Aunt Hattie’s Place: Trachtenberg Office Attends Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening.

The Trachtenberg Office was represented at the Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening of Aunt Hattie’s Place in Sandy Spring. Sandy Spring is the third foster home created by Dr. Hattie N. Washington, the founder and president of the facilities and a full-time professor at Coppin State University in Baltimore. Dr. Washington, known as “Aunt Hattie,” established the first Aunt Hattie’s Place in Baltimore City in 1997 when she was assistant school superintendent and witnessed the need for good homes for foster children. The second home was opened in Baltimore County in 2003, and this third location is on Norwood Road in Sandy Spring.

Aunt Hattie’s Place, Inc. is dedicated to providing a safe, stable, nurturing, and long-term home, if needed, for abused, abandoned, and neglected children in foster car. Though started in Dr. Washington’s own home in 1994, AHP strives to rear these deserving children to become productive, responsible, successful adult citizens who will live fulfilling lives and benefit our communities and our nation.

County Executive Ike Leggett, members of the State legislative, the County Council, and many friends for the business and civic community were on hand for the ribbon cutting. Alan Bowser and Naomi Bloch represented Councilmember Trachtenberg at the inspirational program.

Trachtenberg Office Attends Silver Spring Neighborhoods Committee Meeting

The Trachtenberg Office was represented at the monthly meeting of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board’s Neighborhoods Committee. The meeting was one of the last to be held at the Silver Spring Regional Center on Georgia Avenue, before the Center moves to its new offices in the Silver Spring Civic Building at One Veterans Plaza. Among the items on the Committee’s agenda were the Sligo Creek Golf Course and the County’s policy for suplusing its inventory of County buildings if there was no further public use. Our Chief of Staff Alan Bowser, who is a former Chair of the Silver Spring Neighborhoods Committee, represented the Trachtenberg Office.

Gandhi Brigade Launches Teen Pregnancy Awareness Campaign

The Trachtenberg Office attended the launch of the Gandhi Brigade’s "Youth Moving Forward" Campaign in which Latino/a youth address the issue of teen pregnancy. The program was held at the City Place Mall and included introductory presentations by Carlos Pinto of the National Campaign and Susan Cruz of the University of Maryland, as well as the much anticipated debut of the campaign video and poster unveiling.

The Gandhi Brigade is a youth voice project that was started in Silver Spring, Maryland. Inspired by the vision of Mohandas Gandhi to create local peace brigades, the project uses the media arts as a tool for connecting youth to their community and to critical issues in their world. The mission of Gandhi Brigade is to prepare the rising generation to become whole leaders in a broken world. Adults with experience working with youth or media coach teens and young adults how to use video and graphic arts to explore a variety of social justice issues. Since its beginning the Gandhi Brigade has created dozens of social justice media pieces and is recognized in the Washington DC metropolitan area as a leader in the field of youth led social change.

In January 2010, the Gandhi Brigade convened a group of youths and launched a 13-week, youth generated, teen pregnancy prevention video production and graphic design project. For two hours every Friday afternoon through May, Heather Kubo and Hawa Touré from the Gandhi Brigade worked with at-risk teens from the community to produce three posters for print and three 30-second public service announcements (PSAs) for television. The target audiences for the posters and PSAs include Latino parents, youths, and community leaders. Susan Cruz, from the University of Maryland's School of Social Work, is responsible for initiating the project. Recognizing the need for Latino teen pregnancy prevention messages in Montgomery County, Ms. Cruz brought together the Gandhi Brigade and the Latin American Youth Center, located in Washington, DC, as core partners. Together, each of these organizations was responsible for providing the youths with the knowledge and resources necessary to complete the project at hand.

For more information call: (301) 588-1399 or email heather@gandhibrigade.org or visit the Gandhi Bridge on the web at http://www.gandhibrigade.org/.

Trachtenberg Office Salutes Gandhi Brigade

The Trachtenberg Office was represented at the Gandhi Brigade’s 2010 Youth Media Festival kick off event held this weekend at City Place Mall in Silver Spring.

