GUN Control Has Limitations!

Americans are very concerned about gun violence! Politicians are pushing for more gun control, however, guns are selling off the shelves and 250,000 people have joined the NRA since the tragedy at Sandy Hook. We need to bring Americans together, not divide the country!

As a crime and violence prevention specialist for 35 years, here are my thoughts! What do you think? (It may take a moment for PODCAST to appear.) If you want to help strengthen your community, join our Safe Kids Now Network! We will share with you what to do and how to do it! Contact us at: safeneighborhoods@gmail.com

BEYOND GUN CONTROL

Today in USA: 300,000,000 guns in circulation! 

Americans are divided over GUNS! Will more gun laws protect our children?
Let's broaden the discussion, bring people together and work for community change!

      IT IS UP TO ALL OF US TO PROTECT CHILDREN!

"Beyond GUN Control" Tell us what you think! This is your country!

 
Comment from Ed Delph in Arizona "It is getting pretty tough out there. The more DC legislates the worse it will get. To try and have a behavior change without a family values change will never work. It is amazing how they want to go after the gun rather than the values. People have always had lots of guns in this country. What has changed is humanism has changed the values...from constructive to destructive...." Ed

Contact us or for more information...www.safekidsnow.com

Spiritual Crisis- Self Aware Kids - Part 7

PARENTS can teach children how to become self aware! We become good or bad role models...depending on how we interact with our whole family at home. Children learn by watching their parent's behavior!

Ideas to strengthen families so children make good decisions for themselves. For more information: www.safekidsnow.com

Spiritual Crisis - National Tragedy - Part 5

Wake up call for community ACTION!  May these beautiful children and adults rest in peace! 

WE CAN DO BETTER AMERICA!  How sad!  Another national crisis as we lay to rest 20 children and 6 adults in Newtown, Conn.  We must move beyond politicians and gun control to stop violent behavior in our cities and now...a small community.  I invite you will add your ideas and comments!

For the series, "Spiritual Crisis in America" podcasts: Click Here

Stopping Child Abuse!

Do you know the signs of child abuse?   Children need ALL OF US to speak up to help make families stronger and more resilient!  We can stop child abuse.

Street Safe Kids: 10 step guide



For more information about our podcasts - CLICK HERE

Are you raising a Bully, "Pin Cushion" Child or a Centered child?

            Bully behavior starts at an early age!

1 in 3 children are victims of bullies!  Teach children how to speak up with self-confidence or they can become victims.   

Bullies must modify their behavior. Victims must develop self-confidence.  Listen to the "Safe Kids" series on Bullies, Parenting, Pin Cushion Kids.

Next week, "Why TEENS become self-destructive!"

We invite you to add your comments! Join us on Facebook

Podcasts available - CLICK HERE

2012: How Safe is Your Community?

Did you know... the safest families live in neighborhoods where people know each other, communicate and build trust relationships with families and children. Family and neighborhood support keep your child safe from bullies, drugs, gangs and violence. People who know each other care and will help protect your child.

Check out these questions and rate your family involvement...

1. Do you know all your neighbors? (10 families around you)
2. Do you know and talk to the youth in your neighborhood?
3. When you see youngsters misbehaving, do you speak up, and correct them and/or notify their parents?
4. Do you accept complaints about your children?
5. Do you watch your neighbors’ home when they are away?
6. Do your neighbors watch your home when you are away?
7. If you hear or see something suspicious, do you contact neighbors or call the police?
8. Do you and your neighbors work together to solve neighborhood issues? (bullies, vandals, lighting, traffic, noise, etc)
9. Do you have a designated neighborhood leader?
10. Do you belong to a neighborhood group or association?
10. Do you have your neighbor's contact information (phone, email).
11. Is your family actively involved in your community? (civic, youth, charity, religious groups)? (Social isolation can escalate violent behavior.)
12. Do you know your elected officials and local police?
13. Do you know what to do in an emergency?
14. Do you know as much about your neighborhood as national issues? You have the power to change your neighborhood!

Rate yourself:
Are you part of the problem? Your neighborhood needs you and your ideas. Get involved!
Set a goal for 2012 to work with neighbors to keep families and children safe.

For more information on what you can do. Check out:
www.safekidsnow.com or contact us at: safeneighborhoods@gmail.com
Tell us what you are doing to help your community on www.facebook.com/stephanie.mann

14 WAYS TO AVOID VIOLENCE!

DISCUSS WITH CHILDREN...

