Stop the Violence: A Call to Action

This past week in Springfield a young man—a football star, well-liked by his teachers and his peers—had his life snuffed out by a bullet while trying to stop a fight. His young life impacted many. There is a ripple of shock and anger that a young man who was making many positive choices could have his life ended by an angry young man with a gun.

Over the nine years I’ve lived in Springfield, there have been far too many shootings – though all with different circumstances – affecting far too many families. And when these tragedies happen, it leaves our community crying out, shaking our heads, and calling for an end to violence.

We are right to be troubled. We are right to grieve. We are right to ask why.

But I believe that we are most right when we do something to change things.

And so I’m challenging each of us who cares, each of us who is troubled, to do something to raise the tide in our community for kids. There are never guarantees when you work with kids, that they will make the choices you want them to make. There are no guarantees that our young people who make the right choices will be unaffected by others who do not. But let’s not let that stop us from doing what we know works.

And so I humbly submit a call to action of what you and I can do to help stop the violence in Springfield. Warning: These might not be the actions you’re expecting. But if we want to change things, these are things we’ve got to do.

1. Help a child learn to read.

Huh? What? Aren’t we talking about violence?

Yes, reading. The fact is this: A child who can read at their grade level by 3^rd grade is unlikely ever to be involved in the criminal justice system. That is a big, important reality to wrap our brains around.

Practically, this is what it looks like: A child struggles to read early on. As time goes on, they lag farther and farther behind their peers, and school becomes much harder. By middle school, they have quit caring about school. Worst case scenario, they have quit caring about anything or anyone. By high school, they’re on the fast track to dropping out.

So I’m not talking about walking up to a belligerent 15-year-old and putting a book in his hands. I’m talking about reading to a preschooler, helping a kindergartener learn their letters. I’m talking about reading with a first grader. Get involved or get behind the great organizations that are knee-deep in this work, like our school systems, Eagle and Dove Academy, Springfield Promise Neighborhood, Clark County Literacy Center, or SCYM’s own Camp Boost Summer Reading Clubs or STARS Afterschool Programs.

2. Help dads learn to connect with their kids.

Once again, what? How can this stop violence?

Hear me out. Reality #1: Children who have a positive relationship with their fathers are more likely to be successful. Reality #2: Many, many children in Springfield are disconnected from their fathers. Sometimes dads are incarcerated, or absent, or sometimes they just don’t know how to be a dad.

So check out the great work of Urban Light and the Clark County Fatherhood Initiative, or befriend and encourage a young dad. This is hard and slow work, but it is vital to strengthen the fabric of our community.

3. Mentor

Mentoring is a regular commitment to build a friendship, between a positive adult and a young person. All of the research on mentoring shows that when it’s done right, young people with a mentor are more likely to graduate, less likely to use drugs, less likely to be arrested, and less likely to have a teen pregnancy.

Let me tell you, there are thousands – thousands! – of children in our community who have experienced trauma in their young lives. I could tell you story after story after story of heavy burdens that kids are bearing.

Left alone, with no one to help carry these heavy loads, these children may become depressed, or angry, or addicted as teenagers. But a caring adult to help a child process their trauma can make all the difference in the world.

Reality: There are not nearly enough mentors in Clark County for all the children and youth who need one. One person can help change the story! Get involved as a mentor with One2One Mentoring, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Kids Hope USA, or SCYM’s mentoring program.

4. Listen

We may talk a lot to, or about, our young people, but chances are we do not listen to them nearly enough.

Listening can be hard. It almost always takes time. Sometimes it requires “wasting time” with a young person, where you listen to a hundred stories about their cat until you finally get to something of substance. Listening cannot happen at a distance, and it cannot happen in a crowd.

But something happens when we listen to a young person. It is healing. It is affirming. It is life-giving. It is a stepping stone to better choices, to hope, to value.

Take the time to ask a young person a question, and really listen.

5. Talk to kids about conflict.

In many neighborhoods in our community, conflict and fighting are just realities. Many young people have no idea – none! – how to respond to conflict besides fighting. We have got to help them understand their options, have the courage to take those options, and most of all help them have futures that are bright enough to motivate them to walk away from violence.

6. And more

All of these actions (and there are others, like understanding mental illness, and helping kids get involved in afterschool activities) are valuable on their own. They make a difference. Our community will be better off if we do them. And know that all of the organizations that I mentioned do not have nearly the time or the people or the funding they need to meet all of the needs that they want to meet –your support makes a difference!

I also believe in a sixth call to action, a heart change in our young people and in ourselves, a healing that only comes by the grace of God. SCYM partners with churches because we believe this is the deepest work we can do to effect the greatest change, a change that comes not just from trying harder but from a transformed heart that is rooted in love and forgiveness.

So to our churches, I plead with us to get behind our city’s young people, to come together as one, to address their real needs, to do the hard work of mentoring and listening and talking. I plead with us to daily fill our hearts with the love of God, and to pour it out into our community with our time and our actions.

Because we are most right when we are doing something to change things.

Faith Bosland
SCYM Executive Director