Time’s up!

By Diane Villano-Prokop
Times Staff Writer

With the planned opening of a city curfew center a week away, Mayor John Street visited the Frankford Group Ministry last week to emphasize the importance of volunteers who are needed to help run the center.
The city’s newest curfew center will open on Thursday, April 26, at FGM headquarters at 4620 Griscom St. It will serve the 15th Police District as a facility where police can bring youngsters who are picked up for violating the city’s curfew laws.
"If anybody can make a program successful it’s the Frankford Ministry, but if we don’t have volunteers, we don’t have a center," Street said. "There will be a police presence . . . all city services . . . but we really have to have citizen volunteers. It’s really critical to take care of our young people, to give support and incentives to make sure children are properly cared for and supervised."
Curfew centers are now operating in South Philadelphia and Kensington as part of Street’s latest strategy to tackle crime in the city. He thinks the centers can fulfill two goals — getting kids off the streets and out of harm’s way, while also reducing crime — and his hope is to have a dozen of these centers in operation around the city by summer.
"No good thing can happen to a child who is out beyond curfew time. We’ve had young people come (to the centers) who are seven-, eight-, nine- and ten-years-old," Street said.
The program’s structure requires parental involvement.
Rather than pick up a curfew violator on the street and take him home, police will transport the youngster to the curfew center. After intake paperwork is completed, a staff member calls a parent or guardian, who must come to the center to get the child. If that adult cannot be located, the child will be turned over to the care of the city’s Department of Human Services.
Ron George, a DHS project manager who attended last week’s session, explained that the call to the parent also affords social workers an opportunity to find out why the child is out on the street late at night. That also can help determine if there is a need to offer counseling services, after-school programs or assistance with behavioral health and drug/alcohol problems as a means of helping children or their families.
The centers are meant to serve a beneficial existence.
"It’s a beacon of hope for young people, someplace where they can go and get help," Street said.
The curfew centers came to be after the mayor signed Bill 06044 into law, establishing a stricter curfew for children under age 13. They must be off the streets by 9 on weeknights during the school year and by 9:30 on summer weeknights. On weekends, they have to be off the street by 10.
The curfew for older teens remains the same — 10:30 on weeknights and midnight on weekends.
The South Philadelphia curfew center became the first in the city when it opened in July at the Dixon House. It is staffed by professionals and more than 70 volunteers.
The facility scheduled to open next week at the Frankford Group Ministry will operate from 9 at night to 6 in the morning on Thursdays and Sundays, and from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
FGM has 25 volunteers so far and is aggressively looking for more. The public can get more information by calling 215-683-5770.
Street also was joined last week by Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and city Managing Director Pedro Ramos. According to Ramos, the centers are another manifestation of the anti-crime program that the mayor announced 16 months ago, Operation Safer Streets.
"We have data-driven, smarter policing but we needed to connect to other city services . . . particularly city social services," Ramos said. "Curfew centers are a broader effort, a piece that reflects the agenda the mayor laid out for keeping kids out of trouble."
Johnson, meanwhile, thinks the centers will do much to improve neighborhood life — and protect young people.
"It prevents them from being victims. It’s a holistic approach with more than policing. We welcome you as our partner," Johnson told leaders of the Frankford Group Ministry. ••
Reporter Diane Villano-Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dvillano@phillynews.com