City of Thousand Oaks Youth Commission, 3 Feb 2021

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Youth Commission Meeting | February 3, 2021 | City of Thousand Oaks

Description

Youth Commission 2/3/2021

A

B

The february third meeting of the thousand x youth commission is now called to order. We will have the pledge of allegiance led by commissioner alpert.

C

Commissioners, please turn your mics on and join me for the pledge of allegiance.

A

I pledge allegiance. I.

C

Pledge allegiance to the flag.

D

Of the united states of america and.

C

To the republic for which it stands, one nation under.

E

C

Indivisible with.

D

Liberty and judges.

B

Thank you, commissioner alpert. We will now have the roll call taken by staff liaison francine springer. Please.

A

Stay here present when I call your name chair slasher here, bye, stranash,.

D

A

Commissioner, alpert.

D

A

Commissioner, alaska is absent, commissioner emmanuel here. Mr friedman, president, commissioner, good night president, mr manus, here mr mckeon.

A

President commissioner, mccary here mr melton here, mr swanson president.

A

uh Adult commissioner, petrus president and adult commissioner dobb here thank.

B

You thank you at this time. I would like to ask commissioner goodnight to introduce item number four. The public comments section of our meeting.

C

This is the time in our meeting where we invite members of the public to state their concerns about youth related issues in our city or present items for commission consideration are there any members of the public would like to speak at this time there being none. Let's move on.

B

Thank you, commissioner. Goodnight item. Five on the agenda is guest speaker. Will, commissioner madis please introduce this portion of our meaning.

F

Thank you so much tonight our guest speaker is cheryl jew. She is speaking on behalf of the therapeutic recreation unit and she is the coordinator for canejo recreation and park district she's passionate about working with those in our community who have special needs. Her topic for tonight will be inclusion within our community and how we can help include others at school and in general,.

G

All right, hello, see.

G

um I'm having a little difficulty with sharing my screen.

G

Not sure if you'll be able to see it, can you see my screen.

G

Where is able to see my screen.

B

G

A

G

um Is there a way for me to connect to.

G

G

Not sure um if it's gonna show.

G

um Since it's not connecting you guys want me to show it on another laptop, maybe.

A

Yeah, thank you.

G

Okay, sorry about that, I don't know why. It's not letting me share that with you guys.

G

Okay, um all right, I'm not sure how this is. Gonna go okay, so um I'm cheryl, I'm the coordinator for the therapeutic recreation unit here at canada, recreation and park district and as anthony mentioned, I'm going to be talking about inclusion and how that impacts- communities.

G

Okay, all right, so the therapeutic recreation unit provides year-round recreation programming for people who have disabilities, so that can include cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities, sensory impairments and we provide programming such as after school programs, art classes, exercise classes as well.

G

So that's what we do um for our programs, um let's see so uh before I talk about the topic of inclusion, I'm going to talk about the importance of diversity, um so the concept of diversity is that um we are all unique individuals and there's different factors that um affect who we are and make us unique.

G

So um some of them being ability background culture, religion, gender and economic circumstances, so um one of them being ability people um can have different disabilities, whether it's physically or maybe a sensory impairment, so that can affect who they are background is maybe some past experiences that they went through, which can affect their outlook on the world. um Third is culture, maybe some part of their heritage or tradition that they grew up in could affect them religion. Some examples could be like christianity, buddhism, judaism.

G

Those are just some examples of some different type of religious beliefs, um gender like how they have expression of their gender identity or sexual orientation and economic circumstances, such as a level of income or access to resources, possibly like education and other things. Like that. Oh, oh, perfect, it came up yay.

G

I don't know how oh perfect, okay, awesome! So let me just go through the next slide, so you can see it a lot better, so we just went through all that.

G

Oh, why is it not showing I'm so sorry, guys.

A

um Because it's on I'm sharing it from my computer you're going to have to tell me when to click what side you want to be on perfect.

G

Next slide, thank you so much okay, sure.

