For Our Future / Para Nuestro Futuro campaign: Community Alliance for Safety and Peace (CASP)

Bob Brunson: How to raise kids who won't join gangs

From the Salinas Californian (and see the video interview on YouTube): What leads to success in life? One of the most important factors — even more so than intelligence — is emotional health.

It’s lack of emotional health that leads some kids to join gangs. It’s why many use drugs or become pregnant too young. So says Bob Brunson, a licensed marriage and family therapist who manages the Monterey County Behavioral Health Services Department.

In the following interview, Brunson explains the critical importance of raising emotionally healthy children.

Jose Arreola: Build community safety through action

Salinas and CASP Community Safety Manager Jose Arreola “I want our community members to understand that they are the most important actors in making positive change,” says Jose Arreola, the recently appointed Community Safety Manager for CASP and the City of Salinas.

Jose was interviewed by CASP member Stacy Hughes for the Californian's Saturday edition.

A Parental Guide to How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children

From emotionallyhealthychildren.org: Dr. Gerald Newark's book, How to Raise Emotional Healthy Children, is proclaimed to "[enable] parents to recognize and satisfy the critical emotional needs that all children have: to feel respected, to feel important, to feel accepted, to feel included, and to feel secure and, in the process, parents will have their own needs satisfied too."

Greene: Advocates Speak Up for Children

“Violence is a learned behavior,” says Siobhan Greene, the Exeucitve Director of Voices For Children - CASA. “So are kindness, respect and empathy.”

In the latest of the Californian's continuing series of stories on CASP and its members, Siobhan explains the critical difference made by Court Appointed Special Advocates, volunteers who stand by -- and speak up for -- children in the foster care system.

Speller: The power of caring adults to change the lives of youth

"In the U.S., nearly half of all young people between 10 and 18 years live in situations that put them at risk of not living up to their potential because they don’t have enough positive adult involvement."