Tacoma News Tribune - December 8th, 1998

His father was murdered when he was just 6 weeks old. His mother died while having an abortion-the fetus would have been the woman's 10th child. His sister died after an angel costume she was wearing caught fire.

These tragedies marked the life of Alice Ray's father, an alcoholic whose disease shaped his children's lives.

Ray, a nationally recognized world leader in health education for youth and families, delved into the topic of youth and family violence Monday at this year's Children & Violence professional summit. She told her own family's stories, driving home the message that everyone's case is different and that there are no easy solutions.

" I was named Alice Ann, after Alcoholics Anonymous," she said.

Ray was among more than 200 professionals from the medical, social services, correctional, and educational fields at the annual conference, which continues today at the Fife Best Western Executive Inn.

The goal of the conference is to pool the professionals' talent in setting a long-term agenda to stop youth violence by and against youth.

" This is not a talking heads conference," said Ari Crowan, executive director of Seattle-based Family Health Institute, which sponsored the event. "We're not here to teach these people something-they're here to teach each other...They're formulating what they think needs to happen to get results."

The results of the conference will be published on the Family Health Institute's Web site (www.familyhealthintstitute.org), and the institute will disseminate the information to stockholders, such as educators, social workers, and corrections officers.

"Our problem is not that we know too little about child violence," Ray said; the problem is getting the information out to people who need it most.
She suggested that experts change their ways by speaking in clearer terms.

"Use plain English, "Ray pleaded, adding that "pompous academic language" is imprecise and the "people who benefit don't have the time, space or energy" to decipher how it applies to them.

A key area of communication, Ray said, involves emerging technologies, such as the internet and multimedia.

Ray is the founder and president of Ripple Effects, a San Francisco -based software company that recently created "Relate," an interactive program for youth that uses sound, pictures, text and video to teach lessons in social consequences.

In a session entitled "Championing Children," a panel of three young women talked about their criminal histories and how they improved their lives.

Rachel Johnson, a 17-year-old who was incarcerated for stabbing a cab driver eight times during a drug-induced blackout, is now a student at Seattle Community college studying photography.

Being in jail, Johnson said, "was real hard. I couldn't face what I had done."
The question everyone wanted answered was: what inspired these young women to turn their lives around?

Johnson said all the mentioning she received while at the Aloha House, a youth group home, help her figure out what direction she wanted her life to go, she said. The teen also became a Christian.

Religious counseling made a difference in the lives of all three panelists, who credited more spirituality as the top reason for changing their ways.

"I see all kinds of people. I knew before," Johnson said. "They see me and think that I'm acing like all (special). They tell me that I did worse crimes than they did.

"But my life has changed," She said, adding that her old friends usually run the other way when she tells them she's found god.

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