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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

Welcome, everyone.

We kick off the program with our good friend Ameer Washington, the Chief Executive Officer of the Boys and Girls Club of Newark.

Ameer, good to see you, as always.

- Likewise, Steve.

Good to see you.

- Let's talk about, I know it sounds like this, you know, what does youth mental health mean?

Youth mental health is a massive issue.

How bad is it with the young people you're dealing with?

A and B, talk about what the Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark are doing to help those young people.

- Absolutely.

I think it's really bad.

I think social media, I think the lack of direct interaction with people oftentimes is difficult.

There's a life that people lead on social media that looks better than it quite often is and kids get bullied a lot online and what we've tried to do is address the value of social media, where you can use it as a tool for business, as a way to show the great things you're doing, but to also recognize that there are people there, predators, other kids who want to do things to hurt you and use your words against you, so we have a mental health clinic here, along with a mental health center, that support kids' behavioral health, how they perceive the world and put them in front of people who can help them work through some of their challenges.

- Let's talk about specifically what the Boys and Girls Clubs are doing.

Meaning, I know you have licensed social workers there, but how many and I don't wanna get too deep into the weeds, but how could you ever have enough to deal with the young people who are facing serious mental health challenges?

- That's the challenge is having enough.

You know, we have four.

We're fortunate and that means that we could have folks here at our main clubhouse and also deploy them to the five schools that we serve within New Jersey, and so with that one-on-one direct engagement, you know, inside of a space where kids are comfortable, they feel comfortable with the team member, they're willing to share their truths that are happening in their lives, the difficulties.

I mean, I talked about this one young lady.

Her name's Aaliyah and she came up in foster care.

You know, she was torn away from her family and she had a rough time in those experiences.

She didn't feel loved.

She didn't feel wanted.

She didn't feel important and through engagement in our teen center, but also that one-on-one support with a mental health professional has allowed her to come out of her shell.

She was a runner-up for our Youth of the Year program this year.

She's worked in Dunkin' Donuts.

She's getting ready to get certified as a lifeguard for Shallow Water Garden, so, I mean, just in the last two years, a complete turnaround.

- Ameer, you and I have known each other a while and we talk about the connection that, for me, and I've said this many times with you in forums and public forums on the air and off that for me, the Boys Club on Broadway, and I mentioned this, we were in Camden for a public forum on nonprofit leadership with you and a whole range of other, not-for-profit leaders and I said it was the Boys Club.

Before it was the Boys and Girls Club of Newark and it was the Broadway branch, which doesn't even exist anymore, that taught me to swim.

That taught me to be with other kids, you know, from all over the neighborhood that we lived in in Newark and here's the thing I'm curious about.

The Boys and Girls Clubs, it's not just in Newark, but across the country, to what degree do you think people, and I've seen Denzel Washington talk about his experience up in Yonkers, you know, to what degree are there enough Boys and Girls Clubs across this country, particularly in urban areas, to help the young people that need help.

A and B, talk about the money part of it 'cause it's not cheap.

- Sure, yeah.

There's 5,000, over 5,000 clubs now.

- 5,000 across the country?

- That's right.

Across the country, on military bases, in Japan and Europe, so the Boys and Girls Club, you know, in a lot of ways is a global organization looking to serve children.

There're never enough services, but there are over 5,000 clubs, right, and they range from sizes that serve 25 kids in a small room to large expansive clubs that are, you know, a hundred thousand square feet.

They're needed because a lot of times the first thing that goes in schools and other places are the community centers, the after school programs, the extracurriculars get cut out to save, but there's no amount of money that's enough to make sure that our kids have everything they need to be successful and whatever endeavors they're gonna pursue to make sure that 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now they can take care of our country, take care of their families and their communities and so we need more.

I think there's a mission in our organization to continue to build as many clubs to serve every underserved or unserved youth.

- You know, Ameer, one of the things about the Boys and Girls Clubs that it's been described as a safe place and it is.

Talk about the fear and concern of violence in urban communities like Newark and its connection to mental health challenges, anxiety, et cetera.

Talk about the correlation, violence and fear and anxiety.

- Absolutely.

I think part of that is drugs, gang violence.

I think the engagement of youth with individuals who are not positive, who are not their family members and the things that they see that traumatize them that are outside of their home, but also inside and so if you look at a young person who's coming up and their parent's involved in drugs, whether it be use or selling, the things that are gonna happen that that kids are gonna experience is just gonna be traumatizing to the point where they may be fearful of expressing themselves fully, of knowing where to go and get help and so the mental health of youths is critical because by the time a kid's 14, about 50% of them have a mental health challenge and so if we don't need address those concerns as early as possible, then we know how that exacerbates over time.

