Who’s Watching the Teenagers?

Cleveland

As a young boy, Ed Haddad joined a gang. But now, in part because of an after-school center called the Playhouse, the 18-year-old is a role model for other teenagers.

“The people down here have helped me a great deal,” he said of the staff at the center here in the western part of the city. “My parents preached to me, and the people here talked to me.

“As I got older and more mature, I figured that it’s not what I want to do in life,” Mr. Haddad said. “That’s not where I want to end up--six feet in the grave or in prison.”

Mr. Haddad is taking part in a growing movement in after-school care. Across the country, communities are setting up supervised after-school programs for youngsters who are considered too old for traditional day care.

The programs typically serve children ages 10 and older and are open in the hours after schools close.

Michelle Seligson, the director of the School-Age Child Care Project at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, says organized after-school care for students drops off sharply after the 4th and 5th grades.

Few substitutes for after-school care are offered for children in the older age group, according to the “The National Study of Before and After School Programs,” a report prepared by the Wellesley College group and Mathematica Policy Research of Princeton, N.J.

“Kids who have adult supervision are better off,” Ms. Seligson said. “It’s not something that we even need research to prove.”

An increase in the number of families in which both parents work, as well as the growing number of single-parent families, means that students are more likely to be left on their own after school, Ms. Seligson said.

And it’s those afternoon hours that can be troublesome for teenagers who have no adult supervision.

The Washington-based Council on Crime in America in a 1993 report found that each generation of juveniles is roughly three times as violent as the one it succeeds. And juvenile crimes take place in increasingly large numbers during the day and in the hours immediately following the end of the school day.

In Tucson, Ariz., when city officials recently expanded their after-school program to include nearly 45,000 of the city’s 7- to 12-year-old students, the response was so positive that the program was expanded again to include adolescents.

In Philadelphia, after-school programs run by the Police Athletic League, the local YMCA, and neighborhood churches are just a few of the alternatives parents have instead of leaving their children home alone.

And here in Cleveland, the so-called drop-in centers for teenagers are being hailed as a promising approach to keeping youngsters away from such temptations as drugs, sex, and gangs.

An Afternoon At the Playhouse

The Playhouse is in the basement of a gray clapboard house much like the ones that surround it in a neighborhood on the western edge of the urban sprawl called Cleveland.

Not much breaks the monotony, save for the bright splashes of graffiti painted on the side of a grocery store, on fences, and on most of the houses. The corner house that is home to the Playhouse stands out only for its lack of graffiti.

On this warm, fiercely sunny day in mid-October, the street corner is empty of the gang members who often congregate there, just beneath the street sign. And on the basement level of the West Side Community Mental Health Center, the children who come to the Playhouse feel very far from what goes on outside.

A part-time instructor has a small group of young girls painting pictures in a tiny room. And in the sparsely furnished, largest basement room, older teenagers have gathered to play billiards and listen to music on a boombox in the corner.

One of the teenagers playing pool is Mr. Haddad. By his own admission, he’s made some poor choices in his life, but coming to the Playhouse wasn’t one of them. Now, he’s a Playhouse volunteer.

He says the center had a positive impact on what could have been a life destined for trouble.

“It’s opened my eyes to a lot of things young teenagers can do as they get older, different activities that they can learn, to help them stay off the street and away from drugs and alcohol,” Mr. Haddad said.

Roughly 25 young people ranging from ages 10 to 16 come to the Playhouse each day--a mix of students that you wouldn’t generally see associating with one another in the neighborhood.

Transplanted Appalachians make up the largest segment of the population here, followed by Hispanics, African-Americans, and the beginnings of an Asian-American population, according to Sandra Scully, a licensed clinical counselor who acts as the program manager for the mental health center.

“We had a volunteer that came and helped us fix the basement up,” Ms. Scully said. “It isn’t a great basement now, but at least it’s usable.”

The children who attend the Playhouse have painted a wall of the largest room with colorful exotic animals and plants.

The rooms and the furnishings have a lived-in look from the legions of children who have used them since the Playhouse began almost by accident more than six years ago.

“One summer, a bunch of kids were hanging around and kept asking if we had anything for them to do,” Ms. Scully said. “To accommodate them, we’d say, ‘Oh, we need some good anti-drug posters,’ and give them paper and pencil. When the drug and alcohol board that runs the center received some extra money, the mental health center submitted a proposal to open an after-school program.

“We still run the Playhouse with a very tiny little budget, which has hardly increased at all,” Ms. Scully said. “We run it on peanuts.” The Playhouse has a yearly budget of about $100,000.