G

So after we talked about the topic of diversity, let's dive into inclusion, so inclusion is an attitude that everyone is welcome, regardless of ability, background culture, religion, gender, economic circumstances. Some of those things that we already uh went through and um inclusion also includes actions. So it's this attitude that everyone's welcome and they're valued and they have the sense of belonging and then action is taking part in that attitude and showing it in the community next slide.

G

um So some action steps, some action steps to have more of an inclusive community is to recognize differences with people who are different from yourself learning, inclusive language and behaviors and being respectful, leading by example, with your actions and learning more over time and knowing that it takes time to learn new things. You may not um have all that knowledge up up front next.

G

So um I just wanted to give you one specific example for us for the therapeutic recreation unit. um We work with people with special needs, and so I wanted to just talk like a specific example about um ability.

G

So, um as I mentioned with those action steps, one is recognizing differences, so we work with people with a lot of varying abilities, and so one way that we can become more educated is by having conversations with parents with educators with aids learning more about that individual really helps us provide a better environment for them suited to their needs, and so that's one way that we can become more inclusive with these individuals.

G

um The second step is to learn inclusive language and behaviors. um That's addressing the individual person first language, um seeing their value over a disability and acknowledging that and and then the third one was lead by example. So it's just putting it together and very action based in providing that sense of belonging in an environment, and then um addressing that you know, we may not know all the facts about an individual which makes them unique, and so it's gonna take um time to discover that uh next.

G

um So putting two and two together: diversity and inclusion. These are some different goals that you can set for yourself. There's a short-term goal, medium-term goal and a long-term goal. So starting off with the short-term goal, is to establish basic literacy, about race, gender, disability, respect, empathy, etc. And then the medium-term goal is to learn inclusive behaviors and language, and the long-term goal can be using inclusive language and practicing inclusive behaviors um in the way that you think and act daily.

G

So the long-term goal is just a culmination of um the things that you learn in the short term and the medium goal of establishing basic knowledge and learning how to address people in a respectful manner.

G

Okay, so another topic that we should address is fear. It can be a really natural feeling to be fearful when talking to people who are different from you with the different factors such as race or gender identity. Things like that, and it can also stem from sounding uneducated or intolerant, and it's um it's a natural feeling that people can have, but um it's really important to talk about differences and what makes people unique, because not talking about them can leave us unprepared.

G

A lot of inclusions can start from having that awareness. So it's something that a fear can be a beer, but it's something that should be overcome next slide.

G

So um some solutions to help tackle your fear or um to even promote more of an inclusive environment is um one to get informed, so um some examples of getting more informed, as we kind of mentioned I kind of mentioned before- was just to have healthy conversations um and to listen more to people and to talk carefully and also. Another thing is to avoid like assertive language but being open-minded and hearing other people's opinions or beliefs. Even if you don't agree with them.

G

um Second is to learn the language and terms so avoid assumptions and ask good questions if you don't know how to address someone or what they prefer to be called things like that, that can be helpful for a more inclusive. Environment.

G

Third is to grow some confidence about the topic, so you can do your own research, whether that's online gathering articles essays following people who um you know, support a cause. You can just gain education and awareness that way, and then the fourth one is getting involved in um applying what you learn with the knowledge um and being more inclusive in that action-based thing.

G

um Next, um so, with those different elements for solutions to become more inclusive, there's this underlying theme of awareness talking about people's diversity, heightens people's awareness and it can increase your confidence in maturity and talking about those hot topics, um privilege can be considered having um how consider how others around you not having to consider how others around you will treat you because of skin color ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, expression or faith.

G

um So it's really important to also evaluate what are some of your privileges that you have, because by having that, you can gain a better awareness of the bigger picture in the world and seeing those um societal inequities that we're surrounded with that. We don't really think about on a daily basis. But it's something that could really open your mind next, so um on a local scale. Very close to home is first crpd.

G

Our inclusion mission is to provide quality recreation programs and to welcome people with disabilities in all recreational opportunities, whether it's through specialized options like therapeutic recreation or um and or inclusion and next, and so I wanted to just provide that example, because it just shows how inclusive inclusion can impact um so many areas of our life, whether it's on the local scale here at the parks and rec centers um in our water community in our everyday life, at your work setting or at school um just the way that you act in your attitude can really just affect um other people.

