Summer Programs Save Lives: The Overlooked Issue of Summer Youth Programs During the Pandemic
Participants of New York Junior Tennis League’s Summer Tennis Program via NYJTL.org
Free youth programs are common in at-risk communities in New York City. Organizations such as the New York Restoration Project and the New York Junior Tennis League host seasonal programs, where children of all ages can participate. Although there are no requirements for participation, these programs tend to target youth from low-income areas where schools are unlikely to have adequate funding for afterschool programs. Community centers offer similar programs and resources throughout New York City, but are more concentrated in the Bronx—the borough with the highest violent crime rate and the lowest median income.
These programs overwhelmingly supported low-income youth of color and they provided a place of refuge and community. That is, until the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States, and many, if not all, of these programs were cancelled for the summer of 2020.
During the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in the United States, discourse on its disproportionate effect on people of color and low income households took over the news cycle. It wasn’t long before dozens of articles about mental health, domestic abuse, and the food insecurity crisis were published. While these issues were certainly important, they turned into a monopoly of national discussion, leaving other negative effects of the pandemic to be left undiscussed or forgotten.
One can’t help but notice a pattern in the types of issues that are being advocated for. Domestic abuse against women is estimated to cost the United States $5.8 billion dollars a year. Mental health is even more costly. In fact, depression alone is estimated to cost the workforce $44 billion a year, due to lost productivity. Finally, health issues relating to food insecurity cost the United States an estimated $160 billion a year. It’s important to note, however, that summer youth programs play a vital part in preventing some of these issues. Research shows that social distancing worsened anxiety and depressive symptoms in teens, and summer youth programs would have provided adolescents with the socialization that they so desperately needed to reduce and possibly eliminate these symptoms. Most summer programs in New York City also offer free breakfast and lunch, providing instant relief to families struggling with food insecurity.
The connections adolescents make in summer programs are priceless and have countless benefits. Summer program leaders are usually young adults themselves, making it easier for youth to trust and build relationships with group leaders. Having a role model is vital to a child’s development. Children have even been shown to mimic behaviors they see in role models.
Having access to a role model that youth can relate to is also widely overlooked. Only about 30% of teachers of New York City public schools are Black or Latino, while more than 60% of students are Black or Latino. As a result, New York City’s youth may never find a role model that they can relate to, and may turn to the streets or gang life to find one. In a time where adolescents don’t have access to role models in schools or community programs, they are bound to look elsewhere for guidance. “These kids, they want shelter, they want safety, they want nourishment. When you remove services in our neighborhoods that are already suffering, they're gonna find it somewhere.” says David Caba, the director for a program dedicated to stopping gun violence in the Bronx. Gang leaders know exactly how to manipulate children into joining gangs. In most cases, adolescents join gangs with the mere intention of finding a place of belonging, which is why it’s now more important than ever to give youth access to a positive role model.
Summer youth programs combat this issue directly, putting youth in direct contact with positive role models that not only represent them, but relate to them.
Aside from the relationships adolescents build with group leaders, lasting friendships with peers are made. Giving opportunities for adolescents to make friends outside of school can diversify their friend group, which is known to teach empathy, build confidence, and improve socio-cognitive skills in children. Participants in summer youth programs have shown higher commitment to career aspirations, improved social skills and emotional health, and lower rates of chronic diseases such as obesity. Studies have shown that youth enrolled in summer programs tend to perform better academically than those that do not participate in summer programs. Free youth programs also have noticeable effects on communities and neighborhoods as a whole, since participants of summer youth programs commit fewer violent crimes.
Summer youth programs would also have been a great resource for youth to safely meet during the pandemic. The cancellation of summer youth programs meant the closing of safe spaces, such as recreation centers and libraries. As a result, youth had no other option but to meet up on the street or in nearby parks. These adolescents are sitting ducks for gang leaders looking to recruit and exploit impressionable youth. That isn’t the only danger of meeting outside of a summer program: not having someone qualified to facilitate the close contact youth had with one another also meant that there were no guidelines in place for preventing the spread of COVID-19, posing major health risks for these adolescents and their families. The CDC announced that in order to safely run summer programs, everyone should be masked and maintain social distance, high-touch surfaces should be routinely cleaned, indoor areas should have air ventilation, and temperatures should be taken daily. Complying with these guidelines would have allowed summer youth programs to continue operating with just a few small adjustments.
Recent developments in the U.S. Department of Education, however, give a promise of hope. The Summer Learning & Enrichment Collaborative, launched this past spring, aims to give students (particularly low-income youth of color) a way to make up for lost instructional and extracurricular time. This program is intended to provide youth with social, emotional, and academic support. Activities that will be included in the Summer Learning & Enrichment Collaborative include physical fitness and health education; arts programs; science, technology, engineering and math activities; and career and technical education programs. Establishing a free summer youth program on the national level is an extremely important step, developing the idea that all children are entitled to free access to summer programs.
To combat the negative effects on marginalized youth, communities need to strive towards implementing more independently run outreach programs—ones that don’t rely on government funding, but on neighborhood volunteers. A possible solution would be to develop community centers from abandoned lots and uninhabited houses as seen within I Grow Chicago’s Peace Campuses. Currently, these Peace Campuses provide everything from tutoring services, to yoga classes, to community kitchens, pantries, and laundry rooms. Peace Campuses are independently run and are open year long, offering a place of healing to those who need it most.
Awareness on the issues of mental health, food insecurity, and domestic abuse should absolutely be encouraged, but it’s important that we also look at the issues that plague younger populations who don’t necessarily have the platform, experience, or resources to advocate for themselves. It’s admittedly impossible to focus on every possible issue worsened by the pandemic, however, the decreased participation rates in summer programs in the summer of 2020 was widely overlooked and will have unprecedented effects on marginalized youth. Adolescents were deprived of countless communities, friendships, and experiences this past summer, and in order to prevent the same from happening in the future, summer youth programs need to be reformed.
Alannis Jáquez is an incoming freshman at Columbia College. She is from the Bronx, New York where she spends most of her free time in Crotona Park with her dog. Alannis is passionate about public health and education reform and plans to major in Political Science.