Inaugural ‘Unknown Hearts’ conference sends message that impressions aren’t always true

Published in the November 13, 2013 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Marty Cheek

Photo by Marty Cheek Kristopher Scott, a middle school coordinator for Fresh Lifelines for Youth, and Ashley Eng, FLY’s law program coordinator, speak to students at the inaugural ‘Unknown Hearts’ conference.

Photo by Marty Cheek
Kristopher Scott, a middle school coordinator for Fresh Lifelines for Youth, and Ashley Eng, FLY’s law program coordinator, speak to students at the inaugural ‘Unknown Hearts’ conference.

Getting middle school and high school students to wake up early on a Saturday morning and spend the day discussing the perils of gang affiliation, cyber-bulling, cyber-porn and illegal drug use might seem like a near impossible task. But Nov. 2, nearly 50 Morgan Hill students and their parents attended the first Unknown Hearts Youth and Parents Outreach Conference at Live Oak High School where they learned about how criminal activities can have life-long consequences.

“By inviting students and inviting parents, I believe we were giving families opportunities to have conversations about very serious issues,” said Claudia Rossi, a member of the Morgan Hill School Board and a Project Cornerstone advocate with the YMCA. Rossi organized the conference along with Jennifer Gonzalez, a 2013 graduate of Sobrato High School, Roberto Garcia, a philosophy major at San Jose State University, and local high school student Hugo Naranjo.

The conference was established through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control REACH program, Rossi said. The student organizers decided to call it “Corazones Desconocidos — Unknown Hearts” to send the message that initial impressions of certain individuals don’t often reveal who they really are, she said.

“The student organizers really wanted to emphasize with the conference title that someone’s outward appearance and what they show on the outside doesn’t necessarily reflect the true emotions that are inside their heart,” Rossi said.

Students and their parents attended a number of workshops during the day where they learned from presenters how unwise choices they might make as teenagers can possibly haunt them for the rest of their lives in terms of their career opportunities, military service, parenting and other areas.

Rossi particularly wanted to highlight Morgan Hill Unified School District administrators who worked hard to encourage students and their parents to attend the conference which started with a breakfast at 8 a.m. These administrators included Britton Middle School Principal Glenn Webb, Central High School Principal Irene Macias-Morris, and Live Oak High School Principal Lloyd Webb.

“Those are the people who got these young people to wake up early and arrive very early on a Saturday,” Rossi said. “They worked through their advocacy and encouragement to get teenagers out of bed on a weekend morning.”

Jose Franco, a public defender for Santa Clara County, explained to students in a workshop that many times juveniles don’t realize that actions they take during their teenage years might close doors of opportunities for them in their adult years.

“They learn that it’s very easy for someone to violate the law and not realize that they’re violating the law and the consequences can be so severe without them knowing,” he said.

Larry McElvain, the director of Morgan Hill’s Discovery Counseling Center, was impressed by the number of people who participated in the first Unknown Hearts conference. A key component of its success was having parents involved in learning how to be more effective in raising their children, he said.

“The students are watching their parents come on campus with them,” he said. “The parents go to one workshop and they go to another, but it’s really a family thing. So I think that builds a lot of value around the family. You can’t solve a problem by just working with one person at a time. You have to work with all the family at the same time.”

Because of the prevalence of technology, teenagers face many extra dangers that past generations did not, such as cyber-bullying and cyber-porn, Rossi said.

“I think what a lot of kids see on TV is really pushing limits more and more,” Rossi said. “They’re getting the message that certain behavior is OK, but really it’s an assault on innocence. It’s an assault on modesty. The parents left this conference knowing that they need to be vigilant and on alert about what influences their children.”

The success of this year’s Unknown Hearts conference makes it probable that the event will be held again in 2014, most likely at Central High School, Rossi said.