G

And so I was just showing you all the different settings that I could play a part in and then the final two slides um I just want to include ways that you can get involved.

G

You can get involved in school clubs, organizations, um there's pacers, bullying, prevention, program, thousand oaks, youth, commission, dance, um canada reckon park volunteer program, therapeutic rec, um thrive, kanejo, it's inclusive education that they promote um kanejo community outreach.

G

Those are local, volunteer opportunities that you can get involved in, there's art check for their art programs and then the last one last slide has two more ways: uh there's kanejo free clinic where they provide free health services for different population groups and many mansions uh where they promote affordable housing, so yeah just what this type of conclusion. I just wanted to conclude with that.

F

Do we have any questions for her today.

D

Sorry, I just want to say thank you so much for the top, the list of ways to get involved. That's super helpful and I think that's definitely going to be used within the community. So thank you.

G

B

B

E

I also want to thank you for coming and presenting to us, um and I did have a question. I was wondering like a lot of times. Many students are not sure like what language to use when talking about, like students with disabilities, for example, like um are: do people prefer like identity, first or um person? First language, and I was wondering like do you know where we can go educate ourselves or um are you sure, are you like aware of any of the resources that you know of that um we can go?

E

Take a look at to see which one is um necessarily like better for our community.

G

um Based on my experience, uh we we like to use person first language because it's identifying um the individual first before the disability, so it's like, um like ashley with down syndrome or ashley with, um has like a sensory impairment or things like that. We don't want to say like oh, that sensory impaired person like it's not acknowledging like who they are as an individual. First, it's um you know it comes down to like respect.

G

So that's how I would address an individual, I'm just kind of thinking about like how would you want to be a dress like? Would you prefer to be called by your name first and say you have something, um and I think um yeah there's a lot of there's resources online and um I can look up some things and send them to you if you would like yeah to help with that.

E

Yeah that'd be great and then basically like the best ways to ask the person like what they'd prefer before.

G

What they prefer, um so I would just I would just bring it up like politely, um and I think you know, I don't think you want to say like. Oh you like have a disability, but it's just like, I think.

G

Maybe it's just the way to like um maybe like make some small talk or build like an inorganic relationship with them and then just kind of like um I guess, kind of feel it out, but not necessarily like he's like oh yeah, I know she had a disability like how do you want to be addressed, but um it's kind of hard to say it's kind of a sensitive thing, but it's something I think you just have to organically build and just say, oh like how would you like to be a dress kind of thing? Yeah?

G

Does that make sense.

A

Yeah yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Okay, yeah.

B

Any other questions.

B

Okay, sorry about the technical difficulties, but thank you again for coming. Yeah. You're. Welcome item number six on the agendas project reports. The youth commission undertakes a number of projects during the year. I will introduce the following commissioners, who ever see the coordination of these projects and ask them to present summaries and please provide any updates item. 6A is youth master plan implementation.

B

Would? Commissioner emanuel, please give the report.

H

Implementation is focused on four committees. I will now ask the respective chairs to speak on their committees. Would commissioner nash, please speak on the mental health committee.

D

Hi everyone so in the vaping prevention and mental health subcommittee, we've been meeting regularly with the bright people at building resilience and inclusion through engagement, to learn how to develop the bright world, which is like a sims like experience for educational and so we're starting to customize a community or customize the bright world for a community event of elementary students and we're trying to launch that. And then it's a quite a ways out, because it's such a big undertaking but we're starting to get going. And if you want to be involved or have any questions.

D

Just please reach out. Thank you.

A

H

Would commissioner mccary, please speak on recreation.

A

So currently we are working with commissioner friedman to talk about the therapeutic dance and we're trying to figure out ways to incl, if that's even happening, and if we could include uh students with disabilities in order to help us plan it and.

H

Come up with ideas, thank you would thank. uh Would commissioners you please speak on the environmental committee.

