Youth Education And Support Services

Like the students in its outreach program, the nonprofit Taller San Jose is just getting started. The program, which began about two years ago in Santa Ana, is designed to teach job skills to troubled Orange County residents between 18 and 25 years old. This month, Taller won an award from the Washington-based National Community Development Assn. The Audrey Nelson award, named for the organization's first deputy executive secretary, recognizes outstanding uses of federal grants.

Simi Valley political and school officials held a summit meeting Thursday and settled on the same notion that teen-agers here have been complaining about for years--there's not much for them to do. And what is available to teen-agers is often lost on them because of limited cooperation and communication among the organizations that offer activities, counseling and assistance to youths.

Omar Marquez is, oh, three feet tall, four tops, and he is digging in at home plate against an actual New York Yankee. The month is January, which is not exactly spring, but this does not matter one bit to Omar because today happens to be a beautiful day to be playing baseball. And besides, this is his first official at-bat against a pitcher from the major leagues. Omar taps his bat on the plate. You have heard of a belt-high fastball? Omar is a belt-high batter.

In the weeks since the state filed a broad-ranging set of allegations against a pioneering gay youth agency, its leaders have waged a fierce counterattack, portraying the organization as the victim of an anti-gay government witch hunt driven by rumor and falsehood. Supporters of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services Inc.

Growing up on Blythe Street, Gisel Valenzuela often wondered if there was more to life than dropping out of school and watching a steady stream of drug deals and drive-by shootings. Maybe it was fate that intervened the day that the women of the Immaculate Heart Community--a nonprofit group made up of former nuns--rented an apartment house in her neighborhood, considered to be the most neglected in the San Fernando Valley.

Students at three schools are gearing up for an intense educational program aimed at steering them toward careers in medicine--something they may have deemed impossible. The Junior National Health Service Corps and Junior Health Careers Opportunity Program have selected a total of 40 students at Stevenson Junior High, Roosevelt High and Bravo Medical Magnet School to receive after-school tutoring, advice from mentors, special field trips, and a summer academy and work program.

When teen-ager Mayra Rivera is late for school, it's usually because she's had trouble getting her 3-year-old son, Jaketa, dressed, fed and off to day care. Classmates Joanne Kuilan, 18, and Danielle Proctor, 17, understand: They go through the same routine with their 3-year-olds. The three Los Angeles High School seniors are in a class for young mothers and mothers-to-be that offers support so they can finish school.

The gated door of the small, one-family house swings open and two wide-eyed boys stand inquisitively at the entrance. One asks, "Is this the Blazers home?" An employee then ushers them into a converted garage behind the Blazers Safe Haven house, where they join about a dozen other children, some playing basketball, others lying on exercise mats.

To some youth social service agencies, public mural projects are viewed as a constructive outlet for at-risk youths. But members of a residents organization say the money spent on the murals by the Community Redevelopment Agency could be spent in better ways. "Murals done as art are one thing," said Mildred Weller, president of North Hollywood Concerned Citizens. "But murals done as a social exercise . . . is another."

A job training program offered by the Department of Water and Power helps troubled high school students earn salaries and school credit while easing the transition from the classroom to the working world. The Youth Service Academy, sponsored by the city in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District, targets students who are "at risk" of dropping out of school and offers them guidance and a paycheck, said Voviette Morgan, program coordinator.