelessness as we see it on the streets of Chicago. As a member of many community-based organisations focused on raising awareness of issues and mobilising force to tackle the injustices in society, Ben is aware of the need for social movements to make change. “In a capitalistic society, homeless people are devalued as human beings because they cannot produce or consume” he says, “but this is not the way that God looks at people. The image of God is in all of us, regardless of our situation.” The issue facing the homeless in Chicago today is that they are viewed by the city administration as a nuisance and something to be covered up, rather than people that have been failed by our system.

“The way we deal with mental illness is homelessness and imprisonment” says Ben. As a volunteer who has spoken to some of the individuals we have served on the street, I was struck by how many were suffering from a mental illness or addiction. In particular, many of the homeless men residing on Lower Wacker Drive (sleeping directly beneath the tourists and shoppers on the Magnificent Mile) were veterans suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. Is this really the way we want to treat our returning heroes? If these individuals are devalued because they have lost their capacity to produce or consume, as Ben suggests, then the question that I have struggled with is why do we not attempt to restore them to health by giving them the medical care that they need? Rather than wait for someone with a mental illness to harm themselves or others before intervening, why not be proactive and treat these illnesses in the ways that we can in order to give that individual a chance to function as a valuable member of society? In 1960, 400 per 100,000 mentally ill people were hospitalized, by 1990 this had fallen to 50 per 100,000. In 2012 there were an estimated 356,268 mentally ill prison inmates in the US, compared with only 35,000 in state psychiatric hospitals. With the advancement of modern medicine there is no excuse for the criminalization of the mentally ill.  Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner continue to cut funding for mental healthcare at a time when mental health services are already feeling the pinch. We are expecting seriously ill individuals to be able to pay for their own treatment when they often cannot work because of the affliction they suffer with.

Ben notes the emergence of a new breed of homeless individuals, lower middle class families that have been forced out of their homes by debt, largely as a result of medical bills. The middle class is vanishing in America as a result of the increasing polarization of income and wealth distribution. In 1968 the top 10% controlled 50% of the nation’s wealth, today that number has increased to 80%. Meanwhile, the middle class is disappearing as more and more families fall below the poverty line. There is no safety net for families that are barely treading water anyway when someone in that family falls ill. This is leading to an increasing number of couples and children who are finding themselves homeless. Chicago Public Schools identified 22,144 homeless students in the 2013-14 school year. Usually the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) takes homeless children away from their families and puts them into foster care, but with the number of homeless families increasing this is becoming a bigger concern that is putting DCFS under strain.

It is time to stop ignoring the homeless population of the city of Chicago, and of the US as a whole, and acknowledge that this is an issue that is not going to go away. These people are like you and me, and given the chance they can teach us so much about how to survive true hardship and overcome even the most hopeless situations. Some have made mistakes, and some are suffering with mental illnesses and afflictions that we may not fully understand, but they do not deserve to be forgotten in a society that has the power to lift every individual out of poverty and chooses not to. Individuals like Ben Adams and the SLCM dedicate their time to helping the most disadvantaged members of society in whatever way they can. The work done by SLCM provides a lifeline for people that often have no other means of getting food or clothing to survive Chicago’s bitterly cold winters, but it should not be necessary. It should not require an army of volunteers to take to the streets to help human beings that have the potential to make real change and improvements to our society. It should be a priority to fix the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods of a city that I consider to be one of the best in the world before we try to increase the wealth of the already-rich. Unfortunately it is not, and that makes work such as that done by SLCM absolutely vital to ensuring that some of the 138,575 Chicago homeless have food in their bellies and clothes on their backs.

SLCM is a faith-based organization, but it welcomes volunteers of all faiths and beliefs. We are all human, and we all deserve a chance to better ourselves. For many of the homeless people sleeping on the street beneath the bright lights of America’s third largest city their situation can seem hopeless. But nothing is hopeless, and organizations like SLCM help to reignite that hope in people that might otherwise have none. Until we can make a bigger change, we should feel obligated to continue applying pressure to that wound while we enjoy the privilege that we have.