Public Sector Mobilization
On February 14, 2007 the YCB convened leaders of the Minneapolis
Public Schools- Community Education, Minneapolis Parks and Minneapolis
Libraries to explore needs and begin summer planning together. All
sectors described their needs/gaps and past summer experiences.
Three meetings, one in each Park District, will be convened to plan
for summer. The attendees will include Community Education coordinators,
Beacons coordinators, Library staff and Parks' Youthline staff. The
River district meeting will be in conjunction with the Northside
Youth Development Initiative, facilitated by Hedy Walls and the Minneapolis
Public Schools. All meetings include a city map that details which
public facilities are open for summer. Each meeting's focus will
be a discussion of programming gaps, potential partnerships and collaborations
with one another and community based organizations. The goal is to
create and distribute a common calendar of public programs, ideally
in an electronic format.
While the current meetings are specific to summer programs, the
group has agreed to convene again in August to collaboratively plan
for school year programs and in December to begin summer 2008 planning.
For more information, contact Pam McBride, YCB Project Director for
Youth Development at (612) 673-2708 or Pam.McBride@ci.minneapolis.mn.us .
Minneapolis Youth Congress ( MYC) Begins to Take Shape
After conducting several informational interviews with partner organizations
and young people on forming a Youth Congress, the YCB is on its way
to launching the Minneapolis Youth Congress (MYC). Traci Coward,
an experienced youth staff member at Kwaanza Church, 2 year mapper
and senior in high school, and Pam McBride, YCB Project Director
for Youth Development, co-facilitated a planning team to design the
charter in late March with nine youth from diverse backgrounds.
The first MYC meeting was full of discussion and a variety of opinions.
The
youth proposed the following:
• Youth participants will be between 8 th and 12 th.
grade.
• The full Youth Congress will meet six times a year,
with subcommittee meetings each month.
• Subcommittee focus areas are Transportation, Employment,
Health, Education, Housing and Safety.
• There will be an application process and invitations
to participate will be marketed to the Minneapolis Public Schools,
alternative schools, charter schools, private schools, juvenile justice
system, parks, libraries and faith institutions.
• The theme is: Minneapolis Youth Congress- “No decision
about us, without us”.
• Logo designs will be presented at the next meeting.
Youth agreed that a t-shirt of some “brand” should be worn by the
participants to show their involvement.
• The planning team proposed that the full Youth Congress
would be a 162 member congress, 2 youth from each neighborhood, one
male and one female.
• There was a great deal of discussion about how issues
raised by MYC representatives will be delivered to policy makers.
The next meeting, in late April, will include developing a timeline,
vision, mission, and application process, and reviewing materials
from youth leadership bodies across the country. For more information,
contact Pam McBride, YCB Project Director for Youth Development at
(612) 673-2708 or Pam.McBride@ci.minneapolis.mn.us .
YCB Plans Outreach to Families with Young Children in North
Minneapolis
In December, the YCB received a planning grant from
the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF) to pursue three goals
in a targeted, high need area of Minneapolis:
- Engage parents early and often in their child's school readiness
- Retain and expand high quality early childhood settings
- Stabilize children in high quality early childhood settings
Since that time, the YCB has been working with several others – including
University of Minnesota-CEED, Folwell Center for Urban Initiatives,
Hennepin County's Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement
Department, Minneapolis Public Schools and Way to Grow – to develop
a targeted approach to improving school readiness of north Minneapolis
children. The collaboration, called Five Hundred Under Five ,
is an effort to identify 500 children under age 5 and their families
in two areas (parts of Hawthorne/McKinley and Sumner-Glenwood/Near
North neighborhoods), learn about their lives and then enhance services
and knowledge to help these children enter kindergarten ready to
learn and grow into productive, thriving adults.
The planning effort includes utilizing a Quality Rating System that
will help parents locate quality child care opportunities, transition
funds to help families keep their children in quality child care
settings when their government assistance is no longer available,
outreach to support the growing number of “family, friend and neighbor” caregivers,
and trust-building activities to engage and empower parents around
school readiness issues.
For more information contact Carol Miller at 612.348.8983 or carol.miller@co.hennepin.mn.us or
Barb Nicol at 612.920.2279 or bnpr@isd.net .
Follow up to Ward Conversations: Cross-Sector Planning
The YCB is reconvening public and private youth program providers
in several areas throughout the city to plan for summer youth activities.
These areas were chosen based on stated interest in group planning
and collaboration at the initial Ward meetings. The YCB is convening
groups in Wards Two, Six and Eight and participating in community
meetings on Minneapolis' Northside and with the Longfellow, Nokomis,
and Seward Interagency Group.
Highlights from the planning meetings:
- Ward Six: This meeting focused on summer programming through
collaboration and identifying gaps in programming in their ward. The
group identified programming gaps and discussed ways of filling
the gaps through collaboration. The group also began developing
a common calendar and discussed participation in the development
of a city-wide transportation (circulator) initiative.
- Ward Eight: The key topics of the meeting were summer planning
and usage of public sector facilities, transportation and increasing
community involvement.
- Ward Two: YCB staff will meet with City Council Member Cam Gordon
in April to discuss the needs raised by the community.
- Northside/ Wards Four and Five: YCB will collaborate with the
MPS Schools and the Northside Youth Development Collaborative to
participate and lend support to all youth agencies on the Northside.
- Longfellow/ Nokomis/ Seward Interagency Group: This group, which
includes portions of Wards Two, Nine, and Twelve, has shown an
interest in youth resource mapping. The group developed a plan
with YCB to map the entire area and have applied for grants though
an internal department at the University of Minnesota.
For more information, contact Pam McBride, YCB Project Director
for Youth Development at (612) 673-2708 or Pam.McBride@ci.minneapolis.mn.us .
SAVE THE DATE
May 4, 2007, 10:30 – Noon
YCB is presenting at a
City Council Study Session on
Out of School Time
All are welcome
