Chicago Youth Programs provides food, healthcare, opportunities for generations of kids
CHICAGO (CBS) – A Chicago doctor is working with children affected by gun violence through a program that's already proven to be life-changing.
Dr. Karen Sheehan has worked to address the direct and indirect impacts of gun violence on Chicago's youth for more than 30 years.
For some, it's made all the difference.
At Chicago Youth Programs, they live and breathe the words seen above their front door, "We grow opportunity," which has been happening for every kid that walks in.
Stephany Price was one of those kids 28 years ago.
"As a child, I didn't understand that I was poor because everyone around me was poor," she said.
At Chicago Youth Programs, Price received free food, and that's why she signed up.
"My mom worked two jobs, so she wasn't at home a lot during mealtimes when I came home from school, so finding a place like that was very important," Price said.
But Chicago Youth Programs did much more than feed her. She said she was "introduced to a different world," starting at age 14, the same year she lost her best friend to gun violence. Price said the program completely changed the trajectory of her life.
"It helped me a lot and it's still helping me to this day," she said.
And for her, becoming a mentor herself was a full-circle moment.
"Everybody here is like a family," said Markita Williams, whose been involved with the program since she was 3 years old.
Williams said it had a big impact on her.
Enter Dr. Karen Sheehan, a Lurie Children's Emergency Medicine doctor who co-founded the program in 1984 as a first-year medical student.
"We recognized that health is more than health care," Sheehan said.
The program's approach is different. It provides access to health care and year-round activities, meals, transportation, and more at no cost to the families. For children from preschool age to high school, the program is funded entirely by donations and grants.
"From our research, we've shown that having a long-term relationship with young people is so impactful," Sheehan said.
On average, a child spends 10 years involved with the program. Many of the kids who participate in the program now have family members who've graduated in the past. Formal studies of the wraparound, long-term method show their approach is working. Alumni graduate from college at twice the rate of their peers.
Sheehan said it's a model that could be replicated across the country.
"What the youth program does is prevent violence before it occurs. It's not enough to tell a kid don't be violent. You have to give them opportunity," she said, and added, "It's about providing access and opportunity and an introduction to jobs they might not have known through their neighborhood."
"We have a kid going to Harvard," Price said. "We have a kid at Syracuse. We have a kid that just graduated from the University of Michigan."
For Sheehan, it's amazing to see the impact on thousands of kids, sometimes entire families, since they started.
"It's really a privilege," she said.
And for Price, the participant-turned-mentor, who grew up in Woodlawn, about five to six blocks from the University of Chicago, that gap closed in a way she said she never imagined through opportunities created due to the program. She's now passed it down to her daughter, who now attends the University of Chicago and studies molecular engineering.
"The reason why I'm back and I stay here is because there's a lot of kids that need to know you don't have to be what's in the community," Price said. "You can be the best you. You don't have to conform."
To learn more about the program, visit ChicagoYouthProgram.org.