E

um So we had a couple meetings for the environmental subcommittee um and then basically we're working on those two goals again creating creating a comprehensive plan um that represents what youth want um in the like climate and environmental action thing, for example, and basically what the city is doing for the environment and then also we're encouraging youth to attend those gpac meetings, general planning advisory committee meetings and to attend those um climate, the climate and environmental action plan meetings as well to provide input because those are going to be very crucial um to what the environment will look like in our community in the future, so yeah, and then we're also working on education about climate change and environmental issues and working with teachers on that.

E

So those are still in the works, but um just a couple ideas and make sure like if you're so interested in getting involved. You can still do that with our education and in, like our little committees, so feel free to reach out. If you are interested.

H

Thank you, and finally, would commissioner mckinnon: please speak on school safety hi, so we are just trying to get all the video submissions back in for um our informational video on school safety.

H

We are going to have that published, hopefully on um march 3rd, which would be our next meet televised meeting and um yes, we're working with the school resource officers and the principals in our district, along with the chief of police, to just try to get the best information possible and then we'll get that together and get that put out for all the schools and students to watch.

A

B

Thank you, commissioner manuel item. 6B is the recognition awards with commissioner shu and goodnight. Please give the report.

C

Thank you, um hi. I'm chairing the youth recognition awards and for those of you who don't know what this is. It is a annual event where we recognize kids in the community who put in time in their community and uh they get awarded the youth of the year from the mayor right now, currently on t oaks.org forward, slash youth, we have nominations available. So if you know anybody who you think should win this award, please go to t oaks.org forward, slash youth. We are accepting nominations all the way through march 15th.

E

um And I am co-chairing that event with riley or commissioner goodnight and basically I would highly recommend that all of you publicize this event and the applications are open um to your friends and to any like teachers or people. You know um in the community and just another reminder you, as a student or like a parent, cannot nominate like your child or you cannot nominate yourself, but somebody that you know um like an adult or community member could nominate you for that award and again go to that link.

E

That riley mentioned, and I highly recommend that you ask someone to nominate you as soon as possible.

B

Thank you item. 6C is a therapeutic dance with commissioner friedman. Please give that report. Thank you.

A

I

So with the constant cove exchanges, it's been really hard to come to a final decision, but final decisions about the dance will be made in the next two weeks. um We are figuring out if it is any possibility to do anything and we are doing our best to work with the circumstances around us. Thank you.

B

Thank you item. 6D is public information. Would commissioner swanson, please give that report.

J

Hi everyone, as I said in our last meeting with holiday events, ending it's been increasingly difficult, finding events and posting frequently, but I'm working to continue finding posts. I recently posted about the canelo valley, botanic garden, which has 15 unique gardens and no admission fee. If you have any information on events in the area, please reach out, and please follow us on twitter at to youth and on instagram 1000 oaks yc for any other questions or concerns. You can email us at to youthcommission gmail.com.

J

B

Thank you, commissioners. At this time, I'd like to turn the meeting over to the vice chair nash,.

D

Item seven is school liaison reports, in addition to being an advisory board body to city council. The youth commission also appoints commissioners to act as liaisons to various youth organizations.

D

Item 7a is the thousand oaks library teen advisory league or total. What commissioner swanson please introdu introduce this portion of the meeting.

J

The youth commission invites representatives from each of our local high schools and intermediate or middle schools to present information about school activities for the purpose of generating a feeling of community spirit. Our first representative speaker today is olivia harrington from thousand oaks high.

J

I

Hi I'm olivia harrington sergeant-at-arms at thousand oaks high school thousand x high school is celebrating our counselors this week for national counseling week. Thank you to our counselors ms britt, ms scott, ms ross, ms montero, mr solis, ms fender, mr grant and ms rose for their tireless efforts to assist students and families at thousand oaks. High school february is national black history month and teacher librarian.

I

Mrs burns has put together a newsletter with pertinent information for our school community. In addition, the lancer library and thousand oaks high school will celebrate daily, with tweets and instagram posts about books that celebrate and honor black americans, as well as promote a deeper understanding of the historical issues black americans faced and continue to face in our country. Follow the lancer library on twitter and instagram to lancer library and follow thousands high school on twitter and instagram at thousand oaks. Hs quarter, two leading lancers were recognized by asb, based on nominations from teachers.

