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Building Capacity, Inspiring Resiliency by Supporting Youth and Families

Richard Ramos
Richard Ramos is founder, President and CEO of Latino Coalition for Community Leadership, a national nonprofit intermediary that funds and builds the capacity of nonprofits serving high-risk Latino youth and families.

He is the author of From The Margins To The Mainstream, a book designed to recruit, inspire and instruct Latino youth leadership for the 21st century. He is also widely recognized as a national leading expert on youth and gang violence.

Richard is the founder and author of Parents on a Mission, a parent leadership curriculum to empower parents as the key to raising happy, healthy children that contribute to safe communities.

In this Q&A, he talks about the crucial work on supporting community empowerment work of grassroots organizations that are committed to providing services and resources for families and youth impacted by the justice system.

What are the primary offerings of the Latino Coalition for Community Leadership?

Our main mission is to find, fund, form, and feature grassroots nonprofit organizations that are serving and meeting the needs of marginalized communities. We are a national intermediary organization. That means that we receive large grants and re-grant the money to nonprofit organizations. Part of our role is to help the federal and state governments engage small grassroots organizations that are effectively meeting the needs of people of color, high-poverty and high-crime areas.

In addition to the funding, we also provide technical assistance and training to build the capacity and sustainability of these groups that we work with.

Currently we are supporting nonprofits in all four regions of Colorado, as well as, nonprofits from the greater Los Angeles area to Orange County and San Diego, California.

What are the key challenges that you are seeking to address through the Coalition?

The federal funds that we have right now come from the Department of Labor. We have a contract with the Department of Corrections in Colorado. On a community level, both of those funds are dedicated to serving the reentry community—incarcerated men and women from the ages of 18 to 24 re-entering their community and reuniting with their families.

On an organizational level, the main thing that we’re trying to address is to build the capacity and sustainability of smaller nonprofit groups that are doing great work, but lack the funding needed to continue to serve more people.

Supporting Denver's Servicios de la Raza, which provides and advocates for culturally responsive health services.

What are the primary offerings of Parents on a Mission?

Parents on a Mission is a parent leadership curriculum that I developed. When I was working with high-risk, at-risk youth, I started doing home visits and realized that many youths are coming from dysfunctional homes. A lot of their parents also needed help. I decided to become a mentor for the parents, and to develop parent mentors.

That’s what Parents on a Mission is about: I train and develop parent mentors in the community who teach my curriculum to their constituency.

In order to help young people – especially poor young people – avoid negative lifestyles, my best answer about how to do that is to strengthen the relationship between parents and their children.

Parents on a Mission is being taught in school districts, nonprofits, and churches throughout Colorado, California, and other cities around the country. We’re working with parents in the community, and parents in prison.

Regarding your project with Limon State Prison in Colorado, what are you looking forward to achieving?

Parents on a Mission has been embraced by the Colorado Department of Corrections, and it’s being taught in every state prison in Colorado. We’ve been having some great results, as the staff have been teaching inmates the curriculum.

As I was visiting different prisons in Colorado I noticed that some of them had inmates who were teaching what is known as “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, a leadership course developed by Stephen R. Covey. I figured if they could teach the “Seven Habits,” why couldn’t they teach Parents on a Mission? I asked the program staff at Limon if they would consider the idea. Eventually the Warden gave his permission and we had our first inmate training in July 2017.

The Colorado Department of Corrections is going through an assessment of effectiveness, and working to reduce the recidivism rates. My hope is that Parents on a Mission will be part of the solution.

My goal for the inmates that I trained at Limon is for them to not only start teaching the curriculum, but to also help identify other inmates who are qualified to also get trained. If we could show success in the next year, then perhaps we could train inmates in all prisons.

The Parents on a Mission curriculum has been adopted by the Colorado Department of Corrections.

In your work with the prison population, what do you find most challenging?

Prison is a very unique society. Knowing the environment that they’re in and helping them balance inspiration and hopeful teachings. It’s very challenging. It’s not easy to put into practice these principles of leadership when you’re dealing in an environment where there is no trust, violence and you have to constantly watch your back.

What aspect of your work gives you the most joy?

Having the opportunity to help a shoestring-budget, grassroots, small organization grow into a sustainable and effective program with a bigger capacity to do more. That brings our staff great joy and a sense of accomplishment. Not to mention all the individuals and families that are reached, helped and healed.

Why did you decide to focus your life’s work on advocating for Latino youth and families?

I am Latino, Mexican. In northeast Los Angeles, where I was raised in a very poor single-mother family, I saw a lot of the awful things that come in an environment of poverty and violence.

Seeing that gave me a heart to want to help. I lost a lot of friends, lost a lot of people I grew up with. I got involved with those things when I was very young. But through my athletic ability, the discipline of my mother and mine, I did not continue down that path.

Unfortunately, a lot of Hispanics are involved on the negative side of society. I don’t like that. It’s not fair. And I’ve been compelled to want do something about it. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of positive results: giving people hope and bringing healing to families. It’s a very rewarding and significant role to have, and I am grateful for the chance to my part to help.

Training community mentors through Parents on a Mission.

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