BLACK MALE ACHIEVEMENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes BLACK MALE ACHIEVEMENT ADVISORY COUNCIL MAYOR TOM BARRETT, CO-CHAIR and ALD. ASHANTI HAMILTON, CO-CHAIR Bevan Baker, Robert Cherry, Spencer Coggs, Clifton Crump, Nikiya Harris, Leigh Kunde, Khalif Rainey, Shannon Reed, James Santelle, Ald. Russell Stamper, II Staff Assistant, Joanna Polanco, 286-2366 Fax: 286-3456, jpolan@milwaukee.gov Legislative Liaison: Amy Hefter, 286-2290, ahefte@milwaukee.gov Wednesday, August 27, 2014 10:00 AM Room 301-A, City Hall 1. Call to Order at 10:10 A.M. Present 8 - Hamilton, Crump, Davidson, Moore, Cherry, Santelle, Harris-Dodd and Stamper II Absent 1 - Grayson Excused 1 - Kunde Also present: Common Council President Michael Murphy WI State Senator Lena C. Taylor Treasurer Spencer Coggs Mr. Rahim Islam - President/CEO of Universal Companies Mr. Michael Barndt for Leigh Kunde 2. Welcome and Members Introductions. Chair and Co-Chair, Ald. Hamilton and Mayor Barrett welcomed and introduced BMAAC members. Ald. Hamilton said that last two meeting were held in the community where over 100 people showed up. All members were present to hear the voice of the community. 3. Approval of previous meeting minutes of June 23, 2014. Mayor Barrett, seconded by Mr. Santelle moved to approved the minutes of June 23, 2014. There were no objections. 4. Communication from the Milwaukee Public Schools - Be The Change - Safe Sons Program. Appearing: City of Milwaukee Page 1 BLACK MALE ACHIEVEMENT Meeting Minutes August 27, 2014 ADVISORY COUNCIL Dr. Darienne Driver, acting Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools and Reginald Lawrence II, Regional Superintendent, Innovation Region Dr. Driver brought a presentation to give an update on two initiatives that are focused on African American Male Achievement: Be the Change Program in partnership with the City and Safe Sons Initiative which represents a number of different organizations that have gathered to work with the schools. Dr. Driver started by saying that during this year’s Be the Change summer school program it build a curriculum around the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Summer in order to make the learning culturally relevant for the young people; students took a pilgrimage with the UWM and Arts At Large program down to many southern cities to meet with people who are involved in the Civil Rights movement as well as to visit local museums. Mr. Lawrence said that Be the Change Project and Safe Sons Initiative are focused in ten comprehensive High Schools, with males of color to work around putting safety nets around the students year round. The goal of these two initiatives is to help the students build their self-esteem, self-awareness, to have students take some of the leadership components as well as focusing on their academic achievement. In order to achieve these goals, the program monitors attendance and suspensions. As a result of the Safe Sons Initiatives the average number of suspensions have improved, average number of days suspended has improved, and attendance has remained constant. Programs are funded through City CDBG funding and private contributions. Next steps of these initiatives are the improvement and consistency of implementation, possible expansion, work on alignment and integration with the city and community organizations and continued analysis of the projects. 5. Communication from Milwaukee Father Initiative. Appearing: Sharon Robinson - Office of Administration Dennis Walton - MFI Outreach Coordinator Mr. Dale Williams - MFI Program Coordinator Ms. Robinson concentrated her presentation on a program called Nurturing Fathers designed to reduce the recidivism rate of African American males. Father absence is an epidemic affecting families from all walks of life and income levels. The problem is most acute in the African American community. Nearly 2 in 3 African-American children and 1 in 3 Hispanic children live apart from their fathers compared to 1 in 4 white children. The problem of father absence puts African American and other men and boys of color at a significant social, educational and economic disadvantage compared to their peers. It is strongly linked to poverty, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency and incarceration, low education attainment and unemployment and other social problems. The Milwaukee Fatherhood Initiative (MFI) evolved from a two-day training session in October 2005 led by the National Fatherhood Initiative at the request of Mayor Tom Barrett. More than 25 community leaders participated. Out of the planning session, a subcommittee emerged with a charge of convening a citywide Fatherhood Summit in the fall of 2006. The inaugural Milwaukee Fatherhood Summit was held in October of that year with over 1,200 men attending. Due to overwhelming response, the Mayor and the planning team formalized the MFI, including hiring a full-time director. The Milwaukee Fatherhood Summit is the largest annual gathering of men in the state-drawing an average of 1,000 men a year. Over 95% of men served by the MFI City of Milwaukee Page 2 BLACK MALE ACHIEVEMENT Meeting Minutes August 27, 2014 ADVISORY COUNCIL at annual summits and year-round have been African-American males. This year’s 9th annual Fatherhood Summit: The Pursuit of Opportunities through Healing and Change will take place Friday, October 31- Saturday, November 1, 2014 at Destiny Youth Plaza (76th Street and Good Hope Road). The 2013 MFI Summit had an attendance of 902 participants; 471 received information on Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment, 138 received assistance for driver’s License recovery and Child support assistant. Program Coordinator, Dale Williams talked about Check Yourself program – 100% of men served through this new effort launched by MFI and Clean Slate Milwaukee have been African American males. Other key programs are child Support 101, Driver’s License Recovery and Annual Daddy Daughter Dance. Mr. Walton offered testimony of his participation with the MFI program. He is now an Outreach Coordinator for the program after successfully completing his certification training. This entire presentation can be found in Common Council File Number 130831. 6. Communication from the Homicide Review Commission. Appearing: Dr. Mellory O'Brien - Homocide Review Commission Dr. Mallory O’Brien talked about an Integrated Data System that allows compiling of information from various agencies within the City. The mission statement is to strengthen the region’s infrastructure to improve the health, safety and prosperity of the residents that live in the Milwaukee area by creating a multi-sector, multidisciplinary, integrated data system that allows for planning, implementation, and evaluation of the comprehensive prevention initiatives that will be developed with this data. This can only be done in partnership with the Milwaukee Health Department, MPS, MPD, District Attorney’s Office, circuit court, child welfare, and the Milwaukee Fire Department. This is to evaluate strategies and evaluate the effectiveness among individuals and neighborhoods in the areas of wellness, education, program participation. This data collection system is currently in the test stages. The attempt is that all data sets can be entered by the end of the year so production mode can be ready for the beginning of 2015. 