McFadden, 35, is the weed and seed coordinator with the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative. His work to prevent youth violence is funded by the Department of Justice.
What drew you to youth violence work?
I grew up in a very impoverished community, Kenilworth in Northeast D.C. Grew up on welfare, spent time in foster homes. I had a neighborhood individual, who used to be the community drug dealer, he for some reason found a liking in me, and for some reason wanted more for me than I wanted for myself. He got me to look at some different things, into reading books and wanting to get out of that environment more and more.
What work do you do?
It’s basically to connect nonprofit organizations, government agencies and the community in a holistic approach to curtail crime in the police service areas I work in. It’s working with the families at so many different levels. Connecting them with employment, case management.
No yardwork?
Depending on the situation, it could be.
How did you start?
I started at the [collaborative] around 3 1/2 years ago as the family preservation specialist, like a professional social worker in a sense. From there I was promoted twice, to youth violence coordinator. We already had a Latino youth violence piece in place. I wanted to do the same work with African-Americans.
What needs to be done?
My true belief is that if you take the approach of only doing mediation, you’ll be doing that forever. You have so many different elements to these conflicts, unless you deal with the core issues, you’ll continue to run from neighborhood to neighborhood. We’re connecting youth with education and employment opportunities, life-changing opportunities.
What can society do?
We have to be more consistent, not neglect the youth on so many different levels. I don’t think a lot of people are listening to the great needs these kids have.
– Michael Neibauer