1. Keep your hands to yourself. Settle disagreements with words, not fists or weapons. (Parents…model non-violent behavior at home.)

2. If a bully provokes you, stay strong. Remember: If you react, he is in control. If you stay cool and calm, you are in control. Walk away!

3. If disputes escalate, seek help! Don’t form an audience. Encourage others to stop tolerating bad behavior.

4. Be alert! Find safe routes for walking to and from school, avoid hot spots (bully or drug house, group hang outs).

5. Know all your neighbors. (Parents: Ask trusted neighbors to be a safe house, if you are away and your child needs help.)

6. Trust your instincts! If they feel threatened or sense danger, get away fast. Run to a group of people, a lighted area or in a store for help.

7. Report any threats, destruction of property or suspicious activities to an adult, police officer or a school authority.

8. NEVER go with someone you don’t know and trust, even if he/she sounds like a nice person. If forced, fight back and run.

9. Don’t use alcohol or drugs. They reduce your self-awareness and make you an easy target for sexual assault and abuse.

10. If someone tries to be mean to you speak up with confidence and walk away. Report if the bad behavior persists. (Parent: Role-play with children what you want them to do.)

11. Hang out with friends who show support for each other. Avoid “friends” who bully, criticize, use put downs and make you feel bad.

12. Get involved in school and community activities (yearbook, chorus, plays, arts, church) to strengthen your network of supportive friend. (Parents: Children need a variety of friends to see and evaluate healthy relationships.)

13. Be a role model for others to follow. Volunteer at school or in the community. Learn to be a leader and encourage friends to join you.

14. Create a network of positive friends, family, neighbors and a religious family to help strengthen your character and ability to get along. A strong conscience (self-awareness) will keep you safe from harm.

For more information and resources: www.safekidsnow.com

Keep Your Child Safe!

PARENTS: Discuss with children how to stay safe. Let children know they can tell you anything and you will listen.

1. Dial 911 in an emergency only. (Show and tell)
2. Never give your name or address to someone you don't know.
3. Never open the door to anyone you do not know.
4. Never tell callers you are home alone.
5. Never cross the street without looking both ways. (Stay in crosswalk)
6. Never accept a ride from someone you don't know.
7. Never play with matches.
8. Never walk alone, always use the buddy system.
9. If you feel scared by someone you don't know, run away and yell for help.
10. Get permission before you ride in a car with anyone.
11. Play in your backyard or near adults.
12. Create a family password in case a stranger needs to pick up your child.
13. If you are lost, look for a police officer, woman with children or a store clerk for help.
14. If someone asks you for help (directions, find a pet), run away and tell a trusted adult.
15. If someone tries to bully you, speak up and tell a trusted adult.
16. If someone tries to grab you, fight back, kick and scream for help.
17. If anything upsets you, tell me immediately and we will work it out together.

PARENTS: For extra protection...create a network of support around children and know all your neighbors!

For more information go to: www.safekidsnow.com

Guns are not the issue!

We can’t stop violence, if we continue to assume guns are the problem. Columnist Tammerlin Drummond’s article, “Abundance of guns is root issue” (Contra Costa Times, 12-26-10), does NOT address the root cause for violent behavior.

Many adults feel threatened and buy guns for family and home protection. Disconnected angry teens buy guns to feel powerful. The proliferation of guns is a symptom of bigger issues.

Root causes for destructive behavior.
1. Spiritual ignorance – Many children are growing up with mental, physical or sexual abuse at home (1 in 4 women in abusive relationships). Children learn the biggest bully wins! Without any spiritual understanding of self and lacking self-confidence, teens can be sucked into gangs for a sense of belonging and support.

2. Social isolation fuels violence – When young people lack a network of support from family, neighbors or a religious family, children do not learn self-discipline or how to handle their anger. When responsible adults create a network of support around children, families will welcome guidance and correction from friends, teachers and neighbors. As neighbors connect with each other, they build trust, stop tolerating bad behavior and often become mentors for children on the block. Children need a sense of community to develop respect for others and their property. Caring neighbors and community support teaches children how to become contributing members of the community.

A goal for the future… There are 463 churches in Oakland CA. (4th most dangerous city in US) If churches would adopted just one block and help neighbors connect with each other, city life would gradually become healthy, happy places for children to grow strong and resilient. Neighbors would not feel the need to buy guns for protection.