In the space in front of the basement mural, drama instructor Barbara Corlette-Karoglan assembles the teenagers three times a week, transforming the claustrophobic space into a rehearsal hall behind a Broadway theater.

Ms. Corlette-Karoglan is an energetic actress who says she wants to show the Playhouse students that what they never believed was possible simply is.

Twice a year, the students perform in a showcase of scenes, vignettes from such Broadway staples as “The Glass Menagerie” and “Arsenic and Old Lace.” Ms. Corlette-Karoglan believes that what the Playhouse offers is necessary for both parents and children.

“All kids want is something to do,” Ms. Corlette-Karoglan said. “All that parents want is a safe place for their kids to do something, with supervision. We provide that.”

The Playhouse stands out from some similar programs because it is free, she said. “A lot of these programs make the kids pay a great deal of money, but this is for the kids here, and we don’t charge them anything.”

The actress is a firm believer in the importance of having children learn the plays.

“These kids will show up and learn their lines, and that helps their reading,” Ms. Corlette-Karoglan said. “Instead of doing a play, we do scenes from plays because everyone gets to be the star of their own scene.

“In drama, you have to read, and think, and use your brain,” she added.

Ms. Corlette-Karoglan recently introduced the group to tap-dancing: “I can’t get these kids out of here at night. They really love it.”

The group of dancers, three boys and six girls ages 10 to 14, is learning a routine choreographed to music from the Broadway musical “42nd Street.”

“I call them my nine phantom tap dancers,” Ms. Corlette-Karoglan said. ''We have carpet on the floor so I recorded the music with the taps already on it.”

Shelley Waters has been with the center for six years and is the program coordinator for the Playhouse, which doubles as an alcohol- and drug-abuse-prevention program.

“We provide alternatives to alcohol and tobacco use,” Mr. Waters said. “We give kids a place to go after school that is a safe and a semi-structured environment.”

Mr. Waters said the center has become something of an institution in the neighborhood, even to the gang members outside: ''The kids here look up to us. And the building doesn’t get spray-painted either.”

The Boys & Girls Clubs

Heading east, the buildings take on a more urban look. In the heart of the city are impressive landmarks, testaments to Cleveland’s recent revitalization.

There is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, six majestic stories of glass and steel rising like a pyramid on the shore of Lake Erie. Jacobs Field is also there, home to Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians. Gund Arena, the Cleveland Science Center, and the Galleria are part of a Cleveland that is no longer the punch line of jokes about the smell, crime, and the city’s lack of culture.

Since 1954, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland have served the city and its suburbs.

Seven after-school club facilities are scattered throughout the city, serving about 5,000 children ages 6 to 17. The organization charges $3 per year for after-school services.

Len R. Krichko, the president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland, is proud of the group’s history. “The Boys & Girls Clubs of America have been around since 1860,” he said, adding that the groups serve 2.5 million young people a year nationwide. “I think our national motto says it best, ‘Boys & Girls Clubs, the positive place for kids.’ We allow young people to explore life to their fullest.”

The clubs focus on six subject areas: outdoor environmental education, citizenship and leadership, cultural enrichment, health and physical education, personal and educational development, and social recreation.

The social recreation category allows the students to interact with their peers in a setting other than school.

“You find that a lot of the schools don’t have after-school dances because of the violence,” Mr. Krichko said. “You can’t find that kind of recreation in the inner city, so we have dances or parties so the kids can have that experience.”

Each of the seven centers has a gymnasium, a library, a game room, a kitchen, an arts and crafts area, and an outdoor play area, as well as a learning center with computers for tutoring and homework assistance. Many of the students receive a scholarship to take part in the program.

“These are not handouts,” Mr. Krichko said. “Kids today are proud, and they really want to work, so we allow them to work off the money we pay.” While $3 may seem like a pittance to some, Mr. Krichko says the clubs look at it in terms of what some families can pay.

“For some families, that $3 is a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk,” he said. “Should we ask a family to give that up so a child can come to the center?”

The organization has a budget of about $1 million a year to run the centers. Each has a full-time club director, a full-time program coordinator, and six part-time staff members. Most of the club’s funds come from the United Way and charitable foundations in the community.

The clubs are a weapon in the fight for the future of the community’s children, Mr. Krichko said.

''What we do best is we make [the children] responsible citizens for tomorrow, making sure that they become employed, are going to school, and not living a life of crime or violence,” he said.

