PARENTS ON A MISSION CONTINUES TO GET RAVE REVIEWS FROM GANG EXPERTS!
“Parents on a Mission” (POM) is the train-the-trainer curriculum I created when I realized I could not continue to effectively prevent youth from joining gangs if they could not go home to a happy, healthy environment.
For years I had been on the front lines “intervening” and working to transform the lives of gang members and potential gang members. Yet, it seemed like just when we had made progress in the community, a whole new batch of youth would rise up and start the problems all over again.
I was living the story of the village that one day found dead bodies floating down the river and began pulling them out one by one. But, more dead bodies kept coming, and more help was needed. Still more bodies came and soon almost the “whole community” was brought together in an effort to stop the flow of dead bodies. One day, after a lot of hard work and expenditure of community resources, one man suggested, “Why don’t some of us go up-stream and find the source of where these bodies are coming from?”. BINGO! Once they dealt with the root cause, the bodies came to a complete halt.
This exact moment came to me when I began visiting the homes of the gang members I was working with. This going “up stream” revealed to me the root cause of our community problem and thus “Parents on a Mission” was born.
After teaching this gang prevention curriculum on a weekly basis for two straight years, not only did we see the transformation of individual gang members, but whole families as well. That was many years ago. But as I visit communities all over America today, I see the same root causes and yet, many communities have not figured out they need to go “up stream”. Thus, POM advocates for communities to stop focusing all their resources down stream and put more resources up stream where the root of the problem stems from, namely, the HOME.
POM does not mean to condemn parents for every youth that joins a gang. Nor do we suggest that parents of gang members are bad people. But we do point out the critical role parents have in the nurturing of their children and strongly suggest this as the best practice any community can invest in to prevent children from joining a gang.
The literature tells us that most kids who join gangs, join between the ages of 12 to 15. POM answers this by teaching and equipping parents to maximize what we call – “The Home Field Advantage”. This speaks to the fact that parents have the advantage of cultivating and nurturing the first 12 years in the life of their child before their “competition” (gang recruitment) ever steps onto their field, so to speak. However, if we assume that all parents know what to do in those vital first 12 years we leave a potential opportunity for the competition to slip through and steal the loyalty of our children to their own “family”. But, if parents are trained and mentored on how to plant, water, nurture and cultivate healthy growth, their children are prepared to face the competition on the school yard and in the neighborhood because their loyalty is not for sale, and already belongs to the “First Family”, which POM teaches is NOT in the White House, but in MY HOUSE!”
This is only one small piece of what you will learn as a POM Certified Trainer. I promise, no, I guarantee, that you will experience the same results that all POM trainees have received OR YOU MONEY BACK!
For information on how to register for the September 2009 POM training visit:
www.RichardRRamos.com
Here’s what recent trainees are saying about POM:
“Parents On a Mission (POM) showed me that parents issues are the same everywhere and that POM provides a foundation and follow-through on those topics which must be addressed by said parents in order for them to become empowered as leaders within their “own” homes and healthy developers of their children in order to develop and sustain a healthier community.”
- Henry Pacheco, Program Manager/Community Specialist, World Vision USP, Herndon, VA
“POM not only educated me in the area of gang prevention, but it has also taught me to be a better parent. I am currently working one-on-one with at-risk youth and I am now challenged to focus on their parents to bring out the best in them so that they may bring out the best in teir children. I am excited to take this information to reach parents as a way of preventing children from joining gangs.”
- Robert Lopez, Youth Mentor, Victory Resource Center, Coachella, CA
“I have been studying gang related issues for the past seven years and have been working with gang members for the past four years. The POM curriculum exceeds a vast majority of other trainings and seminars I have attended. It gets to the root cause of gang issues and prevents further behaviors. It emphasized the importance of a care givers role , which is something many of us have forgotten.”
- Deepa Patel, Gang Intervention Counselor, Multicultural Clinical Center, Northern VA
“Thank you for taking the time and effort to teach the right and culturally appropriate principles for raising and transforming parents and families that prevent new generations of kids from joining gangs.”
