February RSJ Spotlight | If You Could Save Just One

Racial & Social Justice Spotlight Series

Each month, our Equity Coordinator, Lara, sits down with an organization or individual in our community to spotlight the work they do to create real and lasting change for a more equitable Spokane.

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^{5 minute read}

content warning: mentions of suicide, molestation

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February Spotlight

If You Could Save Just One

What happens when a kid goes missing?

Natalia Gutierrez found herself asking this exact question after her own son was labeled an at-risk youth and later went missing. Losing her son for six months set off a realization in Natalia. She didn’t know where to go, couldn’t get straight answers. She asked herself more questions.

Where is the follow through?

Where is the support system?

Where are the support groups?

“In my own struggles, I was trying to figure out what would prevent a kid from wanting to get into the wrong crowds or get into shenanigans,” says Natalia.

And that’s how If You Could Save Just One was founded. Natalia started this non-profit in 2018 to provide activities and resources to assist youth and their parents in the Hillyard neighborhood and surrounding Spokane area. In this environment, young folks are encouraged to ‘explore their own path to success.’ Classes on everything from cosmetology to robotics and even a regular study hall are offered. They currently have six tutors available by appointment.

For anyone unfamiliar with the nonprofit world, it may be overwhelming deciding where to start. Natalia started by asking her neighbors. “We walked around the neighborhood and introduced ourselves and asked them what they would think about a nonprofit starting in their community serving at-risk youth,” she explains. “I think that it really helped us, walking throughout this whole neighborhood. I think the biggest help was it built an awareness of a relationship I wanted to build in this community. I think that, hands down, is the foundation for us. It’s cool how (Just One) organically went with the flow and the waves because again, I was just a parent. I had my own kid that was missing and I was navigating a lot of things and somehow, a nonprofit came out of that.” 

What does at-risk even mean?

From The Glossary of Education Reform, “The term at-risk is often used to describe students or groups of students who are considered to have a higher probability of failing academically or dropping out of school. The term may be applied to students who face circumstances that could jeopardize their ability to complete school, such as homelessness, incarceration, teenage pregnancy, serious health issues, domestic violence, transiency (as in the case of migrant-worker families), or other conditions, or it may refer to learning disabilities, low test scores, disciplinary problems, grade retentions, or other learning-related factors that could adversely affect the educational performance and attainment of some students.”

We’ve chosen such a lacking term to describe an entire group of youth that may fall under so many different circumstances. The term itself overgeneralizes and stigmatizes; there’s complexity when providing context to keep the term ‘at-risk’ from becoming meaningless. However, in a technical, academic, or policy context, this term is used in an incredibly precise way. When educational institutions, research studies, and other federal and/or state agencies define at-risk ‘categories’ in order to determine, essentially, who gets funding, those categories encompass a such broad range of specific student characteristics such as:

• Physical and/or learning disabilities
• Prolonged or persistent health issues
• Habitual truancy, incarceration history, or adjudicated delinquency
• Family welfare or marital status
• Parental educational attainment, employment status, or immigration status
• Income levels
• Households in which the primary language spoken is not English

And, these ‘risk factors’ tend to be situational, rather than inherited or pre-disposed in some way. Not that it needs to be said, but a student’s perceived risk status is rarely related to their ability to learn or succeed. Through trauma-informed care, we know that once basic needs are met, a person can focus on their self-esteem and enrichment. 

Natalia continues, “I’ve found a lot of families that felt like they were not at-risk at all, but were on the verge of being evicted or in a domestic violence situation but felt their kids were not at-risk. I think the only way to move that needle to more awareness is by what we did. After some time, the parents open up a little bit more. It takes a lot of courage to ask (for help) when you’re a parent that has a kid that might be struggling with suicide issues or eating disorders or being bullied because of their weight or molestation. Their road is their road and our biggest thing is having youth and families tell their own stories and just help them create it in an organic way.”