The Gandhi Brigade is a youth-directed community media project that has worked out of the Long Branch community in Silver Spring, Maryland since 2005. Since that time, it has worked with over a hundred teens helping them find their voice through community media. Notable film projects include "Finding our Turf," a documentary about youth public space in downtown Silver Spring and "PROPAGANDA!" a mixed media production about immigration. This year, eighty young adults—94% of them minority, immigrant, or disabled youth—worked with a dozen media professionals to produce video and graphic design that explored issues of justice, community, and positive youth development. In the process of creating media, the teens gained a deeper understanding of our community and the importance of their voice in shaping its future.

Gandhi Brigade prepares young people to become powerful leaders. In collaboration with adult allies, young people create multimedia that engages and transforms our community. It prepares youth for this leadership role through the integration of spirituality, entrepreneurship, and community relationships. Media professionals train and certify young people in various new media, including video and graphic design. Once certified teens give back to their community by teaching media skills to others and by creating media that challenges and inspires in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi Brigade peer instructors, called Circuit Riders, team up with partners to deliver instruction and support to create media through after-school programs. The youth serving partners include Passion for Learning, Einstein EMAL, African Immigrants and Refugee Foundation, Blair Sports Academy, Pyramid Atlantic, Community Bridges, School Girls United, and Long Branch Library. Other important projects include an annual youth media festival called Express Yourself in which young people from the Washington area show film, photography, and graphic design.

For more information, visit http://www.gandhibrigade.org/.

Advocating for Children and Youth

Pat Salomon, MD, represented the Trachtenberg Office at a forum held on May 5, 2010 by Maryland’s Advocates for Children and Youth. At the forum, Uma Ahluwalia, the Director of Montgomery County’s Department of Health and Human Services showcased a system under development, called NO WRONG DOOR. Under this plan, Montgomery County DHHS is providing holistic care to our families in crisis. At the time a family presents for any type of help, a 14 point assessment is made to define what range of services are needed for this individual and their family. A plan is then made to access all the services needed. Multiple appointments are generated, the most urgent first, but with follow-through for all the necessary services. Then the entire team of providers continues to interact until the family is out of crisis and sustaining itself. Making all the services systems interoperable, and linking them technologically is a tall order, especially in the midst of a budget crisis, but the County’s DHHS is providing unique leadership across the country, to develop a coordinated response to families in crisis.

February 2010 Newsletter

Click here to view my February 2010 Newsletter.

Topics in this issue, include:

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Montgomery Council Retains Ride On Bus Routes in Approving $70 Million Savings Plan
Reproductive Health Services Report
Crisis Pregnancy Center Regulation
Disability and Veteran Hiring Bill
White Flint + Gaithersburg West Master Plan Updates
Youth Town Hall
In the News
Duchy in the Community
Census 2010
Alert Montgomery
The Family Justice Center
Duchy's Recipe
Stay in Touch
Trachtenberg Staff News
Duchy's Pledge

Youth Town Hall Meeting a Great Success!

On Wednesday, February 3, High School and Middle School students from across the County were able to express views on a vast amount of issues and ask questions of County Council Councilmembers. Over 400 students attended the meeting at the Council Office Building in Rockville.

The County Council, which for the past several years has held Town Hall Meetings throughout the County in its efforts to find out what issues most concern residents, learned yesterday what is on the mind of younger residents when it hosted its first-ever Town Hall Meeting for Students. This was the first Town Hall Meeting hosted by the Council in 2010.

Some of the issues raised at the Town Hall Meeting were

• County and school budget
• Maintenance of Effort
• Jobs
• Gaithersburg West Master Plan
• Wheaton redevelopment
• White Flint Master Plan
• Health care/insurance for people under the age of 18
• School safety
• College education
• Staying and living in Montgomery County
• Magnet schools
• Environmental issues
• After school programs
• Sports Academy
• Intervention and prevention programs
• Libraries
• Places/venues for young people
• Role models
• School-based services
• And many other topics

Some of the participants asked their questions in Spanish and some Councilmembers also responded in Spanish to these specific questions. Wil Gutierrez from the Trachtenberg Office interpreted the questions from Spanish to English.