Incarceration, right?

Underemployment, unemployment and that has a direct effect on the quality of our societies and why communities like Newark have struggled for so long to have the challenges addressed appropriately where there isn't crime, where there isn't a concern of walking down this particular street or through this neighborhood because we've cleaned up the real, deep, systematic issues that really exacerbate what happens here on the ground that make (indistinct).

- Talk about parents, the role of parents in all this and how the fact that so many of the young people you deal with, I mean, listen, every family has challenges, but there are unique challenges or challenges that are exacerbated in urban communities where there are social determinants of health, where there's more violence, where there's more crime and the family structure matters more than ever.

Talk about how you engage parents.

- We engage parents right at the beginning and so when we enroll, we do that by appointment and we sit with parents face-to-face or over the phone to talk to 'em about exactly what it is we do, what the experience is gonna be day-to-day and how we're gonna do our best to serve and help your child.

The parent is so important and you need that engagement.

You need the buy-in.

You need them to understand what you're trying to accomplish because how they raise their children may not be the way Boys and Girls Club is gonna approach things and that's okay.

We don't tell parents how to raise their children.

We tell parents, "Here are some of the things you can do better to help your child where they are at a developmental curve", but what I stress the most is how can we effectively engage parents, bring them into the clubhouse, bring them into programming, bring them into events and see what's happening with their kids so that they engage because when parents are involved in their kids' lives, they do so much better.

In a two-parent household, the statistics show it's even better, so if there's a mom and a dad or a grandmom and a granddad, whatever it is, aunt, uncle, helping that young person and we always say that (indistinct), it takes a village.

I know now, being a parent, I can't do it all alone, but I gotta be there.

I gotta show up.

- You know, it's interesting and we're taping this right after Father's Day late in June and so belated Happy Father's Day to you and to all the dads out there, but also, Ameer, as we wrap up this segment, there are parents who are dealing with mental health issues as well and so if you're watching right now and you or someone close to you is dealing with a mental health issue, a challenge, it's easy for me to say this, but you gotta try to reach out.

No, there are not enough professionals out there in the field, but do everything you can to get as much help as you can get as early as possible.

To Ameer Washington and all of his colleagues at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark and the Boys and Girls Clubs throughout the state and the nation doing important work, thank you, my friend.

All the best, Ameer.

- Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To see more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Dr. Matthew Bandelt, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at NJIT.

NJIT is one of our higher ed partners.

Good to see you, professor.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- Listen, I wanna make sense of this for our audience.

We're doing this several months after the horrific events, the tragic events in Maryland, with the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing for obvious reasons, maybe it's not so obvious.

But closer to home, let's talk about New Jersey.

There are 6,800 bridges in the state.

According to the Department of Transportation, 2,541 of those bridges need repair.

What is the difference between needing repair, structurally deficient, and really dangerous, about to potentially collapse?

Please, professor.

- Sure, so a structurally deficient bridge, basically what happens is, is every two years our bridges get inspected.

And a structurally deficient bridge.

- By whom?

Who inspects them?

- By licensed engineers that are sort of hired by the local authority.

It could be the state of New Jersey or a local municipality.

But those engineers do an assessment of the bridge, and if a portion of the bridge that contributes to its main structure, so, for example, the superstructure or substructure is rated as poor, it can move into one of these categories called structurally deficient.

- Okay, was there anything about the bridge, the Francis Scott Key Bridge...

Explain to folks.

What was it that ran into the bridge that caused it to collapse?

- We had a very large vessel that hit that bridge.

About 40 years ago or so, there was a tragic collapse of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in the state of Florida.

And that set off a series of changes to codes that has sort of emanated into new construction techniques that better protect bridge piers so that these sorts of things can be abated.

- Is that what were called dolphins and fenders?

- Yeah, so there's different types of systems called fenders, there's dolphins, you can create an artificial island around a bridge pier.

And basically what the changes in the code have sort of done is, you have to design either for an impact system or design the bridge pier to be able to withstand these types of forces.

- So when the situation happens, again, the tragic events happen in Maryland, what happens across the country?

What happens in states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, states that we're seeing and other states?

Do they redouble their efforts to ensure that the bridges are solidified, stabilized so that they can withstand such impact?

Or could anything have stopped that bridge from collapsing given what hit it and how heavy it was?

- Yeah, so, you know, engineers can always design for something, you know, to be withstood.

The issue is what's economically feasible and, you know, what sort of makes sense.

In the state of New Jersey and, you know, the New York area, what we would sort of wanna do is look at where are the regions where we have large vessel containers moving through.