7. Discussion of April 2015 conference. 8. Discussion of membership ordinance. 9. Recap - Update by The National League of Cities Representative. Appearing: Leon Andrews - Senior Fellow - Institute for Youth, Education and Families Marc Philpart, Associate Director Policy Link Tyra Mariani - Chief of Staff, Office of the Deputy Secretary US Department of Education and Deputy Director of My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Ms. Mariani encouraged the BMAAC and the City for the work that’s been done regarding black male achievement by embracing collected data to connect resources to make effective programs; looking at the Cradle to Career approach that very much feeds into many of the recommendations that the Federal Task force made towards My Brother’s Keeper, Ms. Mariani noted that although some Americans have City of Milwaukee Page 3 BLACK MALE ACHIEVEMENT Meeting Minutes August 27, 2014 ADVISORY COUNCIL consistency lagged behind despite the progress made with the economy, education, and jobs, the Department of Education at the Federal level knows that there are certain populations of America that lagged behind, unfortunately young men and boys of color are included. President Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper and charged the task force with looking at programs and practices that are known to be effective both on the federal space and on the private side to put forth a set of recommendations on how to improve outcomes for all young people especially boys and young men of color. Ms. Mariani said that MBK is about bringing together leaders from the school systems, the Mayor, the Aldermen, State, Federal legislators and civic business leaders to take a comprehensive approach to improve outcomes. MBK’s six focused areas are early learning or entering school ready to learn, 3rd grade reading level, on track to college and career, completing post-secondary education and training, entering the work-force, reducing violence and interaction with criminal system. As part of this comprehensive approach there are four or five key elements: identifying the problem and tracking progress, providing incentives for people to do what works, comprehensiveness of college and Career strategy and the importance of caring adults. The task-force also issued a call for mentorship to parents and children. Washington continues to advance MBK by moving forward on the recommendations that were made in the task-force, continuing to support private commitments, continue to listen to the challenges community is facing in order to give help and support. Mr. Leon Andrews commended the city for the tremendous amount of commitment and engagement in focusing in black men achievement in the City. Mr. Andrews shared a diagram that captured the beginning of a range of conversations with elected officials about their level of interest to lead on promoting a black male achievement agenda three and half years ago. These conversations evolved in ways never anticipated in terms of the stories that were coming out and national initiatives that were emerging. How to maximize the opportunity of engaging local elected officials across the country? One of the data points was homicide. The National League of Cities gathered data looking across 184 cities with one homicide per 100,000 populations. This reflected a striking outcome that was not considered at the time, young men and boys dying throughout the country. Cities United supports a national network of Mayors who are committed to developing and implementing plans working in partnership with community leaders, families, youth, philanthropy, government officials, and other stakeholders dedicated to reducing the epidemic of murders among African American men and boys. We believe that African American men and boys matter and are assets to our nation, which should not be squandered. By 2025 more than 500 Mayors from across the country will have partnered with community leaders, families, youth, philanthropies, and other stakeholders to implement plans that result in Cities United realizing a 50% national reduction of violence and violence related deaths among African American men and boys. City leaders to promote Black Male Achievement Technical Assistance Initiative in five areas: strong commitment by city leaders to frame and raise visibility, development of strong partnership structure, effective utilization of Data, implementation of comprehensive strategies and authentic engagement of young black men. Cities United have partnered with Policy Link, 11 cities were selected to receive the technical assistance grant. Mr. Andrew challenged the city to continue its commitment to continue to advance this work by engaging diverse stakeholders, define and implement BMA strategies, City of Milwaukee Page 4 BLACK MALE ACHIEVEMENT Meeting Minutes August 27, 2014 ADVISORY COUNCIL share accountability, data and outcome, create an sustain a local coordinating body. Mr. Philpart from Policy Link focused on improving outcomes for boys and men of color since 2007. Policy Link manages the only state wide network in the country that’s focused on improving outcomes for boys and men of color and co-directing the national institute for black male achievement. Mr. Philpart shared what the organization has seen nationally in terms of policy and opportunities. The Institute for Black Male Achievement that Mr. Philpart co-directs with an organization called Group Cause, based in Boston, is a national membership network comprised of about 3,000 individuals and almost 2000 organizations throughout the country focused on improving outcomes for black men and boys and providing the necessary support for it. It focused on four strategies: leadership development, organizational capacity building, supporting networks and strategic communications. The supporting networks strategy is what brought together the Institute for black male and boys and the national league of cities. Policy and system changed is key component to start the process of allowing individuals to reach their full potential, Mr. Philpart said that he’d seen about that Milwaukee has about 105,000 black males in Milwaukee. In education something that has shown proves of success has been promoting and expanding equitable funding for school. It is important to draw from different source levels of government and community organizations in order to gain the desire outcome. Mr. Andrews closed by saying that the council needs to share a clear vision to help the success of black men and boys and also engaging key stakeholders along with the community. When black men and boys are healthy they can achieve better academically and as they achieve academically, they are being helped to become leaders in their communities and to have a healthy future. 10. Adjournement. Meeting adjourned at 12:30 Joanna Polanco Staff Assistant City of Milwaukee Page 5