Season 2 - Episode 7: Gun Violence Prevention, Beyond the Politics

Season 2 Episode 7: Gun Violence Prevention, Beyond the Politics
According to the CDC, gun deaths are now the leading cause of death for children. But how can we protect young people when the very mention of guns elicits polarized, highly entrenched points of view? Lucria Ortiz knows more than most on this subject. She serves as the President and CEO of the Yonkers Family YMCA—an organization whose gang violence interruption program that has become a model for other communities across the country. She also serves as the co-chair of the YMCA Gun Violence Prevention Group. In this episode, she discusses the role of youth serving organizations in addressing this issue in a way that transcends the typical political or demographic divides. 

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Transcript

0:00:03 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
The message is coming from someone they trust, they know in the community and has walked the path that they could very well go down. 

0:00:12 - Kevin Trapani
Welcome y'all to Season 2, staffing Safety Society. I'm Kevin Trapin and I'm Paige Bagwell. 

You know, paige, we have talked many, many times about Redwood's mission to create safe communities for all and, specifically, are calling to protect children and young people from all forms of harm, wherever they may be. It is really clear that, according to the CDC, gun deaths are now the leading cause of death for children between the ages of one and nineteen. If we're at all serious about achieving our mission, then we have to tackle gun violence. How can we do that when the very mention of guns elicits polarized and trench and politicized points of view? You're in a tough moment. You can't solve a problem if you can't have a conversation, and our guest today is going to help us to think through how you can act in a difficult time. 

0:01:00 - Paige Bagwell
Even your introduction today, kevin, like people probably thought about turning us off, but don't. You're going to be enriched by this conversation. We are so excited to have LaCarrilla Ortiz with us today. She's the president and CEO of the Yonkers Family YMCA in New York, an organization that has just done amazing work in developing a gang violence interruption program that has become, quite honestly, a model for other communities across the country. She also serves as the co-chair of the YMCA Gun Violence Prevention Group, a diverse group of YMCA's that transcend the typical political or demographic divides that so often keep this conversation siloed. She has a background as a public defender, as well as having close family members who have spent time in prison. She's very open and honest about that, and that brings this lived experience for her and her sense of advocacy and justice for all of her work in this space. Thank you so much, lacarrilla, for being with us today. 

0:01:50 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
It is indeed a pleasure to be with you, paige, and also with my buddy, kevin. 

0:01:55 - Paige Bagwell
The little reunion for y'all. And why don't we start with what you're doing with the Yonkers Family Y and how your program has kind of tackled this topic of gun violence? 

0:02:03 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
Sure, I'll give you some foundation in history. First, yonkers, about 10 to 15 years ago, had incredible amounts of violence, gun violence in particular. A state initiative was actually developed in order to tackle those shootings. So we have a program that's called Snug. That's actually guns spelled backwards. 

It's very intentional in that we hire people who have lived experience and have been formerly incarcerated. Some of them Some of them are former gang members, so that we have credible messengers. What we mean by credible is that people in communities can trust them, because the model is we send our staff into their own neighborhood, mostly men. We are hiring some women now, which is great. They develop a list of kids and young men that they see have the potential to pick up a gun to resolve conflict. So it's their job to interrupt that right. That's why we call it violence interruption and they do that by literally developing a one-on-one relationship built on the mentor model. Kids see something for themselves differently, but the message is coming from someone they trust, they know in the community and has walked the path that they could very well go down. 

So how is this work funded? We are funded by the Division of Criminal Justice Services, so it's really interesting, right? It's like we're funded by a law enforcement agency but not work with law enforcement, and that's really important, because in the street we can't be seen as working with the police, but we very much engage in the same kind of strategies for prevention. You know, ken, and I talk about this all the time like harm reduction is literally like reducing harm, and that's what our team is doing. So we're very fortunate We've been state funded since the start and that funding has only increased because we're trying different things. We have to be innovative in this space. 

0:04:10 - Kevin Trapani
You know, Lucrea, the work you're describing in Yonkers is a specific response to a specific problem. How is it so focused and tailored to the challenges in Yonkers that might be different than those somebody else experiences? 

0:04:23 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
I say this all the time the why engages in youth development. If you're engaged in youth development, you're engaged in the exercise of keeping kids away from any kind of harm. As a public defender, I knew that between the hours of three and seven pm is when a lot of crime is committed. We could take that same block of time anywhere in the country and ensure that we're enleaging kids in meaningful development, whether it's character, leadership development, you know, just keeping them out of harm's way. We've tailored it to what our community means, but in a rural community, for example, that could look completely different. I'm only talking about youth right now, but YMCA's are uniquely positioned because we serve adults as well. It's really thinking about how we're keeping folks engaged but coming together and reducing that kind of isolation that can lead to either self-harm or any other kind of harm. 