Stephanie L. Mann, Crime and Violence Prevention Consultant
Safe Kids Now!

YOU Make a Difference: Positive or Negative?

Frequently we hear,” if I had power, position or money, I’d make a difference.” We placate ourselves with desires that seem to be out of reach. We imagine we are powerless to affect noteworthy change because the desires we feel would empower us, have not been met. We forget cause and effect is a law of physics, not a law of size and it is constant on every level, all the time, everywhere, with or without our desires being met.

We react or don’t react to circumstances. Our reactions or lack of them set into motion other reactions. Sometimes we fail to realize that what we do or don’t do makes a difference. We affect the lives of others even when we don’t realize it. Consider your smile or lack of it, your understanding or lack of it, befriending someone who needs you or turning away. Everything has an effect. Few of us analyze the effects we cause. Determining their positive or negative value and to whom, isn’t always considered.

Are we strengthening the self confidence of the people in our everyday lives, or are we weakening it? Are we building honesty and dependability in those who learn from us or are we undermining it? Are we helping others find their purpose and seek their dreams or are we siphoning off their energy to strengthen our own desires?

Each situation finds us either adding or subtracting quality in the immediate intellectual, emotional or physical environment. Emotional climate can be joyfully spontaneous and loving or rigidly fearful from the dominance of a hot or cold war whose brewing storm overtakes everything in its path.

Acceptance is respect. Acceptance can die a slow death from the continual bullets of criticize, or passive aggressive confusion.

Making a difference doesn’t start with power, position and money. It starts within you. It starts with desire to make life better, which is done through positive daily human contacts with family, friends, coworkers, and community. It is the people that make up the nation.

If you want to make a difference, be the difference you want to make. You have an effect as you walk through this life. Consciously or unconsciously, you leave your footprint. You can make life better by the path you chose or you can make it worse, but your being here leaves it’s mark. Your personal quality or lack of it will be reflected in the lives you have touched and you do touch them each and every day, with or without power, position and money.

Wittingly or unwittingly, you are making a difference. The question is, is the difference you are making the difference you really wanted to make?

Rebecca Kimbel DTM, MsCD and CEO

DTM: Distingished Toastmaster
MsCD: Dr. of Metaphisical Science, the great religions and philosophies of the world.
CEO, Corporate Executive Officer, Tio Inc.

Sowing and Growing A Personal Garden

Sowing and Growing Personal Garden's of Pea's, Squash, Lettuce, Turnip's and Thyme

Life is like a garden that we can plant at any time of the year or in any circumstance. The Bible says in Isaiah 58:11. "The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will become like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Now, put on your overall's and get into your gardener mentality.

Remember, our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become. There is no key to happiness. The door is always open.

After the pea's comes squash…squash gossip, squash indifference, squash grumbling and squash selfishness. Concerning gossip, remember that silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted. Indifference is checking out. Passion is checking in. Don't let indifference squash your passion. Grumbling is verbal leaking to the outside things that are on our inside. Grumbling creates a verbal pollution bigger than that spewing well of the coast of Louisiana. Squash it, put a cap on it, and it stops polluting. Finally, squash selfishness. Maturity is discovering that the world doesn't revolve around us.

Next are four rows of lettuce…let us be faithful, let us be kind, let us be patient, and let us really love one another. Making commitments generates hope but keeping commitments generates trust. Trust is like a rope that connects one person to another. Then let us plant kindness. Baz Luhrman says: "Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours." Patience is an incredible thing to plant. When we get tangled up in our problems, be still. God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.

Don't forget to plant love right where you live with your neighbors, friends, family, and community. Those in need…need a friend in deed. American politician Andrew Holmes said: "There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up." Thomas Dreier said, "You cannot add to the peace and good will of the world if you fail to create an atmosphere of harmony and love right where you live and work."

Now, let's plant three rows of turnips. Turn up for church meetings, turn up for service, and turn up to help one another. Someone wrote a story called, My Drug Problem. "I had a drug problem when I was young. I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions no matter the weather. I was drug to the bus stop to go to school every weekday. I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults and teachers. Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say and think. These drugs are stronger than cocaine, crack or heroin and if today's children had this kind of drug problem the world would be a better place." Sometimes you have to turn up whether you feel like it or not.

