Filipino Youth to Benefit From Grant to Asian American Recovery Services

PALO ALTO – The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health has awarded $200,000, over two years, to Asian American Recovery Services (AARS), for a program that will foster resiliency in Daly City’s Filipino youth.

The grant is one of 17 awards totaling $2.2 million announced Dec. 18 by Stephen Peeps, foundation president and CEO.

AARS, which was started in 1985 with a mission to reduce substance abuse in the Asian and Pacific Islander communities of the San Francisco Bay Area, will use the funds to develop and implement “Project Lakas,” meaning inherent strength, at three middle schools in Daly City. The program is based on research by the Search Institute that identifies 40 critical factors necessary for young people’s growth and development. The 40-asset model will be modified so that it is culturally and linguistically appropriate for Filipino youth.

In focus groups conducted by AARS earlier this year, Filipino high school students in Daly City acknowledged exposure to drug sales, alcohol, tobacco and drug use, and violence in middle school or earlier. In Daly City, Filipino youth have the second- highest dropout rates.

“We believe very strongly that strength-based, youth development models may work even better after they have been modified to a specific ethnic community’s sensibilities and values,” said David Mineta, program manager at AARS.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health makes grants in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in two areas: protecting children ages 0 to 5 from injury, with an emphasis on preventing child abuse and neglect; and promoting behavioral, mental and emotional health in preteens.

The other San Mateo grantees and their awards are: Bay Area Community Resources, $150,000, over three years, for its New Perspectives Middle School Youth Enrichment and Leadership Program; the Cleo Eulau Center, $100,000, over three years, to evaluate the effectiveness of a program that reaches troubled youth through teachers; the Edgewood Center for Children, $200,000, over two years, to expand its San Mateo Kinship Support Network program for children being raised by grandparents or other relatives; Friends for Youth, $100,000, over two years, for its Mentoring Assistance Program; Pacific Islander Outreach, $100,000 over three years, for its Parenting Program which targets Pacific Islander parents living in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park who are at risk of abusing and neglecting their children; Samaritan House, $102,000, over two years, to support the hiring of a full-time community worker who will focus on outreach to families with children, ages 0 to 5, who are at risk of abuse and neglect; Shelter Network of San Mateo County, a two-year, $100,000 grant to support the “0 – 5 Children’s Program” for homeless children and their families; the Community Learning Center, $100,000, over two years, for an after-school program that takes place at the South San Francisco Public Library; United Cerebral Palsy Association of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, $100,000, over two years, to gather data on the maltreatment of children with disabilities, ages 0 to 5, in San Mateo County.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health makes community grants twice yearly. Funds for the grants program, which began in January 2000, comes from the foundation’s endowment. A partnership grant from the California Endowment helps support the foundation’s efforts in youth development and reducing high-risk behavior in preteens. To date, 60 agencies have received grants totaling $6.9 million from the foundation.

The foundation was established as a public charity in 1996, when the previously independent Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital became part of Stanford University Medical Center. The foundation’s mission is to “promote, protect, and sustain the physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children.” It is wholly independent of the Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

For more information about the foundation’s community grantmaking program, call (650) 736-0676, or visit the Web site, www.lpfch.org.