WSA_Youth and Family Master Plan Phase I - September 2009

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Independent of this project, Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) conducted a Youth Forum in December 2008 that provided significant insights into the issues and concerns facing Santa Ana teens.10 In October 2008, SAUSD administrators met with all Santa Ana high school principals (6 comprehensive high schools, 2 continuation high schools,1 middle college high school and 1 community day high school) to inform them of the concept and development of the youth forum. In November 2008, each high school site randomly selected 15 to 20 students for an initial meeting for the forum, where a preliminary survey was given to the students. From the initial meeting in November, 3 to 5 students were picked from each school site. A total of 36 students were selected. The intent and process of the Student Forum was explained to the students and parents were informed. The Student Forum was conducted in December 2008 and all 36 students participated. The results of these findings are in Appendix A. A focus group was conducted with the Santa Ana Youth Commission in February 2009. This served to get further youth input, given that the initial impetus for the Youth & Family Master Plan originated in part from the Youth Commission, it was important to check in and make sure that the plan was relevant to them. Two other exploratory youth focus groups were conducted between October 2008 and January 2009 with youth from Kid Works and Orange County Therapeutic Arts Center to provide back-checking of data regarding the YFMP. Youth and family- serving organizations survey Data from a telephone survey administered by the SAPD in 2008 are fundamental to the analysis. The survey was administered to 155 organizations in order to help the city better understand the various types of nonprofit organizations serving the community. The database of organizations surveyed by SAPD was cross-checked against another listing of organizations including Youth Alternatives Collaborative (YAC) organizations and attendee organizations from the 2008 Youth Expo. The SAPD survey was administered to the outstanding 23 organizations in February-March 2009, creating a master database of 178 organizations providing services in Santa Ana. From this list, those agencies providing recreation and physical activity opportunities for Santa Ana youth were identified for further analysis. This entire subset of organizations was approached to participate in a shorter survey regarding their physical activity programming from April-May 2009. 1o We are thankful to Superintendent Jane Russo for sharing the summary data from the Youth Forum with us for inclusion into this report. It makes the analysis far more robust than it otherwise could have been given the limited scope of Phase I.