Finally, let's plant four rows of thyme: time for each other, time for family, time for neighbors and friends and time for prayer. Don't let bad experiences stop you from planting time. No matter how good a friend is, they are going to hurt us every once and a while and we must forgive them for that for both our sake and theirs. A grudge is a heavy thing to carry. The most important things in your house are the people. Don't forget prayer. As a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling home every day.

Now, that's what I call a garden. Don't just go for it, sow for it, but we may have to grow for it.

Ed Delph

NATIONStrategy
www.NATIONStrategy.com
"People Who Empower People To Transform Communities'

NEWS RELEASE

Adopt-A-Block Guidebook Offers Simple
Plan for Building a Great Neighborhood

Everyone wants to live in a great neighborhood and a new book shows anyone how to create one. The Adopt-A-Block Guidebook: 10 Steps to a Safe and Healthy Neighborhood offers a simple plan for making any community a better place to live.

In ten, easy-to-follow steps, the guidebook explains how a group of neighbors, members of a civic, service or religious organization, or local governments can “adopt” a one-block area and create safety zones throughout the community.

In this guidebook, readers will learn:
-how to “break the ice” to bring neighbors together
-the best projects for building bonds
-how connected neighbors help protect children – and improve property values
-limitations of governments – and costs of policing

“This guidebook helps neighbors connect with one another so they can break through the fear and isolation that fuels crime, drugs and other problems,” says Stephanie Mann, author of the guidebook and a pioneer in the Neighborhood Watch movement who helped her own community cuts its crime rate by 48% – without a police department. “By taking the action steps outlined in the Adopt-A-Block plan, neighbors become empowered and learn that they don’t have to tolerate destructive behavior.”

Already, the City of Richmond, California, which has been plagued with street violence, has purchased and distributed dozens of copies of the guidebook to local leaders and members of the faith-based community. Marilyn Langlois, Community Advocate in the Office of the Mayor in Richmond, has this to say about it: “The Adopt-A-Block Guidebook reminds us how important it is to build on the caring aspect of human nature in order to create supportive communities in which all can thrive,”

For more information: www.safekidsnow.com

Question from Meg...Condo owner

Hello. My condiminium complex has had numerous break-ins (especially in vehicles) lately and a few weeks ago someone tried to break into my house through a window. We do have an alarm system and so that helps but I'm really worried about being safe when I'm by myself just walking down the street or in any situation. Any advice?

(Question originally posted and answered on www.allexperts.com)

Hi Meg,
Unfortunately, this is a common concern but you can create a safe place to live. Here are some ideas for you.
- Don't leave anything of value in your car. However, if you must, lock in trunk...out of sight.
- At night, if you are close to your car, keep your car keys near by. If someone tries to come in a window, press the alarm on your car to scare the intruder away. If you are not close to your car, know all your neighbors so you can call someone. Get their agreement to make noise and bang on your door. (911 takes time to respond. The neighbors next door can help immediately.)
- Keep apartment locked. Most burglars enter through unlocked windows or doors.
- Burglars don't like noise or light. Consider getting a whistle, a barking dog, leaving a radio on during the day or installing a motion sensor light.
- Criminals are a small group and they are primarily young and local. Your best protection are your neighbors. Get to know and trust them. Join or start a condo safety group. As a group, you have the power to educate and get residents involved so they can help each other stay safe. When young people learn your complex is not an easy target, they will stop coming into your area. Alert, informed neighbors will not tolerate crime. Help your neighbors take charge of their safety!

Your police departments may have crime prevention information. Your group can invite an officer to speak, if the police have the resources.

You can find my book, "Safe Homes, Safe Neighborhoods: Stopping Crime Where You Live" online or at your local library. Also, I will be putting more information on my website as I have a new book coming out. Stay Safe! Stephanie

Myth or Truth? Domestic violence increases on Super Bowl Sunday?

The answer according to Parade Magazine (2-7-10), sadly yes. However, it is not just Super Bowl Sunday but attacks increase on most holidays.

Haiti in crisis! Whose next?

Port-au-Prince has been devastated by a 7.1 earthquake. California is "on the clock" for a BIG one. Does your community offer emergency training? What are you doing to prepare for a neighborhood emergency?

New Crime Prevention Guidebook

"Adopt-A-Block..for safe, healthy neighborhoods" will be available within two weeks. Subscribe at website for more information.