Syracuse, N.Y. -- Potentially violent young men in the city will soon be offered child care so they can attend therapy appointments.
That's just one of the changes to a $1 million pilot program aimed at keeping the city's 55 potentially most violent young men from picking up a gun.
After a struggling start, Syracuse Safer Streets has switched the organization providing therapy for the would-be shooters, and it has added more services in an attempt to get the young men to take part.
On Point for College is taking over the therapy portion of the program. Yolanda Seegars will be directing the work. She already runs Project Rise, an On Point program for young men with a history of violence.
Seegars said some of the men said they couldn't go to therapy because they needed child care and transportation. Now, both services will be available if the men need it, she said.
The program, which relies on credible messengers to connect with would-be shooters and help them find a better path, has struggled to get participants.
Late last year, fewer than 20 men were signed up. Of those, only nine were enrolled in therapy.
Therapy had been billed as an integral part of the effort, but it had proved to be the most difficult to implement. Project HEAL, the organization that had the contract to provide therapy, left the program and the city awarded the contract to OnPoint.
That group had spent $106,000 of the $323,000 contract for therapy.
Seegars said the contract amount will stay the same. She said that she's also changing the type of therapy that will be provided, offering group therapy instead of individual therapy.
With these changes, she thinks more men will participate. But even with the added benefits, it's difficult to get young Black men to take part in therapy.
Seegars said she expects between 10 to 15 of the 55 men to participate in therapy.