THOUSAND OAKS : City to Revise Youth Outreach Program

Determined to keep the popular Youth Outreach Program alive despite deep funding cuts, the Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday agreed to restructure the 15-year-old program to help troubled teen-agers.

To scrimp by on a reduced budget, the program’s two outreach coordinators will have to eliminate their outreach efforts at schools and cut their weekly hours from 40 to 32. They will continue to offer after-school and summer activities, counseling, discussion groups and mentoring.

But losing the “captive audience” of students at school will make the job tougher, said outreach worker Kim Oberg. Instead of holding workshops and counseling sessions at schools, she will be forced to spend more time at youth hangouts--and hoping troubled kids feel comfortable approaching her.

“I just wonder how accepting they’ll be when we cruise up to them at Denny’s, whether they’ll talk to us,” Oberg said. “At-risk youth don’t seem to remember that they can dial a phone to talk to us--we have to pretty much be in their faces on a regular basis, as we were at the schools.”

The Youth Outreach Program lost one-third of its $100,000 annual budget when the Conejo Valley Unified School District dropped funding earlier this year.

“It’s very tragic,” Oberg said. “The adults have the budgets, but the kids have the needs, and the kids are the ones who suffer.”

The City Council and Conejo Recreation and Park District, each of which fund one-third of the outreach program, have not yet drafted budgets for 1993, so the program’s future remains in doubt.

Even though the council approved the restructuring, it cannot guarantee funds until it approves a budget. The park district board will take up the issue at its meeting Thursday night.