- Wilmer Ramirez, Community Advocate, World Vision, USP, Herndon, VA
I’m a prevention specialist with the Kern County Superintendent of Schools working with students who are at-risk for joining gangs, in a gang, or in the Juvenile Justice system. The POM curriculum was the missing component to our gang prevention strategy. Empowering parents to be the number one prevention specialist is the best approach.”
- Sal Arias, Prevention Specialist – Project 180, Bakersfield, CA
“POM taught me that parents are the key to preventing kids from joining gangs. It is the empowering process for parents and a crucial tool for developing a healthy up bringing for children and the community.”
- Julio Chacon, Community Advocate, World Vision, USP, Herndon, VA
What a gang is, why kids join them and how to prevent it is not the mystery we have made it out to be. A gang is a second family, kids join them because their first family is unhealthy, and therein lies the answer for prevention.
But let’s take a look at a couple of quotes on what the “experts” are saying about addressing the gang problem:
“After a quarter century of a multi-billion dollar war on gangs, there are six times as many gangs…Suppression alone…cannot solve this problem. Law enforcement officials now agree that they cannot arrest their way out of violence crisis…”
- L.A. Advancement project – 2007
“A proven, effective set of prescribed steps for mobilizing communities to address gang problems does not exist.”
(OJJDP – 2009)
Although I completely disagree with OJJDP’s conclusions, the real question is – Why the Insanity? - If law enforcement and national research is telling us what doesn’t work – Why do we continue to do it? And as I travel the country I see this pattern over and over again of communities employing a proven failed strategy.
I suggest it is time for a community “Two Minute Warning”: Like a football game we need to call time out assess where we are at and make sure we have the right strategy and personnel on the field.
Allow me to draw your attention to some overlooked statistics on Gangs:
1. “Law enforcement estimates of nationwide juvenile gang membership suggest that no more than 1% of all youth ages 10-17 are gang members.” (OJJDP 2006)
2. “The best estimate of general U.S. youth gang prevalence is 5% ever-joined, 2% current gang members…the strongest message in this research is that…most youth – 7 or 8 out of 10 – do not join gangs through adolescence.” (Klein, Maxson – “Street Gang Patterns and Policies” 2006)
These statistics alone lead us to the following conclusions:
- We have approached the problem as if we have been losing
- POM suggest that we approach the problem from a position of winning
- We have poured our resources into community offense
- POM suggests we pour our resources into community defense, and this is done through mentoring and empowering parents, not the community.
For more information on the September 2009 POM Training visit:
www.RichardRRamos.com
In closing, I encourage your community with the following adage: “Don’t just do something, stand there!”
In other words, call “time out”, stop, step back and re-think what we are doing. Is it working? If not, why not and why continue to invest in what is not giving us a return on our investment?
Imagine the effectiveness of creating “New Rules” for Community-Wide Gang Prevention!
- Imagine a specialized group of people focused on empowering PARENTS.
- Imagine training young adults who have no kids and young parents of young children as a means of perpetuating safe neighborhoods.
- Imagine parents taking responsibility for sending out cooperative, contributing citizens into the community everyday.
- Imagine parents who are not dependent on the schools, police, or pastors to raise respectful, obedient children.
- Imagine…
POM provides you the tool to accomplish all of the above and more.
The question is not how to get rid of gangs because unless we solve the issues that produce them, we are always going to have them.
The question is not why do kids join gangs, but as the data shows, the question is why do most kids NOT join gangs? We suggest that a healthy home is the reason most kids do not join gangs and empowering more parents is the best strategy that any community can invest in for gang prevention.
POM Definition of Gang Prevention: “Gang prevention is building the capacity of parents to raise happy, healthy, respectful and obedient children whose hearts are not searching to fill the void of unconditional love.”
POM is a low-cost program that gets at the root issues of prevention. It is unique in that it does not teach parents how to fix their kids, but how to fix themselves first through learning and practicing the principles of personal transformation that produces leadership in the home to nurture healthy, happy children which is the key to creating safe neighborhoods.
POM is poised to cooperate with you and the parents in your community to build upon the existing partnerships making gang prevention efforts. Join us in Los Angeles in September. Visit my website: www.RichardRRamos.com for more information.
Blessings,
Richard