The main port that we have is the port of Newark, and in that area is the Bayonne Bridge, which actually recently went through some rehabilitation back in 2014.

You know, they raised that bridge, and there was a number of structural enhancements that went along with that as well.

- You know, it's interesting.

The 1991 code, there was a code that, what, in New Jersey upgraded and and raised the standards of what bridges needed to have in place, correct?

- Yeah, so that Sunshine Skyway Bridge in 1980, when that bridge collapse happened, about a decade later, there were changes to the AASHTO Bridge Specification.

AASHTO stands for the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.

And that group sets, together, the bridge code that makes its way into each individual state.

- Yeah, but professor, what about the bridges that were built before 1991, before those code upgrades?

- Yeah, so states like New Jersey and owners of bridges, what they do is they go through and they look at, you know, they do sort of a threat assessment and look through and make upgrades as appropriate.

So, for example, when there was that major upgrade that I mentioned before to the Bayonne Bridge, there was also upgrades that were made to the bridge piers too in that area.

- So help folks understand beyond the, again, this is your professional life, you try to understand these issues from an engineering point of view, and it's your profession.

But for the average person, you know, people are asking, "How safe are the bridges?"

And I know it's bridge by bridge, but how can anyone know and be confident about how safe a bridge they're driving over really is?

Where do they get the information?

- So you can go right onto the Federal Highway Administration's website and look up.

- That's the Federal Highway Administration's website.

What does that tell you?

- Yeah, so you can go and look at the bridge condition of any bridge that you want.

So you can type in, you know, the latitude and longitude or look it up state by state or municipality by municipality and see how your bridge is rated and what the conditions are.

But, you know, any bridge that is deemed unsafe, that bridge is closed.

So even though a structure, you know, we might say is in good condition or fair or poor, that means that we need to do some maintenance of preservation.

But if it's unsafe, engineers would close a bridge for sure.

- Just tell us this, do you believe that that website, if people go onto it, as it's up right now, is it in everyday English or is it in government speak?

- It's really pretty easy to look at.

I mean, there's green, yellow, and red for your bridge, and you can look at it year by year.

- Professor, thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you very much, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To see more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Lisa Lazarus, who's CEO of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, otherwise known as HISA.

Lisa, good to see you.

- Good to see you, too.

- Talk about HISA and why it's more important now than ever.

Was established how many years ago?

- It was established actually at the end of 2020, signed into law, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, but the organization itself didn't come to fruition until early 2022.

- So important because?

- It's important because for decades, horseracing has been regulated on a state by state basis.

So the rules for horseracing in New York and New Jersey were different than Kentucky and different than California.

There were a number of horse welfare issues.

There were some horse fatalities, and Congress realized they really needed to step in and make sure that there would be a national governing body with uniform rules to make sure that horseracing was as safe as it possibly could be.

And also you could trust the product, that it had integrity.

- So as, as for those of us who are interested in horseracing, mostly because we're interested in betting, I include myself, so we're getting ready for the Triple Crown.

- Yeah.

- And there are these fatalities with horses leading up to very high profile races.

To what degree, Lisa, does that help you?

It's horrible that these horses died, it's tragic, but to what degree does that help you and your colleagues do the work you're doing?

Because it makes it clear that there's a serious problem.

- So, you know, as you mentioned last year, there were a number of horse fatalities, particularly during leading up to the Kentucky Derby, and even on the undercard at the Derby.

That was really like an existential moment for the industry because, you know, racing's highest profile moment of the year is the Kentucky Derby.

And we had a lot of public eyes on us and we, you know, we went through a difficult time as an industry.

And so yes, you're right.

That sort of made it clear and shined a spotlight on HISA that we really had to step in and do our work.

And I'm pleased to say that after like a lot of really hard work and new programs and new rules, we went, we had an entirely safe Triple Crown this past year.

So, you know, you had the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont all without any equine fatalities.

And we just released some new metrics a couple weeks ago showing that fatalities have declined substantially.

- So along those lines, there are some very high profile trainers who've won some big races, who have been fined, who've been suspended.

To what degree, Lisa, are most trainers receptive, responsive, and doing the right thing as it relates to what you and your colleagues are attempting to do to make it safer in the horseracing industry for the horses?

- So I would say that really the vast, vast majority of trainers, first of all, love their horses, live for their horses.

Often say they treat their horses better than they treat their children, which in many cases is true.

They've dedicated their lives, you know, essentially to taking care of horses, et cetera.

I think before HISA was in place, there were a number of states that really weren't doing a good job regulating the sport.

And so, there was almost potentially a pressure on some trainers to feel like they had to do something to get an edge or to stay relevant, to be competitive.