“Where the systems fall off on these kids – it’s an eye-opener,” Natalia admits.

Natalia enjoys connecting with families and getting to know them. “It’s nice to have a little hub in the community that they know that this is a place. They might not be too sure what we do here and only know we have free programs. Before you know it, we’re all talking and it’s organic and then they talk about how something might have happened in their childhood and now their kids are doing this same thing. The bottom line for her is having a safe space in the community with good role models around and keeping their programs free.

We talk about the systems families and youth have to navigate and how they are meant to work against marginalized communities. These systems put in place are not meant to help us (Natalia is also a woman of color, a single parent, and has had to hold multiple jobs in the past) and instead create more barriers.

We also talk about the lack of after school programs, resources, and options for kids aged 12 to 18 and lack of all-ages spaces where kids can just be, as well as kids that get suspended from school or end up in juvenile hall.

With her own kid having gone through the system, she felt helpless. “What did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong? I’m beating myself up, right? And now I’m at juvenile hall and I just want help. I need help. I know this kid is going to get incarcerated if he doesn’t get help and he keeps getting community service hours. Of course I don’t want my kid to have to go to juvenile hall or community service. But what I do need him to know is that these little slap on the wrists are not gonna happen when he’s 18. What is being done for the revolving door of juvenile hall? Why do kids fall off between 12 and 18? They’re about to be adults and once they become adults, they’re in the big leagues when it comes to the justice system.” 

In the warmer months, they have a community garden and art classes. During the winter, tutoring is done off-site or at the library as the center gets too cold. But that doesn’t stop them from having a Halloween haunted house, Thanksgiving festivities, and hosting a Christmas donations drive for families. They’ve also gotten creative with movie nights – they kids meet up at Northtown Mall and all go enjoy a movie together. Natalia has also partnered with Project Beauty Share for their teen spa nights, which they plan to start this month.

As for the future, Natalia would like to work more on health relationships, healthy choices curriculum, and how to prevent domestic violence down the line. She would also like to work on creating more leadership roles and empowering passionate parents into stepping into these roles.

“I tell families, ‘I’m right here with you guys.’ I’m learning every single day and I might not be the person that knows but I can find out.”

^{Sources: https://www.edglossary.org/at-risk/}

Infographic sources: The Huffington Post (October 2011), AlterNet.org (March 2012), The Sentencing Project, Education Week (March 2012), U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, The Washington Post (March 2012), Child Trends DataBank.org, San Francisco Chronicle (Sept. 3, 2009), Family Court Review (April 2010), Bureau of Justice Statistics (2003), 2010 U.S. Census.

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YWCA Spokane’s Racial & Social Justice Committee

Our vision is to strive to be a consistently accurate resource for information on racial, ethnic, and cultural awareness to promote diversity, equity, and inclusivity in employment, in business practices, and in the care and services provided throughout the communities we serve.  For 2022, the RSJ Committee is focusing on

• Community Partnerships
  • Enhance outreach efforts to community partners and liaisons to share ideas, support each other with action, and solidify connections. View the list of our RSJ Partners.
• Events
  • Develop and host or co-host events to connect various groups of community members to share and understand each other’s stories. Events include movie nights, Stand Against Racism, equity & growth Challenge, and Transformations Camp for youth.
• Education & Training
  • Provide training to YWCA staff, board of directors, mission partners and the community to allow awareness of subconscious thoughts or attitudes that affect our perceptions about people, the decisions we make, and the impact on our community.

Join the conversation with our Facebook Group and learn more about our RSJ Committee at ywcaspokane.org/racialjustice.

CHECK OUT OUR 2023 RSJ SPOTLIGHTS

• JANUARY | 2023 Washington Legislative Session

Find past RSJ Spotlights here.

If you or someone you know should have their advocacy work highlighted through our RSJ Spotlight series, please email our equity coordinator, larae@ywcaspokane.org.