0:05:21 - Kevin Trapani
Wow, what you described in Yonkers is really you said, violence interruption as an intentional program. We've said many times you see one Y, you've seen one Y, right, and things are different, but you just described the commonality, I think. So what we know is that gun violence kills about 50, 55,000 people a year in the United States, it says we said, the leading killer of children. We also know that more than half of those gun-related deaths are suicide, and so it seems to me that what you're describing in the youth development model is that by engaging kids between those hours of three and seven, we keep them from turning a gun on someone else, but do we also keep them, potentially, from turning a gun on themselves? And why? What is it about our work that makes it less likely that they might get to that place? 

0:06:08 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
So a lot of us have been talking about what the Surgeon General is talking about, which is deep and profound isolation epidemic proportions that youth are facing as well as adults. As an organization that brings people together, we really focus on not only doing programs that give someone, a youth in particular, a lens on what they can do in their life, see a path, have more value and develop themselves individually, but we bring them together with people. So I just had a meeting with Yonkers superintendent of schools. They've identified at least 20 kids in the school district that really need a lot of support. But the way that they're tackling it is they want to also include the moms in the conversation, because it's not just the children, it's also. Do the moms have the right support? 

Many of them are single moms, young and struggling as well. It's great to be able to develop programming. The real magic is when you bring them together with their peers. We take them through programming. They're also developing that peer support that attacks that isolation that we've been talking about. We really need to engage in some serious community building so that people know all right, if I'm feeling really low, there is someone I can talk to, or if I'm angry and I want to resolve my conflict this way. There's someone I can talk to about that, because I talked about it after Y. So just like really giving people the tools to manage their life in a different way. 

0:07:45 - Kevin Trapani
So connecting kids with community, which is what we do when we're at a rest connecting kids with community is gun violence prevention. 

0:07:52 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
It's such a basic premise but literally we've been doing this since the 1840s. The YMCA we were developed by George Williams because he saw some kids that literally needed guidance, so he started setting up Bible study. We have not changed that concept at all, we've just innovated different ways. In America we draw these artificial lines between ourselves. We call it politics. I do a lot of all kinds of different work. That's very challenging, right? I do anti-racism work. I like to get into the hard stuff because when I get into that space I realize there's so much more that we share and have in common and that we're already doing and we don't need to like reinvent. And to me, community building is always the solution. 

0:08:41 - Paige Bagwell
And what I love about that too is that's not just about kids, that's about everybody, right From the 1840s to now. We all have that sense of community and when you pull people together to have support and love like the powerfulness of that is just you can't measure it the importance of when you pull people together to have, like you just said, like dive deeply into those hard conversations and how you can have them in a healthy way. And so we mentioned that you were the co-chair to the YMCA gun violence group and that's really trying to empower all the YMCA's across the country to engage in this topic. They're aiming to reduce the number of injuries and deaths from gun violence in the US. You did not say the aiming to reduce the guns or types of guns in the US. That sounds like a deliberate choice that you all sat around the table and talked about of how we bring people together. 

0:09:27 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
I mean we're focused on people. That's a part of our fabric. We don't get distracted by the political conversation, otherwise we're not able to serve in the way that we want to. But also what I think is unique about the Y is that we can shift the conversation a bit. People who are gun owners and are very serious about hunting and owning a gun as protection to their home to other people who don't believe in that, and I think the Y has always served as a convening space for that. So the focus on people and not the guns allows for that. 

Number one. Number two we basically create an opportunity to really see how people feel about it, right To like get that emotion out, get past that and then start building solutions. And to me, like one of the solutions is really looking at how we're developing people and bringing them along and how are they responding to resolving conflict, whether it's conflict within themselves or conflict within their community, because that's what this is about. People are harming themselves because they truly have serious conflict inside. So wellness is something that we're very good at in the Y and CA. 

We can get at that and then conflict resolution right. For kids, we definitely focus so much on ensuring that they're using words rather than picking up a gun. What we're seeing here is social media has had such an incredible influence bad influence, unfortunately in stirring the pot, and so then the automatic response is well, I'm going to shoot that person. What we're trying to do is intervene and say you're taking like 20 steps where you don't need to do that. I'm talking to them about how they can resolve that in different ways and learning different tools. 

0:11:32 - Kevin Trapani
And I think that's important. You know, paige talked about this gun violence prevention group and Lucrea. You've seen a bunch of people engage with that group who were maybe a little tentative. So there'll be listeners to this podcast who are right now being enriched by your experience and your words. But one of them might be running a camp or they might be working at a Boys and Girls Club or one of your colleagues in the YMCA movement and they may feel like man, this is terrible that so many people are being harmed by gun violence, don't even know how to get involved in the conversation. The board might be shutting that conversation down. What's your guidance for those folks who want to get engaged but are not sure how to take the first step? 

