Do residents in your community view young people negatively or positively? When youth issues arise, are they seen as problems, or as opportunities?

Over the past seven years. Mount Prospect has made a concerted effort not only to respond to youth issues, but to respond to them in a positive manner. By viewing youth as responsible citizens rather than juvenile delinquents, the Village has developed a wide variety of programs to target specific areas where youth needs or problems have been identified. Here are some of the successful programs that Mount Prospect has initiated since 1990.

Pre-Prom Crash Simulation

Prom Night is a proud night for parents, but it's one fraught with worry about their son or daughter getting home safely. You can warn young people about the dangers of drinking and driving, but you can only hope and pray that they heed the warning. In the spring of 1990, Dale Steward of the Mount Prospect Fire Department came up with a better way of conveying that warning. Working with staff from High School District 214, and following the example of other communities, he organized a pre-prom event for juniors and seniors at Prospect High School to simulate a prom night drunken-driving accident. The "crash" involves a real car that is cut apart by firemen to extricate victims from the vehicle. A police officer conducts a sobriety test on the driver, who is later led away in handcuffs. The crash victim is taken away in a body bag. Last year, the simulation was made even more chilling by showing the reaction of parents when a local minister and a police officer inform them that their child has been killed. Surveys indicate that the simulation is very effective in getting through to students.

Regional Action Planning Project

During the late 1980s, many community leaders in northwest Cook County became increasingly concerned about the growing presence of gangs in the suburbs. Gang activity was affecting schools, park districts, and social service agencies, spilling across municipal boundaries and frustrating the efforts of local law enforcement officials. In June 1990, a group of school superintendents, police chiefs, park district directors and social service agency heads met to address the problem. As a result of that meeting, the Northwest Suburban Regional Action Planning Project (R.A.P.P.) was formed.

R.A.P.P. now has more than 30 member organizations in 13 communities, working together to eliminate the conditions that foster gang development. Taking a regional approach to the problem of gangs, members share information and work collaboratively on program planning and implementation. RA.P.P.'s strategy for reducing gang influence is to focus on three key areas: education and training for community members and professionals, alternative activities for youth and diversion programs for young offenders. R.A.P.P.'s efforts were honored with first place in the Governor's Hometown Awards program in 1994 and 1995.

TAP Mount Prospect

Whereas R.A.P.P. is a cooperative effort across communities, TAP Mount Prospect (Teens and Parents for a Better Mount Prospect) is a cooperative effort within the community, involving youth, parents, concerned citizens and representatives of schools, churches and local government organizations. TAP'S purpose is to promote youth as responsible citizens in Mount Prospect. Mayor Gerald L. Parley formed the group in 1992 when citizens asked him to initiate a community response to the problem of underage drinking and driving. TAP'S efforts were honored in 1995 with first place in the Governor's Hometown Awards program.

Underage Drinking Ordinance

One of TAP Mount Prospect's unique contributions has been in the law enforcement area. In 1993, the group developed a parental responsibility ordinance that held both parents and teens accountable for underage drinking. The ordinance established mandatory fines, but it also required that adults take

George Clowes is a Village Trustee in Mount Prospect and Chairman of Teens and Parents for a Better Mount Prospect. He produces a monthly cable TV program for TAP Mount Prospect featuring youth panelists commenting on issues that affect them.

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responsibility if they negligently allow underage drinking in their houses or businesses. In addition, it provided police officers with the authority to protect public safety by impounding any vehicle driven by an underage person impaired by alcohol. The legislation subsequently was adopted by many surrounding communities and it became the catalyst for statewide "Zero Tolerance" legislation approved a year later. Over 3,000 teens had their driving licenses suspended in the first year after the state's Zero Tolerance law went into effect.

Although the ordinance establishes a mandatory fine for underage drinking, the judge has the option of imposing either the fine, counseling (up to the cost of the fine) or community service work. During the past year, questions were raised about whether paying a stiff fine reduced recidivism as much as doing 25-50 hours of community service work coupled with drug and alcohol counseling. Following discussion of these concerns with Third District Court Judge Earl Hoffenberg, TAP Mount Prospect is developing a menu of options for community service/drug and alcohol counseling that the Village Prosecutor could recommend as alternatives to fines.