I

Our leading lancer program recognizes students who have stood out in their classes in some way, including effort contributions to class discussions, academic excellence, academic improvement or helping other students for quarter. Two there were 24 students recognized for their excellent contributions to tohs the students received award certificates, the nomination information from their teachers and a gift certificate to a local business thousand oaks. High school athletic programs are still practicing on campus, with a 15 to 1 student athlete to coach ratio.

I

Programs have limited use of equipment and all practices must continue to take place outside the programs that are practicing on campus include cross country track and field baseball, softball, swim field hockey, girls, lacrosse boys, water, polo girls, water polo football, dance, color guard and girls. Volleyball asb would like to thank logic's credit union for selecting our school programs as part of their 12 days of giving back in december. The grant money received from logics will be used to help support student recognition.

I

In addition, asb is continuing to promote the virtual class competition. This week's activities include posting pictures of your pets, favorite song and favorite shoes, or students can support this week's local business fresh donuts to earn points for their grade level. Finally, asb is developing a new initiative called lancer talks where students can submit a one to three minute speech about a passion in their lives. The speeches can include how the passion develops and goals related to that passion. Submissions are due in march and will be highlighted on the dhs asb social media accounts. Thank you.

I

So much for your time go lancers.

J

Thank you so much does anyone have any questions?

J

Moving on, we have samantha wildman from westlake high school.

E

Hello, I'm sammy, I'm a member of westlake's asg um we've been working hard on promoting our social media right now and we don't have too many events other than that going on, but our main focus is going to be our valentine's day. Drive-Thru and it'll be for seniors only just so. We can recognize them and make them feel special in this crazy time, it'll be on february 10th at 12 p.m.

E

When you drive through you'll, receive a goodie bag full of valentine's day, treats a rose and you'll be entered in a raffle for a giant teddy bear and we're also making a senior a senior slideshow for this and just lastly, we're also doing the counselor appreciation week and recognizing one of our guidance counselors each day. Thank you.

J

Thanks so much does anyone have any questions all right. So finally, we'll hear from sequoia representative, andrea gonzalez.

A

uh Hi, I'm andrea gonzalez, and for this year we don't have like as much as events because of coverage, but we're working on an opportunity drawing for we did one for the month of january and we're doing one for february and um yeah.

J

Thanks so much does anyone have any questions.

J

All right well, thank you.

D

Thank you now to circle back item. 7A is a thousand oaks library, teen advisory league or total. Will commissioner makari please introduce this portion of the meeting.

A

Yes, so sorry yeah at this point I would like to introduce and.

A

K

Tutorial uh hello from the thousand oaks library: our names are andrea and lucas, and tonight we represent the thousand oaks teen advisory league or total for the library. Do you want any help from a tutor with biology chemistry, algebra or geometry?

K

In february and march, the library is offering special zoom tutoring sessions for high school students for those specific topics, if you're interested in signing up to get help from a tutor, please sign up as soon as possible on our website to library.org.

K

Space is limited in these tutoring sessions, go to the teen or student pages to get the links to sign up we're also looking for tutors for these high school level. Topics. If you'd like to volunteer as a tutor, please sign up to be a tutor for the library.

K

Let our volunteer coordinator know you're interested in becoming a high school topics tutor. We hope the library can help students succeed. Additionally, online chat tutoring is available every day from 1 to 10 pm on the library's brain fuse. Help now program for writing feedback on any writing assignment or project, also check out the brain fuse help now writing lab.

K

Where you can submit your writing and have it reviewed and returned with comments and feedback all of this on our library, student page so check out tlibrary.org students if you're getting ready for ap exams, sat or act tests check out the college prep page on the library student website, get links to programs with free practice, tests and study guides and check out the videos that explain how to navigate the resources.

C

Oh, I apologize. I apologize for background noises. The team page on the library's website has new fun activities, resources and writing prompts for february enjoy exploring the idea of time loops at the library. Sometimes it feels like we're stuck in a time loop watch the video of how to survive a time loop for fun and creative activity ideas.