And I think one of the things that HISA does is really creates an even playing field because we have a very rigorous, you know, anti-doping program, for example.

We have no tolerance for using any kind of horse that shouldn't be there.

And you know, our trainers and our horsemen are aware of that and they follow the rules for the most part.

And I think that's one of the reasons why racing has become increasingly safer.

- Talk about the anti-doping part of this, because, you know, there are other professional sports that have anti-doping programs and athletes and those involved with those athletes have been pretty good in certain cases, we wanna believe isolated, but who the heck really knows, in getting around those safeguards.

What specifically does the anti-doping program of HISA say, A and B, is it difficult to get around those rules, those policies?

- Yeah, I really believe it is.

And they're actually more rigorous than the human anti-doping program.

So what's really interesting about the equine or the horse anti-doping program is you have sort of two categories of substances.

You have the things that are banned in humans, like, you know, growth hormone, anabolic steroids, any sort of bronchodilator, things that we all kind of know should never be in an athlete and they're universally banned.

But in horseracing, you also have a whole other area called controlled medications, which are more things like Advil and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories that actually humans can use without any limitation.

But we regulate in horses because horses can't make free choice.

And we also need to be able to see if a horse has an injury, we don't want it masked by an ibuprofen or an anti-inflammatory.

So, those substances they can use outside of race day, but not within 48 hours of a race.

And so, we test for both categories.

The sanctions for the medications are a lot more lenient because those are really negligence violations than they are for the banned stuff.

But we do regulate that, which is quite different from humans.

- How, by way of background, you're a lawyer by training?

- I am, yeah.

- You were and are a lawyer by training.

Did a very important work, legal work in the NFL, correct?

- Yes, I did, yeah, 10 years.

- How did they find you at HISA?

So, the law gets created in December, 2020.

- Correct.

- And you're where in the equation, how do they get you?

- So, when I left the NFL, I actually went, I was living in Switzerland at the time, and I went to work for the International Equestrian Federation, which is all of the Olympic sports, and it's essentially the governing body internationally for all of the countries.

And so show jumping, dressage, eventing.

And so, I did that for about six years.

And then after that I was actually in private practice, so attending athletes in different kinds of disputes, many of which were sort of anti-doping related.

And so I had the, a lot of relevant technical expertise around equine anti-doping programs and horse welfare issues.

And I also had a sports regulatory background.

That's how they found me.

- So Lisa, you mentioned the international background.

- Yeah.

- How does the United States and the way we're currently regulating the horseracing industry and protecting horses compare to most other countries that are actively engaged in horseracing?

- So that's like a phenomenal question, and it's a really relevant question.

I would say up until the last couple of years, we were really behind our international peers in terms of horse welfare.

You know, in horseracing you tend to measure fatalities by thousand starts.

A start is every time a horse enters the starting gate.

So you tend to measure it by starts.

And we were, you know, the international world is for the most part, Japan, Hong Kong, UK, Ireland, France, they're around one or under one for a thousand starts.

We were more like around one and a half, but we just released, as I said, some really good numbers that have us at 0.8.

So we're finally kind of getting in line with our international peers when it comes to equine fatalities.

And also, when it comes to anti-doping, because the industry had been so fragmented before on this state by state basis, we didn't have uniform rules.

So, it's really difficult to regulate an industry in a serious way if you don't have consistency across borders, because trainers run their horses in different states.

They don't stay in one state anymore.

- Got a little bit less than a minute left.

For those of us who enjoy horseracing, for those who say, "Listen, I can't believe what they're doing to the horses."

Give us, give people a sense as to why it makes sense and it's okay if you wanna watch or engage or bet on horseracing that it's safe, much safer for the horses than ever before.

I'm not gonna do an advertisement for horseracing, but you know this in a way that nobody else does.

- No, it genuinely is.

And there are an incredible number of people that work for me and work for similar organizations that are on the front lines, that are there for the horse and to protect the horse.

And the industry has really come together around this.

And we do it in three ways.

One is we make sure that every horse from a veterinary standpoint and medical standpoint doesn't get to the starting gate unless they pass a number of different fitness tests, wellness checks, et cetera.

We also make sure there's nothing in a horse that shouldn't be in its system, which is our anti-doping program.

And the third thing is we regulate the surfaces that they run on.

You know, it's really important that they have a good, consistent surface, and that's another component of keeping them safe.

So, we are really working very hard to do that.

I think we're succeeding and because of that then we can all enjoy the sport.

- Lisa Lazarus, who's the Chief Executive Officer of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, otherwise known as HISA.

Lisa, thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato.

We thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

The Fidelco Group.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Wells Fargo.

PSE&G, Newark Board of Education.

PSEG Foundation.

And by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

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