Morgan Hill Values Youth conference slated for Jan. 23
Published in the January 20 – February 2, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Members of the 2015-2016 Youth Action Council will be at this year’s MH Values Youth event.
Morgan Hill is a community where people care about children and teenagers and want to help them grow up to be good citizens. That’s why the city of Morgan Hill is partnering with various other agencies to sponsor the annual Morgan Hill Values Youth conference Jan. 23 at the Community and Cultural Center.
“It’s a free event for families, for parents or youth advocates, and educators. And kids can also get involved as well so long as they are ages four and up,” said conference organizer Julie Duran, the school linked services coordinator for the Morgan Hill Unified School District. “There will be a workshop for both parents and children. We’re working alongside Project Cornerstone which will be doing the workshop where we will be focusing on communication and the developmental assets.”
Conference sponsor Project Cornerstone is a county-wide program run by the YMCA of Silicon Valley, she said. Its main focus is to promote the anti-bullying movement and positive parenting through the 41 Developmental Assets, the positive relationships, opportunities, values and skills that young people need to grow up caring and responsible.
“It has positive cultural identity and adult role models,” she said. “Project Cornerstone focuses on various things that connect with that. They go out into the schools. The MHUSD partners with Project Cornerstone so they offer their services in all of our schools.”
Many parents can make strong connections with their kids through better communication, she said. Project Cornerstone will give them the support they need to do that at the Morgan Hill Values Youth conference.
Photo courtesy city of Morgan Hill
Community members watch dancers during last year’s Morgan Hill Values Youth event.
“The goal is to inform parents that there is support out there for them. There is education, there are positive ways for parents to communicate with their children and we’re here to support that,” Duran said.
City of Morgan Hill Community Services Director Chris Ghione said that the conference started three years ago to encourage the developmental assets. The first year, it was called the Developmental Youth Conference and held at the Central High School site on Barrett Avenue and organized by the YMCA of Silicon Valley and the Discovery Counseling Center in partnership with the city.
“The whole idea behind it was to help make adults better assets builders for kids. This means help make the kids in our community thrive. So that was basically the whole concept,” he said.
The conference last year was moved to the Morgan Hill Community Center and renamed “Morgan Hill Values Youth” because one of the 41 Developmental Assets is “Community Values Youth,” Ghione said. About 60 people attended last year. More than 100 have registered so far for this year’s event.
Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate will kick off this year’s conference with a welcome speech. There will also be awards presented to various individuals, businesses and organizations who are actively involved in promoting the 41 Developmental Assets in the community. The conference will also have a host of resource tables where parents, kids, and youth advocates can get information and network with experts. These include Rebekah Children’s Services, Community Solutions, Living Above the Influence, The Mt. Madonna YMCA, the city of Morgan Hill, Martin Murphy Middle School, Britton Middle School, TeenForce, Healthier Kids Foundation, and Foothill Medical Center, which will do free glucose tests and dental exams for kids and parents. A free lunch will also be available for participants.
One of the more interesting activities at the Morgan Hill Values Youth conference is a panel discussion of young people, said Nichole Martin, Community Services coordinator with the city of Morgan Hill.
“We’ll be asking some youth from the community about different topics and things that are impacting their lives so that parents have an opportunity to hear from the youth directly,” she said. “I think it’s important to have the youth involved with this event.”
If kids have that positive outlook on their community, they’re more willing to support their community and be positive role models, Duran said.
“It’s important for adults and youth to have the close relationship, and that’s kind of where we came up with doing this youth workshop so that youth can start communicating together so we can all start working together to make a better Morgan Hill,” she said.
The youth panel is often enlightening for adults who want to learn what young people really think rather than make assumptions, Ghione said.
“For parents to communicate, sometimes it’s easier to hear stuff from someone else’s kids than their own,” he said.
People from local businesses are also encouraged to attend the conference to learn about what issues are important to youth in Morgan Hill, he said.
“Adults who are not parents can come and learn about youth. So anyone is welcome,” he said.
The workshops for parents will be given in both English and Spanish.
Ghione added “One of the big things is we want to welcome the whole community and in order to do that we need to not only put the sessions in Spanish but reach out to the whole community and schools in promotions to try to do that.”
A theme at this year’s conference is enhancing communication to enhance the lives of young people, Martin said. The 41 Developmental Assets helps adults understand the issues young people have and thus better relate to their needs and challenges.
“A lot of that comes into consideration, how you interact as a parent with a child, or as an adult role model of a child or youth or teenager,” she said. “The new generation see things differently, they learn differently, they have so much more access to technology. It’s really a different way of communicating. Sometimes it’s easier to hear those things from another youth or another child that you don’t know.”
