YMCA Releases Survey of 2,000 Students

Members of the Palisades-Malibu YMCA spent the past six months conducting a research study to determine the needs of middle school youth living in Pacific Palisades.   ’Our desire is to strengthen our community, and we realized that having some data specific to our youth would help us target our efforts toward their needs,’ Y Executive Director Carol Pfannkuche told the Palisadian-Post.   On Tuesday, Pfannkuche presented the results of the study to 37 Palisades community leaders at the Aldersgate Retreat & Cultural Center on Haverford Avenue.   The Y’s Healthy Families Council, a group of 30 local moms that formed a year ago with the goal of developing programs for toddlers to teens, initiated the study.   The Y hired Search Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that is committed to helping create healthy communities for young people, to conduct the survey of more than 2,000 sixth, seventh and eighth graders attending Calvary Christian School, Corpus Christi Catholic School, Paul Revere Charter Middle School and St. Matthew’s Episcopal School.   The study was funded by Kevin and Annie Barnes, Meredith Rowley (representing the Jessie Barker McKellar Foundation) and Marvin Hoffenberg, (representing the Sidney Stern Memorial Trust). Rowley and Annie Barnes are members of the Healthy Families Council.   The middle school students answered 58 questions about how they perceived themselves, their families, friends, neighborhood, school and community.   The Y discovered that young people do not think their neighbors care about them or adults in their community value them. The survey also showed that there is a need for more community service activities. The youth reported that they do not spend an hour or more per week serving the community.   Youth indicated that they are motivated by their friends and interested in environmental issues, sports and technology. However, they are not reading for pleasure, and they do not feel talented/skilled in construction. They described themselves as happy, upbeat, energetic, caring for others, relaxed and easy-going.   The Healthy Families Council, co-chaired by Laura Chung and Colleen Buerge, now plans to create programs around the results. The Council would like to start mentorship programs to create a positive connection between local adults and youth. The moms also want to provide more community service opportunities and find ways to encourage reading.    ‘A lot of kids love soccer, so maybe we could start a book club of kids reading books about soccer,’ Pfannkuche said. In addition to the Search Institute’s survey, the Y staff, board members and volunteers also interviewed community leaders and families. From those interviews and focus groups, they discovered that families are spending more time in individualized sedentary activities.   Pfannkuche said a lot of families reported that they don’t have enough time to spend together because they are busy commuting around the city, taking their children to sports practices and dance lessons.   ’We would like to have a facility, where we can provide all those programs,’ Pfannkuche told the Post. ‘We are still working on a strategic plan for our YMCA facility.’   Pfannkuche noted that the current space on Via de la Paz is not large enough to house such activities. The Y agreed not to build on the four-acre Simon Meadow property (located on the corner of Temescal Canyon Road and Sunset Boulevard) for 10 years, when the organization purchased the property from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in October 2007.   ’It’s a long complicated process,’ Pfannkuche said of the possibility of building a facility on the Simon Meadow property. ‘The right location could be there or somewhere else in the Palisades.’