0:12:12 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
I think I'm having courage to wait into the space and understand that. It'll be a learning that's really key for a lot of people. But then also actually seeing what's in their community. I think that's really important and seeing it. If there is a high rate of mental health and wellness issues, we see that across the board, with kids in particular. But are there suicides? Have there been shootings? Right, in some of our communities there may not be a prolific street violence happening, but random mass shootings happening. So how does the community manage and deal with the aftermath of that? So I think it's really understanding your community first. Right, like that's what we do in the Y and then get a group of people together to start the conversation. What are we seeing? And not so much centered on guns Let law enforcement deal with that and that also stymies the conversation. That's where potentially, it stops Really focusing on all right, like we're seeing these higher rates why. 

0:13:18 - Kevin Trapani
Yeah, so meet the community where it is and go upstream with partners to try to solve the problem. 

0:13:23 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
That's right, and that's exactly what you and I are doing, kevin. 

0:13:25 - Kevin Trapani
Yeah, I'm just following your lead, Paige. Let's move to conclude. And what a great conversation. We're so grateful for your work and for your words today, Paige, what's in your head and your heart as we close out? 

0:13:37 - Paige Bagwell
This has been wonderful. 

Korea, I could. There's a part of me that just we could sit here and listen to all of your dreams, because I love how you approach it is that you see the beauty that could be at the other side of this, right, and I love that you dream like that and I love that you do that by talking about the people. I think what stood out to me the most is that you're meeting people where they are, and that is at different levels, right. You have to understand the community in which you live in, to understand, kind of, where that community is. You have to understand where their family is. 

When you engage in the parents and the child, every family is in different situations, so you have to understand that, and I think you're right that the Y has done that really well for a long time, and the youth serving organizations that we work with on a day to day really get that. That reaching one can really reach many, and so, one by one, meeting them where they are is just such a the most beautiful way to approach this, and it's the human approach, and I'm so glad that y'all have stayed focused on that throughout this, that it hasn't been about the guns or anything else, but it's about meeting people right where they are. 

0:14:35 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
Oh, yeah, for sure, and I love that you said that, because you know that is the crux of a lot of work I do is meeting people where they are, because people are, you know, from all different walks and experiences. They have to understand that they're going to come along with me to do some problem solving together, which means they can't stay there. They got to be like willing participants to learn and let go of biases and preconceived notions and we all have those. To me, this is a community organizing exercise. Right, I'm a community organizer, but the learning that happens and the different person that you become when you find the solution that works and you start moving through it, it's wonderful, both personally, organizationally and systemically. Well said. 

0:15:18 - Kevin Trapani
Yeah, we have been listening to Lucrea Ortiz, our friend, who is the president and CEO of the YMCA of Yonkers, new York. She's doing amazing work on the ground and has inspired us. Today, lucrea, I should call out, as we learn in this space, came upon a really, really good podcast of called the gun machine, which gives us a really good understanding of our gun culture and why it is what it is and helps us to understand, as Lucrea guided us, how to meet our communities where they are so we can help work to go to find solutions. I'll say two things. First of all, what Lucrea did today, paige, is the impossible right. She depoliticized a third rail topic so that we can get beyond the stuff we argue about, to get to find the stuff that we agree about and there's a lot of it, right, lucrea? 

0:16:02 - LaCarrilla Ortiz
For sure, I like to wait into the hard stuff. 

0:16:05 - Kevin Trapani
Yeah, exactly. She also helped us to understand that youth development, or is gun violence prevention and connecting those two things, is a really, really powerful thing that allows us to talk about this work in a way that is not political, that brings right and left together so that we can solve a problem we all agree is a big one. Well, listen y'all, let me read us out. Staffing safety society is created by the Redwoods Group. It's produced by Stephen Dousher, melody Young, sammy Grover, paige Bagwell, piper Kessler and me man. It sounds like got like 100 people working on this thing. It takes a village. 

All those people, by the way, have other jobs. I said it's really important to understand that. 

0:16:38 - Paige Bagwell
That's right. 

0:16:39 - Kevin Trapani
If you like this show, tell a friend or leave us a review. That leaves a lot, means a lot to us. If you have topic suggestions or any kind of feedback, we'd love to hear them. Click on the link in the show notes or send an email to community at redwoodsgroupcom. Again, it's community at redwoodsgroupcom and we'll get back to you. Staffing safety society is recorded weekly in North Carolina. I'm Kevin Trapani and I'm Paige Bagwell. Thanks y'all for listening. Take care.