Adam Hinds coordinates the Shannon Grant program from his office in the Department of Community Development,

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Early in the new year, the city is preparing to roll out a new community action plan in response to a troubling rise in youth violence and gang involvement.

 

Adam Hinds, who coordinates the city's Shannon Grant program aimed at engaging local youth, says that despite "some really negative incidents" — including a youth shooting in August, and another more recent fatal shooting in November — overall there is momentum for making proactive strides.

 

"We've really seen that there's an overwhelming support from the community, and a desire by the community to get involved in the work we're doing for youth development," Hinds said in an interview with iBerkshires.

 

Hinds said the Shannon Grant program, which he was hired to coordinate early last year, has made significant strides in a short time, partly due to increased concerns and awareness brought on by recent instances of violence. The city was awarded another $133,000 grant in December.

 

"We've been able to transition this year, from getting the program off the ground, to 'how do we incorporate the community in our work?' " said Hinds.

 

The soon to be unveiled action plan is largely the result of an ongoing series of "community conversations," beginning with a well-attended forum at Morningside Community School following the August shooting.

 

While complete details of the new Action Plan are not yet available, Hinds was able to summarize some of the needs that were highlighted in these conversations as well as general ways in which this input will materialize into new strategies for addressing the challenges of reaching youth at risk in the city.

 

Part of that strategy entails expanding the work beyond the efforts of the two recently hired youth outreach workers he supervises to a more widespread reach that includes a variety of other local organizations and neighborhood leaders.

 

"We're working to have deliberate community involvement, so that we have much more of a team working to reach our kids," Hinds said. "We're pretty excited about taking that increased interest, and really getting them involved in the day to day work of our program."

 

 "To me that starts to address some really important dynamics," he added.

 

According to Hinds, this effort has already begun to manifest itself in some new initiatives. One is a quarterly series of mentoring dinners, in which two community leaders get together to dine with a small group of identified at-risk youth, a setting he says offers a more compelling way to connect than larger, traditional forums and meetings.

 

Another initiative launching next month is a first ever "Berkshire County High School Pitch Contest," which will pair interested youths with mentors from the local business community, through a series of workshops that will culminate in teams pitching their business ideas to a group of judges from the private sector.

 

"It's a great vehicle for all sorts of lessons, from resilience, to communication, to basic math skills," he said.

 

A new boxing program coordinated by his outreach workers is another idea on the horizon.

 

Hinds said one of the most consistent issues they face in their work is the impact of poverty on many local households. While acknowledging that the city has limited ability to affect this fundamental economic issue for most families, better coordination of community support can do much to influence the ultimate outcomes produced by the issues that stem from that poverty.

 

High mobility in neighborhood populations is another challenging dynamic this kind of work encounters, and has been identified as a high priority for the program.

 

"How that undermines community and the ability of the community to work with families and individuals facing problems is a very specific issue that we're trying to confront," said Hinds. "The more you have a transient population in an area, the less you know your neighbors, the less you're able to ask for help when you need it, and the less that people are able to notice the signals of a changing environment in a household."

 

A variety of other factors that effect outcomes for local youth came out of extensive public input during the different sessions held over the course of the fall season. One major point that kept emerging was a sheer lack of "places to go" for teens in the city, such as a diverse youth center geared to teens, a lack of which has been a continuous complaint from city residents for a number of years.

 

Hinds said these initial forums, which began just days after a 17-year-old was shot by another teen at the corner of First Street and Tyler Street, certainly accelerated the process of the work his program is doing.

 

"All of a sudden, it meant we were really putting our foot on the gas pedal," he said. "It was quite useful to have that support at that time."

 

Hinds said the new Action Plan, set for public debut later this month, is a combination of responding to the community dialogue that emerged during these meetings, and "connecting that very deliberately" to the work done by Shannon Grant employees, something Hinds says will require real effort from local residents.

 

"We will have a real need and a real call for community involvement," a partnership Hinds said may take many forms.  "Really there's something for everyone to do."