By Kiara Doyal, The Seattle Medium
Once a troubled youth herself, A’Prais-jah Gee, a community safety ambassador at Community Passageways (CP), says that they are seeing an increase in young females in need of help. Working with girls aged 12 to 30, Gee explained that every case is unique and requires different types of support. One recent case involved a single mother who was dealing with the loss of her dad, and a lot of loved ones in her life, which was causing her to be all over the place feeling overwhelmed. Through her role with Community Passageways, Gee was able to step in and help guide the young lady through some of her challenges and bring some clarity to her life.
“I referred her in because she has a kid and she’s kind of going down the wrong path. I’m trying to bring her back to something positive,” said Gee. “I’ve been on her every day about certain things, and she texted me yesterday saying she knocked out everything I asked her to do. That made me feel good because she had been procrastinating, feeling overwhelmed, and trying to do everything at once,” says Gee. “But it made me feel good to know that me being on her and getting her to just take the steps was successful.”
Mental health is a critical issue across all ages and genders, and assisting young women in the community can be challenging, especially for Gee, who is 25 and still learning herself. Despite this, she remains dedicated to helping these girls navigate their struggles on a daily basis.
“I recently added a young girl to my caseload who is dealing with mental health issues,” said Gee. “She told me she didn’t want to talk to a therapist and preferred to talk to me. Which is not a bad thing, but I let her know that I don’t have the same credentials as a therapist, but I listen and give her advice and get her the mental health support that she needs [from a licensed therapist].”
The challenges young girls face can differ from those of boys. Alexjandra Roche, lead safety ambassador at CP, believes young girls need more support as they tend to experience more drama-related situations, which can make their cases more complex and difficult to navigate.
“Youth females are not easy at all,” says Roche. “They are a little bit angrier and have a bit more drama compared to the young boys we serve. They are not needier at all, they do just have more needs that need to be met, trauma, and insecurities as well.”
Tasha Jones, a safety specialist at CP, had a life-altering experience after being personally impacted by gun violence. She realized she could either contribute to the community’s issues or be part of the solution. This mindset motivated her to join Community Passageways and help change the mentality and trajectory of troubled youth in our community, especially young girls.
“I will say that the mindset is the same between troubled young boys and girls, as well as similar thought processes,” says Jones. “These girls sometimes go a little extra harder because they feel they have to prove themselves to others just because they are girls.”
With youth gun violence being a prominent issue in our community, more often than not, community members tend to think that young boys are the only one involved in gun violence, but community passageways staff say that young girls are involved in gun violence as well, but it just not as visible to the general public.
“Times have changed,” said Roche. “These days the females are shooting too. But men tend to fight more than females. I haven’t seen many females pull out a gun or shoot somebody, but it does happen. The boys are just expressing it more.”
“Gun violence just isn’t talked about as much with girls, and I’m not sure why,” says Jones. “You know what they say—girls are smarter than boys—so maybe they’re hiding it a little better. We don’t hear about young girls as much in the media, but the girls are just as equipped and ready as the boys are.”
Though many might assume CP’s efforts primarily focus on helping young men, Ericka McCraney, a resource navigator at CP, believes that’s not entirely true. She pointed out that she works with many young women in her caseloads.
“Dom [Dominique Davis, CEO and founder of CP] and others may not deal with females as much, but we have a lot of females involved in our recovery programs,” McCraney explained. “Each member of our staff deals with different parts of the organization.”
McCraney noted that many of her female participants are more goal-oriented and frequently update her on their progress. She recalled helping one young woman secure housing, educational support, and other vital resources.
“She had texted me with updates on all the things she had done since we had last spoken. Told me the exact date when she was moving into transitional housing, finished a youth program with Goodwill, got accepted into the nursing program at her school, and told me every detail about when and where her orientations were,” says McCraney. “Those updates were all resources that I sent her, and she did the work after that. I did have to push her to get on top of it, but she did it and it was a great feeling.”
“I say all that to say that some of those same resources I would send to my male participants, but I don’t get updates like that from them,” she added. “Even though I get a lot of good results with my male participants, some female participants are more goal-oriented and ready to tackle their goals. For the boys, it might take a little bit longer for them, but they do still reach their goals as well.”
Dominique Davis, the CEO and founder of Community Passageways, acknowledged that while they aren’t actively seeking out young women, many come to them through relationships with young men or through relationships at school. He believes women have the power to change the dynamics in their communities but often struggle with recognizing their worth, because women, especially Black women, have been so demeaned over the years by the culture of our community.
“In their minds, they fall for these young men out here gang banging. They want the guy who has the most bodies, who’s shooting the most people because that’s the ‘hot guy,’” said Davis. “But these girls have power, but they don’t understand that if they stop messing with those guys and stop letting that behavior be glorified, that these guys will do whatever these women say to be with them.”
“And, if these girls decide they want to be with the guy who got his degree and is making money, and not messing with the guy in trouble, they could have full control over these young men,” he added.
Looking to change the narrative that the males of our community only need help, Davis says that Community Passageways has groups and programs that allow them to constantly engage with troubled girls and women.
“We had a very strong young ladies’ program last summer with about 15 to 20 girls. It was our first time doing this, but it was a powerful program, teaching them various skills—even how to change a tire on their own,” said Davis. “We’ve always tried to maintain a strong connection to the young ladies in our community, and we’re working on building that back up after COVID set us back.”
Describing her role as more than a 9-to-5 job, McCraney says that she and her colleagues are available to their participants 24/7, often stepping in during moments of crisis.
“We all have phones, and all of our participants have our numbers, so we are available all the time at different hours of the day outside of the normal hours of work,” says McCraney. “While I was on medical leave, I had a participant text me at 730 one night asking me to pick her up. Initially, I was going to let her know I was on medical leave, but I told myself no let me Facetime her to see what is going on. She immediately started crying and showed me wounds on her hands. So, that shows that it is important to always be available on our phones and ready to assist in any way that we can.”
Beyond their direct work with participants, Davis and the team at CP collaborate with other organizations. McCraney shared that Davis made her a board member of the MLK Gandhi Initiative, a STEM program designed to bridge the gap between Black and Brown individuals in the tech industry.
“Our numbers are so low in the tech industry, so building this program will help bridge that gap. We have been able to get some of our participants involved in programs where they can go to school for free, learn tech skills, and just change their lives,” says McCraney. “And it’s not necessarily for our participants, but it could be their parents, it could be their aunt uncle, whoever may be in the house or around to just fill that gap.”
McCraney believes this effort is key to lifting entire families to a higher level of success.
“It comes back to what Community Passageways is all about—getting our families to different levels.”
Roche and Jones are optimistic about the future of Community Passageways and believe the organization is making a lasting difference.
“I can’t wait to see his [Davis] vision in the next couple of years for his community center that he is expecting to put together to be able to house youth at the younger ages of 12 to 17,” says Roche.
Jones echoed her excitement and emphasized the importance of hearing directly from the youth CP serves.
“If our community were to hear from the troubled youth themselves, they would get a better idea of exactly what we do for them, and how we serve the community because nobody can tell that story better than them. Our team is small but powerful,” Jones concluded.