Newtown’s Helping Hands—

Newtown Youth Services Extends A Challenge To Local Youngsters — Which They Meet

By John Voket

You have heard the phrase so often that it has become a cliché: It takes a village to raise a child. But at Newtown Youth Services (NYS), the concept of caring for the community’s young people goes back to that very fundamental principle. And the agency’s staff members and volunteers expect the youths they serve to go out and take better care of their community in return.

What is most interesting about a interview with NYS Executive Director Tony Tozzi is that he seems to have completely worked any information that may be construed as negative completely out of his realm of agency-speak.

When asked about prevailing social ills like drug and alcohol use, he immediately turns the conversation toward the early empowerment of young people through volunteerism. If you’re wondering what critical set of circumstances typically brings a young person to seek the support of agency professionals, he’ll happily tell you about the hundreds of local middle and high school students that have found themselves through youth council leadership.

Is he avoiding discussing the harsh realities and challenges that temp Newtown’s young people every day? Mr Tozzi insists that a more useful question is what does one embrace, not what does one avoid. Since the beginning of his tenure almost a year ago, Mr Tozzi has simply embraced the mission of an already effective human service agency and is in the process of taking it to a new level of effectiveness.

“This year we have been able to sustain all the programming the agency offered in previous years, plus we’ve extended some services,” he said while sitting in his sparse office at the new NYS headquarters just a few hundred yards from the crossroads in Sandy Hook. “But we’re looking forward to the ’05–’06 period to launch some brand new programming.”

By looking at the range of services already offered through this municipally supported agency, you might wonder where he plans to put all these new programs. Besides the typical boilerplate services like youth and family counseling, case management, and advocacy, the NYS helps sustain no less than 20 regular, recurring programs for children as young as newborns, and for caregivers of young people who are well into their senior years.

The agency also hosted a Day of Caring project through its partnership with United Way; an annual talent show; an Outstanding Youth Awards ceremony; an annual Independent Living Day — where young volunteers go out into the community to help homebound seniors — and on Sunday, September 19, an open house event celebrating its 25-Year Anniversary.

Open House

According to NYS Operations Administrator Anita Arnold, the open house is a way for anyone who has been touched by the agency to come and check out their new digs, while enjoying some refreshments and entertainment from young local musicians.

“Since community service is one of our focal points, we want to appeal to all residents, even those without children, to come out and see what our agency, and more importantly, the young people of Newtown, have to offer,” Ms Arnold said.

The free open house is set from 2 to 5 pm at the NYS offices at 10 Glen Road. Besides agency board members and staff who will be busy serving coffee or flipping burgers, there will be face painting and other activities for young children as well as music from solo performer Erik Bagger, drummer Keller Bowers, and a band called Man Down, featuring Dave Manville, Chris Salvatore, Garret Uhde, and Kevin Herring.

Once all the getting acquainted is complete, and the event is in his rear-view mirror, Mr Tozzi will get back to the business of redirecting some of the NYS focus to new concerns in the community.

“We’ve already completed two out of three staff planning sessions, so we’re well on our way to refocusing our energies to meet the needs of our community as they are today and for the future,” he said. He is accomplishing this semireinvention of the quarter-century-old agency’s landscape by tapping all his board members, volunteers, and staff members for input, and then seeking additional advice from focus groups that include community leaders, parents, educators, and other Newtown residents.

Part of what may make the agency so successful is tapping into the demographic of community youths from day one, literally. Several of the NYS programs provide networking and support for the parents of newborns, toddlers, even twins.

Kathy Jordon, one of the co-founders of the Moms of Multiples program, came to NYS seeking support when she moved to town with her newborn son four years ago. Today, she still subscribes to some of the practices she learned in the NYS groups she attended, and she serves on the Youth Services board.

“When we came here almost five years ago from Brewster, New York, I was very excited to learn about the Youth Services organization,” Ms Jordan said. “We had nothing in Brewster to compare to this.”

She was thrilled to find a group of mothers with children the same age as hers, and when she delivered twins about a year later, she used the network of mothers and NYS volunteers to help start a mothers of twins group that has since expanded to serve any mother handling multiple children.

