Civic and community engagement:
St. Charles Youth and Family Services, Inc.

Challenge

St. Charles Youth and Family Services, Inc., (St. Charles) located on the west edge of the City of Milwaukee, is an education center dedicated to providing a wide range of social, mental health, and educational services to at-risk youth and their families. After being faced with a crisis involving the behavior of one of its students in 2006, members of the community surrounding St. Charles expressed concern about the incident and made claims that the agency was making their neighborhoods unsafe. St. Charles was faced with the challenge of proving that not only was the crisis involving its student an isolated incident, but that in fact, through their services, St. Charles was making the community a safer and better place to live.

Solution

Mueller Communications, Inc., (MCI) was first called to assist St. Charles with the crisis in 2006. MCI and St. Charles spearheaded a neighborhood task force to bring together community leaders, representatives of neighboring organizations and businesses, elected officials, and neighbors, to address the community’s concerns. The group meets periodically to discuss new ways to keep the community safe and includes neighborhood residents and representatives from local institutions such as Children’s Hospital, the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee and Wauwatosa Police Departments, Wisconsin Lutheran High School and Wisconsin Lutheran College.

Upon learning the specific, immediate concerns of the task force, MCI worked with St. Charles, Milwaukee Public Schools, and elected Milwaukee officials to move St. Charles students from public school buses onto city buses, even designing special routes to transport the students. As part of a new Safe Neighborhood Watch effort, MCI commissioned off-duty sheriffs to patrol students getting on and off buses before and after school, and implemented a paid staff person to patrol the neighborhood, full-time.  In Spring 2006, St. Charles purchased a patrol vehicle and hired a full-time driver to monitor the local neighborhood and activity of students who may be traveling to or from the facility. The driver provides general monitoring of the near campus area from 8 AM – 4 PM each school day.  The driver also assists St. Charles staff by following classes of students who are walking to any off-campus destinations, such as ball fields.  During the Spring and Fall, St. Charles provides additional staff in red shirts to monitor the campus area at the start of the day to make sure students get in to school and at the end of the day to make sure they get on buses.

After successfully addressing these immediate concerns about the safety of the community, MCI continues to work with St. Charles to send periodic neighborhood letters to inform and update them about the newly established Task Force and Safe Neighborhood Watch and hosted an open house where neighbors could meet the St. Charles staff and learn more about the school. In addition, MCI worked with St. Charles to establish a neighborhood volunteer program for students to assist neighborhood residents with yard and landscaping work.

Results

Through our work with St. Charles, the task force, local elected officials and neighboring organizations and businesses, MCI helped to establish St. Charles as a good community steward, committed to helping local at-risk youth and their families, ultimately making Milwaukee a better, and a safer, place to live. Following the implementation of a neighborhood Task Force and Safe Neighborhood Watch program, we conducted a survey of neighborhood institutions to ensure all of the initial concerns had been address. All survey participants gave positive feedback about St. Charles and its commitment to the community.  Also, the student volunteer program was so successful that it has now developed into a summer job program, employing St. Charles students by neighborhood businesses and churches.

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