Bimonthly "YO Mount Prospect Activities" Calendar

Since May 1993, TAP has produced a bimonthly youth activities calendar called "YO Mount Prospect!" (Youth Organization of Mount Prospect). The calendar is necessary because of the extreme fragmentation of local government in Illinois, where municipal boundaries rarely are contiguous with those of schools and park districts. Mount Prospect stretches across two townships, and has five park districts and seven school districts within its boundaries. As a result, many young people are not aware of activities available to them through the library, park districts, local schools and churches. The "YO Mount Prospect!" activities calendar addresses this problem.

Weekly Club RecPlex Teen Nights

In addition to publicizing existing activities, TAP also set up new, low-cost Friday evening activities, called "Club RecPlex" for junior high age students at the Park District's Rec Center. Parent volunteers and high school student volunteers act as chaperones and role models at Club RecPlex. In its three years of existence, Club RecPlex has become an ongoing activity night for more than 160 youngsters.

First Annual Town Meeting on Youth and Family Issues

In July 1993, the Positive Youth Development Division of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services awarded a grant to TAP Mount Prospect. One of the grant requirements was to hold a town meeting to address problems of youth and families in the community. This has been done for each of the past three years, with young people becoming more and more involved in running the meeting.

The Town Meetings are televised live on the Village's cable channel and are attended by youth, parents, concerned citizens, state and local elected officials, and representatives from schools, churches, park districts and youth groups. The first meeting identified two critical unmet needs: letting parents know what activities were available for their children, and establishing a forum where young people could express their opinions. Subsequent meetings have become a rich source of ideas for new initiatives in the Village, such as Youth in Government Day, peer jury and a youth cable TV show.

Annual Youth Sports and More! Festival

In response to needs expressed at the 1993 Town Meeting, TAP worked with the Mount Prospect Park District to organize a Youth Sports and More! Festival in May 1994. The Festival was a cooperative effort among youth and family-oriented organizations in the Village to inform residents about the variety of community resources available to youth, including sports, hobbies, youth groups, scouts, Y-Indian programs, parent-child programs, volunteer work, trips and camps. Local sports personalities and the Jesse White Tumblers drew young people to the Festival. The Village's cable TV unit covered the event. The Festival has developed into a successful annual event that puts young people in touch with a wide range of recreational and developmental activities. The Mount Prospect Lions Club and local businesses sponsor the event and raffle proceeds support a Youth Sports Scholarship Fund.

Youth Resource Catalog (updated annually)

As a spin-off from the Youth Sports and More! Festival, a pocket-sized Youth Resource Catalog was developed, listing names, phone numbers, and contacts for most of the youth organizations in and around Mount Prospect. The Catalog, which features the names of Festival sponsors on the front cover, is also printed in Spanish. The Chamber of Commerce now includes this Catalog in its Welcome Package for new residents.

Rising Star Awards

Following the success of the Village's 75th Anniversary Celebration in 1992, the Mount Prospect Special Events Commission organized an annual winter awards banquet called the Celestial Celebration. The awards recognize local residents - "our own Shining Stars" - for their contributions to the life of the Village. In 1994, the Special Events Commission enhanced the constellation of Shining Stars with a series of Rising Star awards to recognize outstanding contributions by young people.

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Gang Suppression Ordinance

In 1995, the Village adopted a comprehensive ordinance addressing gangs and age-related offenses. It provides a strong pro-active response to incipient gang issues in the community. Before the ordinance was brought to the Village Board, input on its proposals was solicited from students at Prospect High School. To facilitate their understanding of the proposals, the legalese of the ordinance was summarized into the accompanying chart, called ""Coming of Age in Mount Prospect." The chart has proven to be a convenient means of summarizing a variety of laws that apply to young people at different ages, laws ranging from truancy to shooting a gun.