“It was great to bring the twins out where they had a chance to play and interact with other twins,” Ms Jordan recalled. “And it was so close. The next closest group is in Waterbury, and if you want to go to evening meetings of another local twins support network, you have to find a babysitter or make arrangements, which was hard to do for me because their dad worked most evenings.”

She appreciated the wide variety of advice she received from area professionals who came to address the local group.

“I got a lot of great ideas from the moms who came to the group, but we also had a dentist come out just when I was starting out with the whole dental care routine,” Ms Jordan said. “We also had a financial planner, a pediatrician, even a baby massage specialist — we tried to hit all the bases related to the families in the group.”

Through her participation with other local moms, and her subsequent volunteer service on the board and with the support group, Ms Jordan sees firsthand the challenges local young people are facing. She advises both the parents and their children to begin honing the strengths of their individual family units.

“The family unit is where everything starts,” she said. “But developing a lifelong community commitment is also important. You can’t just sit at home and complain about the young people today, you need to be involved with their teachers, in their schools — you need to be an integral part of their world.”

Youth Advisory Board

Newtown High School senior Lauren Reed is another example of how involvement with NYS at a young age has helped her develop leadership skills and a strong sense of self. She got to know the agency as a sixth grade participant in her middle school’s Youth Advisory Board, and has since gone on to become co-chairman of the high school board along with fellow senior Sarah Hemingway.

“Our Youth Advisory Board has two goals,” said Lauren, “to perform community service activities and to help raise funds for our youth scholarship program.”

Last fall, Lauren and her high school comrades quickly assembled a Halloween fair for younger children. The event featured activities and treats for the youngsters who came out to show off their costumes, while the nominal admission raised several hundred dollars for the scholarship initiative.

Besides the Halloween activity, the group adopted a family and provided a sumptuous Thanksgiving feast, and another family to outfit with holiday toys and gifts from their wish list. The council members also raised funds for leukemia research through a “Coins for the Cure” program, and partnered with students at Hawley School to send more than 30 baby blankets to needy families in Honduras.

Unlike many municipal agencies that typically have little involvement with young people, Lauren finds that NYS enjoys a positive reputation among her peers.

“The feeling among young people here in Newtown is positive,” she said. “If they need someone to listen, they can go there to get help. And if they are looking for a way to help others in the community, it’s the best place to go to learn about service ideas.”

For ninth grader Ashley Bolmer, NYS was a place for her whole family to go when they needed to improve their collective conflict resolution skills, and when she needed someone besides her sisters or her mom to talk with about the many issues she was dealing with at the time. But through her continued involvement with the agency, Ashley is now benefiting from participation in the agency’s partnership with the local 4H program, and attending the regional vocational-agriculture school in Woodbury.

“I’m learning more about animals and gardening,” she related with excitement. “I’ve adopted a lot of abandoned animals, and me and my mom have a garden where we grow tomatoes for sauce.”

She thinks NYS is, “…a wonderful place. They helped me with my issues at home and at school, and they even helped me find jobs through the job bank,” she said.

Through the NYS cornucopia of programs, Ashley learned CPR and first aid, has interacted with and helped residents through service projects at Nunnawauk Meadows Senior Housing, and has volunteered at Ashlar of Newtown, a regional nursing and assisted care facility.

As far as Mr Tozzi is concerned, these two young community leaders are part of the big reason why his agency works to wrap troubled young people and, if necessary, their entire families in positive personal and community reenforcement.

“Let’s face it, there will always be drugs and alcohol, vandalism and violent behavior; we’re never going to live in a perfect society, and there are no new sins,” he said. “But we have to focus on these kids’ needs, and find the way to help each kid define their talents. It’s about being constructive when they are destructive.”

Mr Tozzi believes that when people come to NYS, they will leave striving to be their best, looking for the ways they can positively contribute to their community. As someone who was born and raised in metropolitan Bridgeport, and who has worked in and around inner-city agencies and schools for 23 years, Mr Tozzi knows from experience that even the most insecure or victimized young person can overcome the adversity that has touched his or her life.

“It’s our responsibility as service providers to determine what their needs are,” he said. “But from that moment on it becomes our responsibility to empower these young people and their families to embrace the world they have made, and the gifts they have in themselves.”

For more information about Newtown Youth Services, and to learn about service jobs and volunteer opportunities, come to the agency’s open house Sept. 19 from 2 to 5 pm, or call 270-4335.