The meeting was open to high school and middle school students from around the County. The meeting allowed the participants to let Councilmembers know how they feel about specific issues and also provided the opportunity to ask questions of the Councilmembers in an organized, but informal, setting.

Participants also had the opportunity to speak with Councilmembers at a reception before the meeting. Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg and her colleagues also stayed after the meeting to converse with parents and students.

The meeting was broadcasted live on County Cable Montgomery (CCM) and will rebroadcast at various times in the following weeks on Channel 6 or 30. The program was also broadcasted live on simulcast on Network partners at Montgomery County Public Schools and Montgomery College. Susan Kennedy, a producer for the county station, moderated the meeting.

Watch the Youth Town Hall Meeting online.

Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg and some of the students at the Town Hall Meeting

Tonight's Youth Town Hall Meeting will be Held as Scheduled at 7 p.m.

The Montgomery County Council, which for the past several years has held Town Hall Meetings throughout the County in its efforts to find out what issues most concern residents, will learn what is on the mind of younger residents when it hosts its first-ever Town Hall Meeting for Students at the Council Office Building in Rockville. The meeting, in the Council’s Third Floor Hearing Room, will start at 7 p.m. A pre-meeting reception will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the building’s second-floor cafeteria.

The Council Office Building is located at 100 Maryland Ave. in downtown Rockville. It is about a three-block walk from the Rockville Metrorail station, which also is a main stopping point for many RideOn bus lines. For students traveling to the meeting by car, free parking will be available by entering the Council parking garage from the Fleet Street entrance.

This will be the first Town Hall Meeting hosted by the Council in 2010. The Council is composed of President Nancy Floreen, Vice President Valerie Ervin and Councilmembers Phil Andrews, Roger Berliner, Marc Elrich, Mike Knapp, George Leventhal, Nancy Navarro and Duchy Trachtenberg.

The meeting is open to high school and middle school students from around the County. The meeting will allow the participants to let Councilmembers know how they feel about specific issues and also will provide the opportunity to ask questions of the Councilmembers in an organized, but informal, setting.

To view the complete press release, click here.

Something Else Within...

"Wishes"

Wishes are like snowflakes
Falling in the winter
Each one different
Fragile, beautiful.
Touch it, and it disappears.

-S.J.

The above poem is found in Project Youth ArtReach’s most recent anthology of poetry entitled Something Else Within. The poems were written between 2003 and 2008 in Rockville by court-involved young people in workshops led by internationally-recognized Bulgarian poet, Lyubomir Nikolov. Writing within a supportive, non-judgmental environment in which to share feelings, these students in many cases learned to appreciate poetry for the first time.

Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg met with the director of Poject Youth ArtReach, Claire Schwadron, today to discuss future funding opportunities for the program.

Project Youth ArtReach (PYA) is a program of Class Act Arts, Inc., a Maryland-based non-profit arts organization dedicated to bringing diverse arts experiences to schools and communities.

PYA facilitates visual, literacy and performing arts residencies and performances for youth in correctional facilities and probation management programs. These arts based experiences provide incarcerated and high risk youth with opportunities to achieve success.

To learn more about Class Act Arts, Inc. and Project ArtReach, click here.

Trachtenberg Office Staff Attends Liberty’s Promise After-School Program in Silver Spring

Liberty's Promise supports young immigrants in need while encouraging them to be active and conscientious American citizens. The programs aim to make the immigrant experience an affirmative one for young newcomers while instilling in them a sense of pride and support for American ideals of democracy and freedom. By doing so, Liberty's Promise seeks to reaffirm our fundamental egalitarian and democratic traditions for future generations.

Chief of Staff Alan Bowser and Wil Gutierrez represented Councilmember Trachtenberg at Liberty’s Promise Silver Spring’s Civics and Citizenship class. This class teaches immigrant youth about their community and how to become active participants in American civic life.

Mr. Bowser spoke to young students present about County Government, community activism, political careers and Councilmember Trachtenberg’s efforts to engage youth in the political sphere.

Wil Gutierrez and Liberty's Promise's Silver Spring's Civics and Citizenship Class