Minutes

Attendance

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

B&GC of Greater Vergennes: Mike Reiderer

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

Bradford Teen Center: Gernard Postipischil

Cabot Teen Center: Peggy Miller

Essex Teen Center: Marissa Adamo

The Hub, Bristol: Ena Backus

The Living Room, Burlington: Jeremy Ritz

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

B&GC of Northfield: Tony Moulton

Plainfield Teen Center: Steve Fiske

Right Foot, Springfield: Tonya Burchette

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

Spectrum One Stop: Patrick DeLeon

The Underground, Winooski: Erin Buckwalter, Bridget Everts

Williamstown Teen Center: Averill Earls, Rene Richardson

Rep. Bernie Saunders Office: Jenny Nelson

VCTC: Trevor Tait

Introductions and tour of Williamstown Teen Center

Averill Earls gave a tour of the center describing activities and programs of the center. The center has a large central room with couches, chairs, and a pool table where most youth congregate for drop in time, movies, and/or activities. A smaller room has air hockey and foosball tables, and a third room has a computer lab and small kitchen facilities. Outside the center is a basketball court and proposed skate park.

Teen Center Updates with brief History

Teen centers gave a brief history of the center and an update on what is happening at their center.

VCTC announcements

Funding update: The current funding for the coalition (through August of 2006) is a congressional earmark from Congressman Bernie Saunders’ office. This earmark is not available for the subsequent year. Trevor and the YSB are currently working on funding possibilities and will keep the coalition informed of progress.
Ron Rubin Workshop “Discipline and the Motivations of Behavior” is coming up Jan 25^th. Registration deadline is January 11^th. Contact Trevor for more details and registration form.

Discussions: Teen Centers’ Needs

Funding

An obvious and common need. Most teen centers struggle for money to operate and especially to pay staff.

Volunteers

With limited funding volunteers are critical to the continued operation of teen centers.
How do we recruit them? Some of the ideas discussed were; using people already involved with the school such as coaches (when their sport is out of season) and bus drivers; parents of teens and parents of kids past school age; college students; asking teens themselves who they would like to have as supervising adults and having the teens do the “asking”; being a presence (have a table with teens/projects/photos, make announcement) at large community and school events such as dances, town meeting, sporting events; have an annual “open house”.
What kind of incentives and rewards work? Ideas discussed; working with local organizations and businesses for incentives such as dinner for two, pizza, and gift certificates.
How do we screen them, to what level, and who does the screening? All volunteers spending more than the occasional time with youth need to be screened. All supervisory adults whether staff or volunteer must be screened and trained. Screening can include fingerprinting but doesn’t have to. Without fingerprinting it is quicker and cheaper. Peggy Miller of Cabot Teen Center works with the VT Dept. of Children and Families and can arrange for free screenings for teen centers without access. Contact Peggy at pmiller@srs.state.vt.us. Mike Reiderer of the B&GC of Vergennes, also offered information for the service he uses for screenings ($10 per screening). Contact him at bgclub@adelphia.net.

Discussions: Role of Coalition

How can the Coalition best serve the teen centers? Promote inter-teen center activities such as joint activities between centers, sporting events, dances, transportation; annual conference or event including teens. Information system for communication and cooperation between centers; email of questions and concerns to tap into collective experience; grant and funding opportunities; sharing coalition information and statistics for use by centers.
How do current resources work and what could improve them? Increased use of email to communicate information to teen centers, tap into collective experience of all teen centers to answer questions and concerns, notification of new information and resources on the web site. A “best practices” for teen centers could be useful and potentially on the web site. Newsletter is a plus and provides recognition for teens (poetry, artwork) and information regarding other teen centers.

Jenny Nelson: Update from Bernie Saunders’Office

Jenny expressed congressman Saunders’ enthusiasm and support for youth programs, especially in regards to fitness and health. She noted the Congressman’s new earmark supports several teen centers in their individual programmatic efforts. She also invited teen centers to contact her for questions and information. Her email is jenny.nelson@mail.house.gov.

Next Quarterly Meeting:

Thursday, April 13^th 2006, 9:30am to 12:30pm at the Boys & Girls Club of Burlington. With the potential for an optional after-meeting lunch at local restaurant for continued discussions and networking.