Over two dozen city officials, nonprofit leaders and educators filled the rows of chairs and four tables set up in Way2Real Community Center’s first floor event space on Friday.
The City of Fayetteville’s Shaping the Future Youth Symposium brought the group together. Hosted by the city’s Economic and Community Development Department and Office of Community Safety, the event looked to identify local solutions to issues surrounding mental health, education, workforce development and the safety of the city’s kids and teens.
“By sharing knowledge, identifying service gaps and amplifying the voice of our young people, we are laying the foundation for a citywide movement,” Mayor Mitch Colvin said to the crowd on Aug. 22.
For two hours, the group listened to a seven-person panel speak about behavioral issues in schools and the community and the county’s overcrowded juvenile detention center. The adults on the panel shared a conclusion on how to address the issues: Organizations and local governments need to work together to build programs that also engage parents.
“Every family is the foundation for their youth,” Tony Haire, director of the Way2Real Community Center, said during the panel. “So the number one thing we have to do is to get back to the family, to parenting. That’s the number one thing that is causing what we are addressing today is the lack of family, of parents.”
The other adults on the panel — which included Melody Chalmers McClain, associate superintendent of Cumberland County Schools; Matt Dempster, Cumberland County Juvenile Court counselor supervisor; and Kevin Brooks, founder and director of the nonprofit The Group Theory — also traced young people’s behavioral issues to lack of parenting. McClain said it’s been difficult for Cumberland County Schools to reach the parents of the small subset of kids causing trouble.
“I’ll just say, the message for the city is, ‘How do we engage our adults, our parents to make sure that they are providing the appropriate supervision and they’re providing the best situation at home for their child?’” McClain said to attendees, which included Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Jensen and Fayetteville City Council members Malik Davis and Derrick Thompson.
But the three teens on the panel — all members of the Fayetteville-Cumberland Youth Council (FCYC) — said the city and nonprofits don’t need to focus on their parents. Instead, they told symposium attendees, the local government and agencies need to better reach young people by sharing the resources they provide in schools.
The organizations could also provide more safe spaces for kids and teens, said panelist Ryleigh Woods, a junior at Cross Creek Early College High School. Woods and her friends used to go to Main Event at Cross Creek Mall to hang out after school, she said, but stopped after several fights broke out near the entertainment venue. Now, Woods feels like there aren’t any spaces in the community that are open late for her to go to.
Places that young people frequent and the area around the county’s schools should have more police patrols to make them safer, said another panelist Rylen Mack, a senior at Seventy-First High School and chair of the FCYC. Sterling Kelly, a senior at Cumberland Polytechnic High School and the third student panelist, said it’s especially crucial to have police officers at events like fairs. Kelly pointed to a March incident in which a 12-year-old girl was shot outside a carnival at Cliffdale Plaza.
“This is where we’re going to have some good fun, but it’s being spoiled and ruined by [shootings],” Kelly told the crowd. “So, just having more precautions at these youth-filled events, that’s going to be the biggest solution.”
Gunfire outside the Dogwood Festival in April prompted city officials to institute a citywide youth curfew. The curfew, called the youth protection safety ordinance, prohibits kids 16 and under to be out in public between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless accompanied by a parent or authorized guardian, or they have a valid reason like a job. It’s been in effect for about a month.
John Jones, director of the Office of Community Safety, hopes the perspectives shared at the symposium prompt the nonprofits, city leaders and others in attendance to put solutions into effect.
“The reason I wanted to provide this call to action today to the community is because I’m very solution-oriented,” Jones said in his closing remarks. “I’ve heard a lot today. You’ve all heard a lot today. So what are we going to do about it?”
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.