The clubs also have 20 collaborative partners in the community, such as Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine, that assist with staffing needs. Medical students from the school volunteer to teach health-education classes to the youths at the center. Those classes may cover AIDS prevention and awareness, adolescent sexuality, or drug-abuse prevention.

“The communities that we are in have been largely generous in helping us out,” Mr. Krichko said.

A Visit to East Cleveland

Farther east is the area known as East Cleveland. The population here, and in the suburbs that surround it, is predominantly African-American. Behind a large stone church, in what used to be a school building, is the East Cleveland Neighborhood Center.

The center occupies five floors of the six-floor building. The cafeteria is in the basement, where dances for the older students are sometimes held or where guest speakers talk to the young people about dreams and responsibility.

Each of the building’s stairwells is meant to remind the children in this neighborhood of the steps they may have to take to get past poverty, crime, and discrimination to reach the goals they have set for themselves.

Life-size paintings of African-Americans, done by students at the center, take the steps with the children, along with the words: “We are still climbing ... and climbing ... and climbing ... higher ... and higher ... we can’t stop.”

Off the main hall is a meeting room with a mural painted by the youngsters who use the center. Underneath a rainbow, surrounded by scenes from the lives of black Americans, are words in large, bold black print that seem to boom from the wall: “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.”

To the right of that statement, “Our branches are many, our roots run deep.” Directly above the entire painting are the words: “The road to success begins with knowledge.”

Welcome to the East Cleveland Neighborhood Center.

The center is partly funded by the United Way and serves about 50 children a day. Students here attend one of two groups--one for children 5 to 12, and one for teenagers 13 to 17. Each pays $5 a day to use the center.

Emanuel Onunwor, the center’s director, says it is tough keeping youngsters coming back for arts and crafts when the lure of the street is stronger.

Centers like his are locked in a battle with drug dealers and gangs who offer children money for carrying or distributing drugs.

“The drug dealers don’t go to the older kids, they go to the younger kids who can’t work,” he said.

The director said that rather than an after-school drop-in center for teenagers, he’d like to see “teen-employment resource centers.”

“We have to try to give these kids skills that will carry over into real jobs in the future,” Mr. Onunwor said. “To keep the kids coming back, you have to have the bucks.”

The center’s after-school program includes tutoring, teaching cultural awareness, drug-abuse prevention, arts and crafts, and sports, according to Lillie Cockrell, the after-school-program coordinator.

Morgan Strathman-Alexander, who runs the teenagers’ program, said the center’s bottom line is to provide a safe haven for children who otherwise would be left on their own in the afternoon.

“All you ever hear about on the news is about the bad that goes on in these neighborhoods,” she said. “What about all of the good that goes on, too? It’s everybody’s job to help these kids do something productive with their lives.”

The program at the ECNC includes three structured areas: Life Skills and Drills, a drug- and alcohol-abuse and pregnancy-prevention program for girls 13-15; Helping Young Women to Cope, which concentrates on girls who are involved in domestic violence at home or with a boyfriend; and the Pride Team, a drama program in which the students perform skits about drug- and alcohol-abuse awareness.

The center also takes part in the Cleveland Cavaliers Charity Basketball League, a program sponsored by the professional basketball team and Crossroads, a teenage pregnancy and parenting service.

“Since this is primarily a prevention program, everything we do has a prevention component to it,” Ms. Strathman-Alexander said of the teenager program at the center.

“So many of these kids, especially in a community like East Cleveland, live with drugs in their lives everyday,” she said. “The center is the only positive thing that they have. We try to tell the kids that you don’t have to have a baby when you are 15 just because everybody else is doing it, and you don’t have to be involved with drugs and gangs.”

The lessons here are never lost, even during afternoon exercise time. Rose Armstrong, an after-school instructor, tells the children: “We must learn how not to be selfish. We must learn to show more love and respect for one another and our differences.”

Tony Wiggins, 15, sits off to one side of the gym as the students bend and twist in time to the counselor’s words. He is a student at a local high school who likes to come to the center to play basketball. But, he says, now that he is older, he also has fun helping counselors with the younger children here.

“I volunteer as a helper for the younger kids,” Mr. Wiggins said. “But I still like to play basketball.”

Stacy Rogers, 12, is a member of the elementary group. She says it’s the neighborhood center that keeps her out of trouble.

“If I wasn’t here at ECNC right now, then I’d be at Phoenix Place,” she said, referring to a Cleveland youth-detention center.

Ms. Strathman-Alexander said she believes that giving young people choices is the most important aspect of her job.

“We want the kids to experience the simple things in life because there’s more to life than what they see and live,” she said.