C

The video has book, suggestions and stories about characters in time loops. It also has suggestions for virtual resources on exploring the physics of time, as well as a link to a time, trivia game check out the video's writing and project ideas theme around time and time loops. We hope this fun video on how to survive a time loop will help. During these tough times in february, you will see book and movie activity suggestions highlighting these stories, the outsiders, the hate you give and five feet apart.

C

We recommend reading the book watching a movie participating, suggested activities and asking friends to join with you um check weekly, to see what types of fun activity recommendations are on for those book and movie activity suggestions. We also have a black history.

C

Reading challenge on bean stack in february go to beanstalk from libraries, virtual resources and join the black history reading challenge we hope you enjoy exploring the library and virtual library, click on and click on, ask a librarian for any questions, and thank you for your time and we hope you will check out the thousand oaks library soon.

D

Thank you all, commissioner freeman. Will you please introduce item 7b the teen center advisory council item on the agenda.

A

Thank you bye, secretary nash. At this time, I would like to invite ms sarah dav to give.

E

The teen center report.

L

Good evening, I'm sarah dobb teen services director. I am here to tell you how excited we are at the teen center for our winter program. Lineup. We actually for the first time in about eight months, have a list of programs that are actively occurring each week starting last week. Registration is still open and programs can be found at thousand oaksteencenter.com types of programs that we have going on are girls running club on tuesday thursdays.

L

We have um three evening art classes that are occurring inside the building, a mountain biking class that meets at different locations in the community every wednesday, a sand, volleyball skills class on mondays, and we are offering a driver's education class on saturday again, we're so excited to see so many classes going this session, as we continue to make our schedules for the future. If anyone has any ideas of programs that we could offer following the current guidelines, we would love the opportunity to speak with you again thousandoakesteencenter.com for all the latest updates. Thank you.

D

Thank you. Thank you to those representatives who came out to make reports tonight. I would now like to turn the meeting back to cherish washroom.

B

Thank you. As we come to the close of our meeting, I would like to introduce commissioner melton to introduce item 8. Commissioner commons.

E

This is the last portion of our meeting where commissioners can provide any information, comment or announcements which no action by the commission will be taken at this time. Are there any commission or comments jaclyn.

H

Thank you at last night's zoom event, participants learned about the general plan update process and how community feedback, including our input in last year's youth summit, has guided the creation of the three different draft land use alternatives proposed for managing the future of the growth of our city. We need everyone's input to help decide what which land use alternative is recommended to the planning, commission and city council in march and april of 2021, the recorded meeting, presentation and workshop materials are now available for download at.

H

Www.Tookes2045.Org, the city team is encouraging everyone to watch this recorded meeting and to read through the briefing book provided on the project website to help prepare for the community survey. The general plan team will be joining us for our mid-month youth commission meeting on february 17th to walk us through this phase and the details of the briefing book draft maps and to answer our questions prior to taking the survey. I challenge each commissioner to invite one or two people to the february 17th meeting at 5 pm, who may not have been included in this opportunity.

H

This is our goal to actively work on more inclusion at our events. Thank you.

A

E

I just wanted to emphasize um happy national counselors week and we really appreciate our counselors in the community at school and out of school for always being there for us. So thank you and then also february is black history month. So I really encourage everyone, including myself, to go out there and go on instagram or on like different websites, to educate ourselves um on history and to learn more and then also adding on to what jaclyn was saying.

E

I really encourage all of you and like and to get your friends and family members to participate in the general plan and the cl and the climate environmental action plan, because it's so important to get our voices out there, especially youth who will be here um for a long time, even like maybe after college as well. So I highly recommend everyone to participate in that survey and attend those meetings so um feel free to like visit the websites like teox2045.org.

E

If you um have any questions or want to learn more about that.

A

B

I just wanted to remind everyone here and anyone watching to nominate any outstanding youth in the community for the youth recognition awards. It's an amazing event and a great award to receive.

B

Okay, there being no more commissioner comments, I have a few reminders before I adjourn the meeting.

B

If you would like any information about the youth commission or have questions about the agenda items discussed, please call 805-381-7362 or email youth, commission or, like thousand oaks youth commission on facebook, follow us on twitter and instagram there being no further business to come before the commission. The youth commission meeting is adjourned until our next regular meeting.

B