Student Resource Officer in Junior High School

In 1995, the Village and a local school district cooperated to provide a police office in one of the Village's junior high schools. This Student Resource Officer (SRO) is a sworn police officer with special training to handle youth problems. The SRO works directly in the school, providing counseling, crime prevention and crime awareness programs to the students and staff. The officer brings a positive role model into the junior high environment and the officer's presence serves as a deterrent to potential gang activity.

Monthly Teen Night ("Your Night")

This is an alternate activity program for junior high youth, organized in 1995 as a joint effort of community volunteers, the River Trails School District, the River Trails Park District and the Village's Police and Human Service Departments. The event is held each month on a Saturday evening at the Weiss Community Center and it offers a wide variety of supervised activities such as open gym, basketball, movies, dancing and videogames. Parents are required to drop off their children and to pick them up at the end of the evening. The idea of the program is that this is "Your Night" for young people, a time to get together with friends and play games, watch movies or dance. It's a formula that seems to work - the program already attracts more than 60 teens.

Monthly Cable TV Show ("YouthView from Mount Prospect")

At the town meetings, young people said they wanted a forum in which they could express their ideas and have them taken seriously. As a result, young people now have their own local cable TV show. Several members of TAP Mount Prospect volunteered for training to become qualified community access producers. In December, 1995, a monthly youth panel discussion show, "YouthView from Mount Prospect," made its debut on TCI's local community access channel, airing twice a week each month.

The half-hour program consists of four teens from local schools plus a moderator. The teen panel varies from month to month, depending upon the topic discussed. Topics discussed so far are parental responsi-

COMING OF AGE IN MOUNT PROSPECT
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bility laws, curfews, teen smoking, peer juries and graduated driver's licenses.

Annual Youth Leadership Luncheon

Although the annual Celestial Celebration Banquet honors young "Rising Stars" in Mount Prospect, TAP felt that there should be some way of recognizing more young leaders in the community. This year, 60 young people from six junior high and parochial schools in Mount Prospect were honored at a Youth Leadership Luncheon. Each school nominates the honorees.

Youth in Government Day

With help from neighboring Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect this year participated in a Youth in Government Day. High school students spent a day "shadowing" Village department heads to learn more about their jobs. Later in the day, the students toured Village facilities and met with all department heads for a round-table of comments and questions. In 1997, the program will be expanded to include junior high students.

Peer Jury

Mount Prospect is establishing a peer jury program, scheduled to begin in the Fall. The program, run by the local police department and coordinated through the office of the Cook County Circuit Clerk, Aurelia Pucinski, allows youthful offenders to come before a jury of their peers who then impose an appropriate sentence of community service work.

The idea of a peer jury was first raised at last year's Town Meeting. Members of TAP then attended Peer Jury sessions in Hoffman Estates and Rolling Meadows to witness the programs in action. As a result, TAP recommended a peer jury program for Mount Prospect as an effective means of involving young people in the life of the community and helping young offenders get on the right track.

All-Youth Youth Commission (recommended)

One way to give youth a voice in the community is through a Youth Commission. However, many Youth Commissions have more adults than youths and youth members often defer to adult experience. The Mount Prospect Public Library developed a recommendation that Mount Prospect's Youth Commission be composed entirely of youth, with young people as the only voting members. Adult commission members would provide staff support but have no voting powers. Another unique aspect of TAP'S recommendation is the inclusion of junior high as well as high school youth on the commission.

Recognizing that this novel Youth Commission structure will not work without the full support of youth in the community, Mayor Farley plans to take the proposal directly to local schools and seek student input and support before taking a final recommendation to the Village Board.

Citizens have a lot of valid concerns about youth crime, but we shouldn't allow the anti-social behavior of a small number of juvenile delinquents to poison our attitudes towards young people in general. We must continue to respond positively to youth issues and to treat youth as responsible citizens in the community. •

This article is based on presentations by the author and by Mount Prospect Village Trustee Irvana Wilks at a recent Regional Prevention Group Special Event on "Communities in Action: Responding to Alcohol, Drugs, and Gangs."

The ILLINOIS MUNICIPAL REVIEW continues to be an open forum of expression for municipalities. Articles appearing in the Review do not necessarily express the views of the League or its staff but those of the various authors.

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