Minutes

Attendance

B&GC of Burlington and B&GC of Winooski: Jeff Thompson

B&GC of Rutland: Mike Raymond

B&GC of White River Valley, Randolph Unit: Felicia Dieffenbach, Nicolle Canales

Bradford Teen Center: Bobette Scribner

Basement Teen Center: Jen Wells, Nikki Kromphardt, Rachel Grendel, Michael Beckett,

Essex Teen Center: Marissa Adamo

The Hub, Bristol: Ena Backus, Jennifer Adams

The Living Room, Burlington: David Alofsin

Milton Fam. Com. Center, Teen Center: Brenda Tourangeau

B&GC of White River Valley, Northfield Unit: Tony Moulton

Plainfield Teen Center: Steve Fiske, Thomas Harnden

Sara Holbrook C.C. Teen Center, New North End Youth Center: Beth Murphy

Spectrum One Stop: Patrick DeLeon

The Underground, Winooski: Erin Buckwalter

NEKCA Teen Center: Caitlin Arcangeli

King Street Youth Center: Nina Mazuzan

The Living Room, St. Johnsbury: Derek Murphy

Common Ground Teen Center, St. Albans: Colleen Kestenbaum

B&GC of White River Valley, Hartford Unit: Allysa Bryant, Joshua Roman, Annette Sacks

B&GC of White River Valley, Bradford Unit: Chris Cook

Swanton Teen Center: Mary Chiappinelli

VCTC: Trevor Tait

Introductions and tour of the Boys and Girls Club of Burlington.

Jeff Thompson gave tour of the center. The center is about to start a major renovation that will include more programming space, a cyber café, and more.

Teen Center Check-in: What’s new.

Caitlin from NEKCA Teen Center: opened a kitchen at her center that is popular and well used.
Colleen from “Common Ground” teen center in St. Albans: “Grand re-opening” and renaming of the teen center, it has good community support and an appropriation from the city. The center has had a group of committed youth that worked hard to make it become a reality.

Teen Center Check-in: Current issues.

Teen mom coming in with baby. Discussion: issues around wanting to be supportive but teen space is not for children. Also issues around having babies means “free ride” with services, and mom’s stopping by with cooing or sleeping babies not an accurate exposure to parenthood for other teens. Suggestions from group included: bring in young parents who have average experience of struggling to work and care for children, and parents with fussy babies or more real picture of parenthood.
What about birth control (condoms) in teen centers. Discussion: availability in the center and from outside organizations (planned parenthood): approaching teens honestly, frankly, and supportively.
How to improve community image/ community involvement. Discussion: plan community events (i.e. thanksgiving meal, meal delivery), community member/parent tours of center, community participate/coordinate/supervise activities.

CBI Grant process

Financial and Programmatic Reports Due 4/14/06 (both are required even if nothing has been spent or activities started, if not explain why).

Funding update

Legislature: The VCTC’s one time appropriation is in good shape. On Friday 4/21 the Senate Committee on Appropriations’ version of the budget bill (which keeps the VCTC’s $75,000 in one time money intact) was passed out of committee and sent to the senate floor. The Senate will take it up next week and then it is likely to go to conference committee. Keep your fingers crossed (see web site for more details).
Congressman Saunders: The VCTC has submitted a request for an appropriation for 2007. We probably won’t know until Feb. of next year, but hopefully sooner.

I would like to get one out in May and welcome photos, articles, artwork, poetry, prose, etc…from teens and teen center staff. Trevor will be contact centers for materials.

Trainings

I would like to offer one more VCTC workshop before the end of the school year. Keep you eyes out for more info. Ideas generated:

Assessing/approaching youth who might be using substances or under duress and techniques for handing.
Methods for building community support and volunteers.
Working with cultural issues (refugees): language, men/women roles.
Staff gender and how it impacts interacting/supervising/disciplining teens.
Methods for building parental involvement and support.

General Feedback/Discussion/Info

Desire to have State-wide teen event/activity/celebration like what happened at Lake Elmore in 2004.
Posting question and responses from teen centers about current issues is useful.
Beth Murphy of Sara Holbrook Community Center is participating in a non-profit fundraising marathon and is interested in other teen centers joining in. Contact her <shccteendirector@yahoo.com> or go the race web site <www.greenmountainrelay.com>.

Regional Quarterly Meetings/Annual State-wide Meeting.

I am going to change the format of VCTC meetings to three quarterly meetings in each region (northern and southern) and one annual statewide meeting.

Next VCTC Meeting

The next VCTC quarterly meeting will be two regional meetings. One in the southern part of the state and one in the northern. They will Tuesday June 6^th for the northern region and Wednesday June 7^th for the southern region. I know this is a busy time but I would like to have one before summer. If you would like to host a regional meeting please contact me. If you are somewhere in the middle, or one date doesn’t work for your schedule, you can choose which meeting to attend. Please RSVP by May 31^st. I will email and post the places and times as soon as I have them pinned down.

Spring Quarterly Meeting: Burlington, 4/13/06