A national gang intervention program operating in 14 states is coming to Detroit with the help of a $653,100 grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, reports the Detroit News. The Amer-I-Can Program, founded in 1988 by Football Hall of Fame member Jim Brown, reaches out to at-risk youths, gang members, and prisoners. “You can expect grade point averages to go up, attendance to go up and discipline issues to go down,” Brown said. “These individuals will be better.”
The Amer-I-Can program, a 60-hour course, teaches life management skills in eight areas including attitudes, goal setting and problem solving. A trained facilitator leads the program. Participants who complete the program attend a graduation. The Amer-I-Can facilitators are sometimes former gang members and have criminal backgrounds. However, no one with a criminal sexual background is allowed to work in the schools, said Walter Beach, CEO of Amer-I-Can. Amer-I-Can conducts background checks on potential facilitators and the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department and the Detroit Public Schools verify them before the facilitators are placed in a group. “I would say in seven out of 10 jails we’re in, we have ex-offenders as facilitators,” Beach said. “They go back into jails and they become powerful models to facilitate for other inmates.”